What’s this shiny new option?
So you’ve been looking in your Facebook ad manager and you’ve noticed a shiny new placement for Messenger ads! As you know we always recommend testing out anything new that Facebook roll out because they usually try their best to make new options work!
What are they?
Facebook messenger ads are quite similar to LinkedIn ads. You set up an ad and it gets posted directly into your audiences inbox rather then in their newsfeed. This is great, it’s almost like having their phone number and sending them a text message. However, there’s a bit of a catch!
What’s the catch?
The catch is that you can only use this placement type on Facebook users that have ALREADY messaged your page in the past. Initially this feels frustrating, but it’s Facebook’s way of respecting it’s users privacy. If everyone suddenly started getting direct messages to their messenger app from pages they’d get pretty annoyed. When there has already been some direct communication between a user and a page, it’s a little easier to slip in an advert without it being too intrusive.
Who should use it?
If you think about it, only being able to use this placement type to people who have already messaged your page narrows down your target audience considerably. If you haven’t got a fan page that’s incredibly well known and only gets a few messages per day, your audience isn’t going to be that big. There’s nothing stopping you going into the messages each day and sending the exact same ad copy directly to the people who have already messaged you. It may take more time, but it doesn’t involve spending any of your Facebook ad budget.
However if you do have a huge audience and 1000’s of people that message your page, the ads are really worth doing!
How should they be used?
There are 2 routes you can take with Facebook messenger ads.
- Offer a discount
- Start a conversation
1. If you’re going to try and sell to your message audience, you better be willing to offer them a special discount! Don’t just shove a link to your products down their throat, make them feel special and give them a limited time to claim the offer.
2. Why does this have to be about selling? Why not start a conversation with your message audience and get them to open up to you about what they think about your products or services?
