What is the Future of Facebook Advertising in 2018 and Beyond: 21 FB messenger ad examples and Conversational Marketing Case Studies

In 2018 the average cost per click of Facebook advertising is $1.72.  Just a year ago it was 0.97 cents.

My first thought: What the hell is that doing to my CAC from Facebook?

If those numbers worry you too, wait it’s about to get worse.  But, there is a window of opportunity with Messenger Ads.

First I’ll tell you what you need to know about important trends with Facebook and Instagram ads. Give you the low down on Chatbot ads and why conversational ads are the future of Facebook advertising.

We’ll take a look at 21 examples of click-to-Messenger ads (mini case studies) with results.

And finally, there’s an exciting story that brewing between WhatsApp and Facebook that will create more opportunities for conversational advertising.

Facebook ads costs will accelerate over the next couple years.

On July 25, 2017 Facebook announced for the first time that it was approaching peak ad load.

By conservative estimates average Facebook CPC should be up to $2.06 in the next two years.

The limited inventory problem exacerbated by a recent change to FB’s feed is bad news for advertisers.

Mark Zuckerberg announced that in early 2018 Facebook began prioritizing content from friends over content from brands.

Doesn’t sound too bad right?

Here’s the hidden gotcha- that change resulted in users spending measurably less time on site.

From the horse’s mouth, we know that the Ad density in the news feed is almost capped and saturated. Time spent on site is down as well.

Facebook either needs to grow its user base or increase prices to make more money.

Here’s the bad news:
According to an in-depth analysis of the Facebook ad platform, ad prices could rise 79% over the course of 2018.

It seems like you’re left with only a couple options unless the variables change.

1. Continue advertising with FB and accept the lower return on ad spend (ROAS)
2. Find other more profitable ways to advertise

Speaking of other ways to advertise…

What you need to know about Instagram ad costs

Instagram? Well, it was acquired by Facebook, so we’d guess IG would be subject to some of the same pressures.   And, turns out that ad costs are up 84 cents from just over a year ago.

This trend makes sense. With the co-mingling of Instagram ads on the Facebook ads buying platform, the inventory is treated as part of Facebook’s.

Before you start telling your team to jump ship on FB, there’s one more variable that we didn’t explore.

Facebook is now creating more ad space, which lowers ad density.

How?

Messaging apps.

Messenger has opened up new ad inventory.  You can send sponsored messages directly to a user’s inbox, bypassing the Facebook newsfeed entirely.

It doesn’t look like this new placement has slowed the overall rise ad costs.

At first blush, it seems like a TON of new ad inventory has opened up.  It hasn’t.
To be able to send a message directly to a user, they must have previously interacted with you on Messenger.

Instead, the prevalent and type is a click-to-Messenger ad that appears in the Facebook news feed.  Yet, the average CPC for click-to-Messenger is by far lower than traditional ad types.

There may yet be a saving grace; we think ads are coming to WhatsApp soon.  A lot of conversational advertising inventory will open up once that happens. More on this in a bit.

Now- let’s take a quick look at some ad costs.  Explore why the CPC is lower for Messenger ads. Then we’ll talk about why WhatsApp might be valuable for your team to consider.

What to expect for Facebook Messenger CPCs

In Q3 of 2017, the average CPC over 150 million Messenger ad impressions was $1.27.

This number is skewed. (image from https://blog.adstage.io/2017/11/14/Facebook-Messenger-ads-cost/)

Most marketers achieve CPCs under a dollar, with quite a few under $0.29 cents.

It’s not surprising that some marketers are screwing it up.  These ads and even the medium is new, and there is a learning curve.

Why Messenger ads will be critical in future marketing

For the first time, mobile shopping either equaled or surpassed (depending on your source) orders made from a desktop computer.

An amazing mobile shopping experience is a requirement.  Bots were made with mobile in mind.
I think and you’ll agree Messenger looks better and is easier to use on mobile than on any other device. It does work on desktop.  But, it’s MOBILE FIRST BABY!

I’ve heard some marketing execs say:
“My customers aren’t on Messenger”

Hmm… If you’re running Facebook ads, that premise is downright wrong.

Even if your customers don’t have Messenger installed on their phones, which is progressively less and less likely, they are on Facebook.

“I don’t want to waste my ad spend if they don’t have Messenger installed”

Facebook only serves Messenger ads to users who have the Messenger app installed.

Let’s say you’re right… Your current clients aren’t on Facebook chat.
Upcoming generations, your future clients are on Messenger.

73% of 18-29 year olds are on Messenger.

Kids are growing up with chat apps.

Though it has been a bit controversial, Messenger Kids is currently ranked #17 on the App store for social media apps.  Ahead of Kik, Viber, and even Zoosk and Match.com (dating app).  Kids like to chat more than we like to date. Shrug.

The obvious pushback against the Kids app is that they have no business on Facebook. And that FB is just trying to hook ‘em early, taking a page right out of the Camel cigarette playbook.

Here’s the thing… Camel advertising did work.
According to a study, Camel became “…the choice of one-quarter to one-third of smokers under the age of 18. Before the campaign began, they said, less than 1 percent of those under 18 smoked Camels”

Even scarier, “6-year-old children were as familiar with Old Joe Camel as they were with the Mickey Mouse logo for the Disney Channel.”

Offensive?  Yes.

Did it work?  Yes.

Regardless of how we feel about the Kids Messenger app, all signs point to these kids converting to the adult product when the time comes.

Btw – I don’t happen to think it’s the devil that some would have you believe.

That’s a discussion for another time.

Personalization isn’t weird inside Messenger.  It’s expected and customers like it.

75% of consumers prefer brands to personalize messaging, offers and experiences.

Brands are realizing the benefits.

According to a Segment Study,  personalization:

Based on these numbers you’d think that every big brand is doing personalized marketing.

They’re not. Almost half of big brand name companies say that legacy tech is the major barrier to implementing personalized marketing.

This alone can make a case for having a Facebook Bot developed and hooked up to a Messenger ad.  The tech is there.  You just need an bot agency (not so humble brag) that knows how to implement it.

Things can get weird with very personalized offers.

Though 75% of people who said, “Yes, please personalize my offers,” 75% of consumers also said that they found personalization to be a bit creepy.

This creep factor gave rise to the debate about how far is too far?

The experts disagree

Seth Fendley, ClearPivot:

“Personalization is only creepy if you make it creepy. Only use personalization in areas where people expect it (after opting in, in emails, etc.).”

However, Shanelle Mullin ( Previously content and growth @ Conversionxl) disagrees.
She posits that personalization should be used subtly throughout the user experience, based on your audience’s tolerance for it.

With Messenger, it would be weird NOT to be very personalized.

How strange would it be if you and I were chatting on FB and I didn’t respond based on the details of our conversation?

In some context like on a website, that might be uncomfortably personalized. Not so in Messenger.

Messenger ads can leverage the power of personalization getting you better results without ever being creepy.

Innovative Facebook Messenger ads use cases

Here’s the first thing that your team should think when considering chat as a destination:

Does it make the experience better or is there a reason to chat?

Because your #1 goal is to spark the conversation.

This or that Messenger ad: Ebay

(img source: https://www.dropbox.com/s/onh3sp1u26fbgo7/Chatvertising%20with%20Chatfuel.pdf?dl=0)

Keys: Pick polarizing items or topics

The psychology here is fascinating.  Humans can’t help needing to belong.  From time immemorial our survival instincts drove us to be part of a tribe.  To contribute, take and connect with a group of like-minded people.  Seth Godin argues that you only need two things to have a tribe :

1. A shared interest
2. A way to communicate

The closer knit and evangelical the tribe, the more likely they’ll express their opinion.

Ask a Sox fan how they feel about the Yankees, a far left leaning democrat about Trump, or even Krispy Kreme vs Dunkin’ Donuts.

Do it right, and you’ll have created a powerful mechanism for each tribe to communicate.  Eh, who are we kidding… they’re just going to debate and argue.  But, it’s in good fun.

Plus, all of this interaction is happening on your ad.

Another bonus?
These people will message you their opinion and become subscribers.  Not only does this spark a conversation between you and the individual but it also gives you a key insight into their preferences.

Book an Appointment Messenger ad: Sephora, Kia America

“Chat to book a makeover” five words that led to an 11% higher booking rate through the Sephora Facebook bot versus any other booking channel during the holiday season. The average in-store spend from these clients was over $50.

Why did this work so well?

Using FB chat Sephora cut down the number of steps required to book an appointment from over 8 or more on other channels to just 3.

Make it easier = Get more bookings. Simple online to offline e-comm math.

Kia combined several strategies to get people into Messenger.  One was a super bowl ad.

However, a big part of the sustained effort was Messenger ads. Kia partnered with famous people like Lebron James & Melissa McCarthy. Getting them to appear in the Facebook Ads and sharing “message us” CTAs with their audience on Facebook.

Kia’s campaign resulted in:

Why did this work so well?
In an interview with  A List Daily, Kimberly Gardiner ( Director of communications @ Kia) and Nathalie Choy (Senior web marketing manager @ Kia) had this to say…

In Choy’s view, “It’s basically one-to-one marketing at scale.”  Each customer got “personal” attention.  Gardiner explained that the bot helped fill gaps in the customer journey.  Once someone was interested in the brand, taking the next steps to learn more was easy and intuitive.  For Gardiner, the bot helped sum up Kia’s approach to tech, “We want to be helpful… We want to be in technology not for the sake of it, but for it to help you.”

Augmented reality ads:

Sephora: Try it on Messenger ad

Ad click to Messenger where a customer can virtually try on any one of 5 lipstick styles.

We don’t have any stats for this ad.  Still, you’ll get why AR ads have a significant upside for brands and consumers, as soon as you try the experience.

By the numbers, 62% of consumers choose to shop in-store vs. online.
Why? The main reason cited was to “ See, touch and feel products before buying.” What they’re really saying is: I want to make sure THIS is the product that’s right for me.

If your target market is women, the try-it-out factor is why 66% of female shoppers go in-store.

AR decreases uncertainty.  It’s the best we can do right now to bridge the gap between in-store and online shopping.

Once someone clicks on the Sephora ad, he or she can:

If you can’t tell, we’re on the AR bandwagon; you should be too.

Boosting app installs with Ad combinations (Messenger Home Screen Ads): N3TWORK

If you don’t have an app, you might be thinking what the hell does boosting app installs have to do with my goals?

A lot, actually.  We’ll get to the broader takeaway in just a minute.

N3twork already had an ad that was performing well. But, could it be doing better?

Their marketing team realized that slight variations on the creative or even variations on audience would only produce incrementally better results for an already winning ad.  So they turned to the new kid on the block, Messenger Ads.

N3twork tested 7 different ad placement combinations.  The winning combo compared to the others achieved:

The one that worked best was :
Facebook Mobile News Feed And Messenger Home Screen Ads.

Nebojsa Radovic, the Director of Performance Marketing credited Messenger ads with driving killer results. From her perspective,  “Messenger ads provided us with a great opportunity to better engage with our target audience of high lifetime value users…we’ve been able to innovate on existing user acquisition efforts and drive excellent results”

Video Comment to Messenger: Beauty Player

Beauty Player is a Taiwanese cosmetic startup.  With so many cosmetic companies in the marketplace standing out and getting users to learn more about the brand is damn near impossible. You have to run ads.  But at $8.30 CPC Beauty player wasn’t getting the returns they wanted.

The solution: Comment to Messenger Ads.

Beauty Player created an engaging video to get people on Facebook to comment on the ad.  The at the time of this writing had 9.9k comments!  A crap load of positive reactions and almost 1000 shares.

Each one of the almost ten thousand people who commented was sent to the Beauty Player Messenger bot.

The results?

Beauty player then smartly matched bot users to website purchases and used this segment to more tightly target their Facebook advertising.

Local Sales with Messenger ads

How do you get rid of unsold, aging inventory?  You invite people to make you an offer.

Schweiter’s Chevrolet,located in the town of Cold Spring Minnesota, population 4,108.

The team had a problem.  They had too many 2017 Silverados that were sitting on the lot and not enough interested leads to get rid of them before the 2018 models were due to arrive.

Schweiter’s created two types of Facebook ads with very similar creative.  One was a lead ad, the other a click-to-Messenger Ad.

The car dealership targeted the local area, people within 30 miles, who were in the market to purchase a truck and who had not bought within the last 2 years.

We recreated this exact targeting as closely as we could.  The potential reach was only 36,000 people.

Despite its relatively small reach, the dealership was able to sell a lot of trucks.

Results:

Product finder to Messenger ad: American Eagle Outfitters, LEGO

Holiday sales can make or break a retailer’s year.   The strategy we’re about to present can be used any time.  But, American Eagle (Aerie) ran its campaign from November 2016–June 2017, with an emphasis on the holiday season.

Aerie implemented something we at MindHeros like to call a product finder quiz.  The goal is to guide the customer to a single product or small set of products.  Normally, we ask anywhere from 5-7 questions and magically without having to treasure hunt on a website the customer gets to the perfect product for them.

American Eagle ran a click-to-Messenger ad designed to engage and help holiday shoppers find the perfect gift via a product finder quiz in Messenger.

Results:

Lego ran a similar campaign:

The smart marketers over there paired a free shipping offer with a product finder quiz.

We won’t get into the details here because we talked about it above. Check it out when you can because bot experience they created is damn good.

Results:

Lessons?

The more fun, light and easy the product finder experience, the better your ROAS will be.

Re-Engagement ads on Messenger: Love Your Melon, HiSmile

E-commerce platforms and other shopping carts are now starting to send customers receipts by Messenger.

Love Your Melon is hosted on Shopify, an e-commerce platform that has a native connection to Messenger in order to send receipts, shipping updates and a couple other transactional messages.

The brand donates 50% of profit (pretty awesome of them) to charity. LYM decided to reach out to previous customers who had just gotten transactional messages through FB chat.

LYM sent a sponsored message.

The result from a 3 day campaign:

Why did this work so well?

LYM targeted previous customers who’d likely be interested in similar products. The ad was friendly and just gave the option to buy.  Plus with sponsored messages FB only charges for messages that are opened, leading to a lower CPC.

Plus, cute girls in cute socially conscious hats – who could say no?

Along the same lines, HiSmile re-engaged existing customers in a new way.  The company sent a short, punchy sponsored messages directly in chat.

The campaign lasted about two months and the brand sent several messages. First customers received a special limited time offer code. Then the company reminded customers that hadn’t purchased toward the end of the sale.

Results:

From geo-targeted trial to sales Messenger ad: Absolute

Say the words “This round’s on me” or “Free drink” and you’re not going to have a problem with your offer. Except if the bar is far away.

For specific products and stores, reaching the right audience near the point of purchase is critical.

Absolute partnered with select bars to deliver a geo-targeted offer to customers within the area using click-to-Messenger ads.  A customer connects to Messenger from the ad and chooses a local bar where an in-Messenger coupon can be redeemed.

Of course, Absolute didn’t have to do this all in Messenger, but it streamlined the process and let the brand reach and continue to advertise to their targeted Millennial prospects.

Down to the brass tacks. Giving away free product is great but, what are the business results:

Hiring via Messenger ads: Zennya

Not a natural fit right? Getting people to apply for a job via Messenger.

Zennya’s success would have you rethink that premise.  For this example, I’ll give you the stats up front because they surprised me and I think they’ll surprise you too.

Results:

Zennya used a more traditional carousel ad.  The innovation was taking the application through Messenger. The interaction with the bot after the ad click was basic yet effective.

Messenger is really good at collecting data.  Compared to forms companies have 4x(ed) conversion rates and have seen better completion rates.

We’ve got to take into account that this isn’t a salaried position and frankly, in this case, it isn’t highly skilled labor.

Still, it wouldn’t be surprising to see increased leads and responses for knowledge workers.  We don’t have that data yet but imagine if it worked.  The average cost per hire for companies is $4,129.  Could Messenger cut that in half?

Let us know if you want to be a pioneer.

Comment for exclusive content via a promoted post: Completlyketo

How do you do you get fans to convert to inexpensive Messenger subscribers?
You ask them to comment in order to get content that’s exclusive to the Messenger channel.

CompletelyKeto (CK) created an enthusiastic 27,909 person fan following on its Facebook page and has over 300,000 fans including people in their Facebook groups.

In the first iteration of this post, CK offered daily recipes via Messenger.  Subsequent messaging offered an exclusive recipe that fans could only get via Messenger in addition to daily recipes.

The results:

Promoted Quizzes: CompletelyKeto, Annmarie Skin Care

The conventional wisdom is: don’t give a disclaimer about what you’re about to write because it undermines your point.

I’m going to venture a guess and say you’re smart enough not to discount this point despite my disclaimer.

Here it is, I don’t have any stats for a click-to-Messenger ad for quizzes.

However, here’s what we do know.

One – we can get much better CTRs from click-to-Messenger ads.

Two- we can use Messenger to segment and personalize future messaging for higher conversions.

Three- the average quiz is shared 2,000 times and has a lead capture rate of 31.6%.

CompletlyKeto is back again along with Annmarie Skin Care with examples of sponsored quizzes. Neither quiz uses a click-to-Messenger strategy.

Imagine if they did…

Here are the results from the quizzes without using Messenger.

Reaching underserved audiences with Messenger ads: P/S Vietnam

Everyone has a TV, right? Nope.

Everyone has a smartphone. In rural India mobile phone penetration is much higher than TV and accounts for 60% of mobile growth. Smartphone users cover 84% of the population in Vietnam. They don’t watch TV.  You guessed it; they go to social media for entertainment. 22.5 million people use Facebook in the countryside slightly more, 23.5 million Facebook users are in urban centers.

One trend that’s interesting, and we should talk about in more depth somewhere else is:
The decline in smartphone sales, rise in phone costs and the exponential increase in mobile computing power.

A trifecta of forces that creates a market dynamic the effects of which both rural and urban areas will be feeling for the next several years.

What we do know is that despite the costs more and more people will use smartphones.  Traditional desktop computers will become less common.  Because hardware isn’t a barrier thanks to the exploding power of computing, smartphones will be modularly used as the brain for “computer” shells.

Anyhow…

P/S a Unilever brand that sells Signal toothpaste wanted to expand its market share by reaching rural audiences.

The company connected sponsored video ads to Messenger to reach rural Vietnamese women age 25-45.  The bot offered bedtime stories that encourage kids to brush their teeth.

On Facebook, we reached rural audiences at scale with key messages, drove awareness and grew our market share in 6 weeks—a significant achievement for the oral-care category. With mobile and internet penetration growing exponentially in Vietnam, mobile is now the platform to connect with consumers.

Tran Quynh Nhu

Brand Manager, P/S Vietnam

The results were healthy ;) :

Increasing product usage from ads to Messenger and just being damn cool: Sparkasse

How do you make boring products fun and profitably reach your customer base?

First, you introduce your campaign by way of a funny video.  Then you retarget viewers with Messenger ads.

These ads encouraged users to enlist the help of Sparkasse Bank’s “repo-man,” to help collect debts, pool money or send friendly payment reminders.

That alone might have worked.  Here’s the cool part.  Based on the conversation with the bot, a personalized video was created. The user would then send that video through Messenger to the friend he or she was trying to reach. Of course, the friend could pay the money back easily using Sparkasse’s Kwitt payment app.

The brand created multiple video stories that could be personalized with names, the person’s Facebook profile pic, amounts owed and more.

Here’s mine:

The results:

Selling Event Tickets using Messenger ads: Tennis Australia (Australian Open)

The approach is simple.  So simple in fact that you might wonder why use Messenger at all.
You’ll see why below.

Here’s Tennis Australia’s Approach to selling more tickets through sponsored chat:

Create a live-action video ad featuring everyone’s favorite players Federer, Nadal, Serena etc…  and let people “Book now” through Messenger.

The target Australian men and women 18-54 with an in interest in the Australian Open and certain players.

Let people purchase.  Then use that data to target groups similar to your best customers with more Messenger ads.

Last, retarget website visitors who may have been interested but didn’t purchase.

So why use Messenger? Because it’s easy.
Simple premise, simple answer.

The question: If we make ticket sales easier will we sell more?

The answer: Yes

Compared to similar creative leading directly to a website point of purchase for the ticket, the click-to-Messenger ads had a lower cost per conversion.

The results:

Event & Holiday driven Messenger ads: Casas Bahia

How do you entice Black Friday customers to spend more on average through Messenger than any other channel?

For Casas Bahia it was straightforward.

You ask what types and categories of deals customers want to be notified of.  They opt-in.  You send the deals.

Casas Bahia (CB) started the promotion the week of Black Friday.  The deals were time sensitive. So, the ads had the advantage of some severe FOMO and scarcity going on.

Casas Bahia sent out three phases of messages other than the promo, using their bot to their full advantage.

The brand started sending out the promos on Thursday night and continued through Friday. Most everyone who got the promos clicked to learn more.

The results:

Exclusive product release ads: Axwell /\ Ingrosso

Two Swedish DJ’s, a Shopify store and a bot…

Sounds like the start to a bad joke. What Axwell Λ Ingrosso was able to accomplish is nothing to laugh at.

The talented pair decided to launch a new product exclusively through the Messenger Channel.

The merch was sold directly from the DJs’ bot.  And ONLY from the bot.  The messaging emphasized the exclusive release. The duo promoted the bot on social channels and drove traffic to the bot via Messenger ads.

Raving fans… ha get it? … Clicked on the store button, were taken to the product and entered the special code from the bot.

Care to venture a guess as to what happened?

The hats sold out within minutes.

Results:

So where is this all heading?

Facebook is doubling down on chat experiences.  We’ve looked almost exclusively at Messenger ads.  However, FB acquired Whatsapp in 2014 and has recently rolled out a click-to-WhatsApp button for ads.

WhatsApp currently has about 1.5 Billion monthly active users.  More than even Messenger has.

(image source: https://www.wsj.com/articles/behind-the-messy-expensive-split-between-Facebook-and-whatsapps-founders-1528208641)

Here’s what you need to know.  In June 2018 Brian Acton, the last co-founder of WhatsApp remaining at Facebook left the company.  Leaving behind a crapload of cash on the table (about $900 Million), but that’s beside the point.

While the co-founders of WhatsApp were still involved, they opposed monetization of the app through advertising. In fact, the co-founders included a clause in their contracts that said if Facebook inserted “additional monetization initiatives” like in-app advertising, the executives would have “good reason” to leave and accelerate the award of stock that hadn’t yet vested.

Also, Koum (the first co-founder to leave) who grew up in Soviet-era Ukraine, frequently talked about his commitment to privacy.  Both of these stances put them at odds with the C-level Facebook team.

With both founders gone, Facebook is free to expand advertising.  So be ready for more bots and chat ads.

Quick recap:

One – Facebook and Instagram ad costs are rising.

Two – Messenger ads get damn low CPCs (if you know what you’re doing)

Three – This ain’t gonna last forever. Best to jump in now.

Four – There are lots of Implementations for Messenger ads. We showed you 21 case studies. But in the end success depends on whether using chat makes the experience better, easier, faster in some way.

Five – Be ready for even more chatbots and advertising options.