Why is Facebook Messenger a great platform for our hospitality chatbots?😍↗️↗️

Chatbots are everywhere, they can be your hotel concierge, help you order pizza or even update your bank account balance.

According to a survey by Oracle, 80% of the 800 decision-makers whom they asked are already using or planning to use chatbots by 2020.

So, it seems the future is already here — at least for chatbots.

But what platform should you choose for your chatbot?

Here is what makes Facebook Messenger a great platform for chatbots 💬

Facebook Messenger is one of the most popular messaging apps with approximately 1.3 billion users.

According to Messenger News, over 40 million active businesses are exchanging 20 billion messages per month with people.

The advantages of having a Messenger chatbot:

  • Knowing your users 
    Via Messenger chatbots, you can get valuable data from your users such as their gender and preferred language. Bonomi Assistant also collects data on their traveling habits.
  • Sending notifications
    Messenger makes it easy to send order updates, appointment reminders or any other useful notification, including news that might interest and re-engage users.
  • Reaching users easily via Facebook Ads 
    Chat messages have higher (up to 80%) open rate than organic social post, e-mails or paid search ads. Also, people interact in chat conversation much quicker than email.
  • Cost-effectiveness 
    In 2017 TedXMileHigh had 5x return by using a Messenger chatbot. Click to Messenger Ads which start chatbot in Messenger have 4x-50x times higher ROAs. In hospitality, that could mean a significant increase in direct bookings!

Sounds good, but how do I get -users to talk to the bot? — you may ask. Well, here’s one way:

Make Click to Messenger ads!

As I said before Messenger chatbots have the power to boost engagement and ROI, but it is only true if you do it right.

To be successful in Facebook advertising you have to fight for customer attention. Your ads have to stand out and be impactful or else, you lose out to competitors.

Here are the key elements of a successful click to Messenger ad:

  • Campaign Objective 🧠

Set the campaign objective to Messages, but for deeper engagement, it is recommended to test Traffic and Conversion objectives as well.

  • Placement 📍

It is recommended to choose Messenger Placements, as they seem to outperform the News Feed placed ads’ visibility. You should avoid placing your click-to-Messenger ads on Instagram because people have to switch apps which increases the drop-off rate.

  • Optimized Creative 👁️

A well written, straightforward copy and aesthetically pleasing visual is a must-have. Also, using emojis in the copy can make your ad stand out. 🙌

  • Know Your Audience 👥

You can target your audience according to your needs. Facebook Pixel can be a really useful tool for monitoring user behavior on your website to create a more optimized audience.

The not so easy part: Stay relevant and easy to use 😃✔️

Poorly made chatbots can be frustrating for users. You have to take special care when planning the user journey and think with the users head.

At Bonomi, we already provide a solution for our hospitality clients. We also created a step-by-step guide to help clients with chatbot setup and Facebook ads.