The demand for WhatsApp as a marketing channel is rising meteorically. Every business wants skin in the game because the signs to leverage the channel are as clear as day.
Here’s a look at the latest figures.
WhatsApp Statistics on Users
- 2.24 billion monthly active users across 180 countries rank WhatsApp as the most popular mobile messenger globally
- 487.5 million monthly WhatsApp users in India (the highest in the world), 84.8 million in Indonesia, and 79.6 million Americans access WhatsApp at least once a month.
- There is multilingual support for 60 languages.
- 69% of internet users use WhatsApp.
- 70% of WhatsApp users check the app daily.
- 38 minutes is the average time an Android user spends per day on WhatsApp.
- 100 Billion messages are sent daily on WhatsApp.
- 21 hours is the time the average user in India spends on WhatsApp every month.
WhatsApp Statistics on Businesses
Boasts an open rate of 98%
Witnesses a clickthrough rate of 45-60%
In 2021, nearly 50 million businesses were using WhatsApp for marketing; in 2022, the number skyrocketed to 500 million businesses.
Remains the most downloaded app in Google’s Play Store and Apple’s AppStore, outranking even its sister apps – Instagram and Facebook.
Numbers don’t lie; if these indicators are anything to go by, WhatsApp is an intuitive way to engage and convert users. Thanks to conversational commerce, what sprouted as a messaging app has evolved into a goldmine for marketers
But don’t take our word for it.
We consulted a few seasoned professionals who oversee marketing for high-profile brands, and they were happy to spill the tea on the state of WhatsApp Marketing for people like you and me.
Here’s what they had to say.
Drishti Singhal, D2C Business Head – Perfora
“Today, using WhatsApp as a channel is preferred because it’s easier to get a WhatsApp message whitelisted versus other channels. One thing that has helped us have good ROI on WhatsApp is because it is a secure and, by extension, a reliable channel for both brands and users.”
WhatsApp, as an organization, values security and privacy. Businesses can send anything to their users via the WhatsApp Business Platform as long as they get the message templates whitelisted by Meta, the parent company of WhatsApp. Such a service can be availed from a WhatsApp Service Provider (WSP). Additionally, WhatsApp implements end-to-end encryption along with a string of manual checks to ensure that the outbound messages from businesses are spam-proof and contain only relevant information. This safety switch validates the platform’s credibility and guarantees relevant, no-frills communications from brands to their customers. For communications that demand secrecy and confidentiality, WhatsApp is your best bet.
Radha Tulsyan, Growth & Retention – Hotstar
“There are lots of pros of WhatsApp Marketing. WhatsApp as a channel has mind-blowing read & click rates. WhatsApp click rate is more than 40-50% in most of the cases, while the read rate is >90%. People read WhatsApp messages in minutes or even in seconds. Because it’s a private space, the delivery rate is as high as 98%. Moreover, the ability to send PDF, video, and other rich media through such a channel makes all the difference.”
It wouldn’t come as a surprise to learn that 80% of WhatsApp messages are read in the first 5 minutes. What would come as a surprise is to realize it’s equally vital to hyper-personalize your messages to make sure users engage with you after reading your message. Messages tailored to a specific user can lead to 1.1x growth in open rate, 2.9x growth in clickthrough rate, and 3.8x growth in conversion rate. Unlike some channels, it is not just limited to text-based messaging but also a host of diverse formats such as:
💬 Text messages
📸 Photos and videos
📄 Documents
📍 Location
🎙️ Voice messages
📽️ GIFs
🤯 Emojis
📊 Polls
Using rich media the right way in your messaging strategy can appeal to users and nudge them to take action.
Anuj Inamdar, Performance Marketing Manager – Impact Guru
“Due to its conversational nature, WhatsApp has the attention of people from all demographics because it’s such a personal platform for brands to reach out to their users. A goldmine for people like me.”
According to a report, 60% of respondents prefer messaging over email or phone calls. Meta, the parent company of WhatsApp, introduced the world to conversational commerce, an intuitive way of interacting and transacting through conversations. As a matter of fact, 53% of people say they would buy from companies they can reach via chat. Talking to a brand should be as intuitive as talking to a close one, and that is what WhatsApp manages to do so well. The best part about engaging your audience on WhatsApp is that your audience is already there.
Madhav Joshi, Product Manager – Zee Entertainment
“For us, the incentive to use WhatsApp as a marketing channel is its delivery rate, which is at least 10% higher than that of other channels.”
WhatsApp enjoys a higher delivery rate than some of the rather traditional marketing channels. The underlying powers at play on WhatsApp are confidential, secure, and seamless and do not restrict messages from being sent. WhatsApp delivery rates have little or nothing to do with device and OS level restrictions, OEM interventions, client system refreshes, background processes, or user inactivity. The non-reliance on the above factors improves delivery rates and makes WhatsApp the de facto user engagement channel for brands.
Shivani Jamwal, D2C Growth Manager – GlobalBees Brands
“WhatsApp as a marketing channel can be a great platform for personalized use cases like pre-purchase and post-purchase user journeys. Be it upselling, cross-selling, or restocking campaigns, our overall numbers have gone up, thanks to WhatsApp.”
WhatsApp is home to countless use cases.
Some out-of-the-box use cases like:
📣 Promotional offers
📲 Transaction updates
🛍️ Personalized recommendations
🛒 Cart abandonment
And plenty more.
Some advanced use cases like:
🤖Using rule-based chatbots to boost WhatsApp engagement
💰Using WhatsApp stores to increase purchases
❓ Increase WhatsApp engagement by quizzing users
And plenty more.
These novel use cases present an opportunity for brands to interact creatively with users and boost revenue. If you’re eager to read about the plethora of real-life use cases made possible by WhatsApp, we recommend reading this book on WhatsApp Marketing.
Conclusion
After reading this, you might have several questions about getting started with WhatsApp Marketing; and finding the desired information from scattered resources can be laborious. We realized there was a need to unify all the knowledge on WhatsApp Marketing and summarize them in an all-in-one digestible resource that includes but is not limited to:
⏱️ Best time to send WhatsApp messages
👆🏼 High-converting message templates
💬 Step-by-step walkthroughs
🔥 Hot use cases
📈 Key Statistics
💡 Insider insights
📊 Impact metrics
👍🏼 Best practices
We’ve covered them all and some more in this ultimate guide on WhatsApp Marketing – the only one out there. This ebook is comprehensive, very visual, and easy to understand.
This book on WhatsApp was put together to have you save time and effort spent on finding information and instead spend them on business-critical objectives.
