Tölcsérvezérelt megközelítés a Messenger robotokhoz a lead generálásához (valós mérőszámokkal)

A funnel-driven approach to Messenger bots for lead generation

Testing. Testing is one of the main things I have devoted my energies to in the past year. Testing assumptions. Testing concepts. Testing product increments.

Incrementalism is key whenever you are building something that does not exist yet.

When we started Visualbots, a chatbot tool for lead generation, the assumptions to test were many. The industry was still in its infancy and marketers were not used to tools like ours. And we did not know which bot design and optimisation strategies would have worked the most.

But we were sure there was a key product assumption to test:

“Can Messenger bots be used for lead generation and deliver better results than the two main substitute products (namely céloldalak and lead ads)?”

In order to prove this assumption, we have worked with tens of early adopters across different industries spending tens of thousands of euros, following ez a folyamat: we transformed an existing landing page into a chatbot, we run Facebook advertising campaigns on the bot and we measured the performance of the full funnel, with the ultimate goal to achieve a target conversion rate (see one of the first examples below).

This has allowed us to gather a lot of data and generate expertise on how the lead generation bot funnel works on Messenger. And I am writing this article to share some of the lessons we have learned on the three following points below:

1. The Messenger bot funnel
2. The Messenger bot KPIs
3. Optimising Messenger bot KPIs

Enjoy the article.

The Messenger bot funnel

As every user acquisition activity, the messenger flow can be represented as a funnel, which consists of 3 main steps:

1. Beszerzés
2. Az aktiválás
3. Átalakítás

1. Acquisition (= the ad)

Acquisition refers to the marketing channel used to send traffic to the bot.

In our case it is constituted by the Facebook click-to-messenger ad used to drive traffic to the Messenger chat.

2. Activation (= the welcome message)

Activation refers to the first meaningful action accomplished by the user that starts to chat with the bot. In our case it consists in the interaction with the welcome message of the bot.

A üdvözlő üzenet is the first thing a user sees when they encounter the Messenger bot from the ad.

It is technically a part of the ad itself, but we always analyse it separately, given it has its own characteristics and optimisation techniques.

3. Conversion (= the bot body)

Conversion refers to reaching the goal of the bot.

In our case, since we are talking about lead generation, it typically consists in gathering an email, after multiple qualification questions contained in the “bot body” have been replied.

The Messenger bot KPIs

Each step of the bot funnel has its own KPI. The main ones we look at are:

1. cost per click
2. welcome message conversion rate
3. lead konverziós arány

Below you can find more details about each KPI.

1. Acquisition KPI (= cost per click)

The main KPI we use is kattintásonkénti költség (CPC). It indicates how costly a click sending traffic to the ad is.

This KPI is almost totally dependent on the ad setup itself, so that the actual content of the bot does not really matter here.

A képlet a következő:

cost per click = amount spent/ clicks

Ésszerű értéktartomány for the metric is between 0.20€ and 0.40€.

We have seen cases in which the price was much lower, which normally translated in a very low lead quality, or higher, sometimes leading to better conversion rates down the funnel that compensate for the higher cost of traffic acquisition.

2. Activation KPI (= welcome message conversion rate)

The main KPI we use is the welcome message conversion rate. It indicates how many people that have seen the welcome message have actually interacted with it, initiating the conversation with the bot.

This KPI mostly depends on the consistency between the ad text/ image and the content of the welcome message and the way the message itself is written (e.g. short rhetorical questions normally work better).

A képlet a következő:

welcome message conversion rate = conversations started/ link clicks

The “Conversations started” metric refers to the number of times people started messaging your business. It includes conversations with new users as well as previously engaged ones (in that sense being different from Facebook´s definition of Messaging Conversations Started).

The “Link clicks” metrics refers to the number of clicks that led users to open the chat (in the same way as it is defined a Facebookon keresztül). We prefer to use this metric, rather than normal clicks, so that we can exclude the effect of people clicking on parts of the ad that do not link to the chat, such as the page name.

Ésszerű értéktartomány for the metric is between 25% and 50%.

3. Conversion KPI (= lead conversion rate)

The main KPI we use is the lead konverziós arány. It indicates how many people that started interacting with the bot ultimately left their more precious personal information (e.g. an email or a phone number), which are typically asked at the end of the funnel.

This KPI depends on how the whole funnel is structured, on the length of the flow and the way the personal information are asked.

A képlet a következő:

lead conversion rate = leads/ conversations started

The concept of “Lead” varies greatly from company to company, but can be normally defined as a users that replying to the most important qualification question in the funnel.

Also defining a range for this metric is really difficult, since it varies a lot depending on the industry.

Ésszerű értéktartomány for a mid-long qualification funnel (i.e. with more than six questions) is between 25% és 50%.

But it can easily skyrocket above 75% in case of really high performing funnels.

Optimising Messenger bot KPIs

Mielőtt belemennénk a fenti KPI-k javításának technikai részleteibe, van egy fő koncepció, amelyet szem előtt kell tartani az ügyfélszerzési célokra épített Messenger bot létrehozásakor és optimalizálásakor:

Meg kell következetessé tenni ad-to-bot tapasztalatok.

The ad and the bot needs to be conceived together, since there is no way you can start to improve the bot if the ad is not consistent with it. You would simply receive poor traffic that you will not be able to optimise for.

Ezt kemény úton tanultuk meg, amikor az első tesztek nem hozták a várt eredményeket. És ennek első jele egy igazán volt alacsony üdvözlő üzenet konverziós arány (i.e. only a few people interacting with the Facebook ad started to engage with the bot).

Annak érdekében, hogy megértsük, miért történik ez, több UX-tesztet is elvégeztünk a robotokkal, megkérve a felhasználókat, hogy menjenek végig a teljes tölcséren, és mondják el, mit várnak, lépésről lépésre. Egyértelműen kiderült, hogy az első ok, amiért az emberek visszaestek, az volt, hogy amit a chaten kaptak, az nem az volt, amire számítottak.

And this happened because who was doing the ad (the tester) was different from who was creating the bot (us).

Ekkor értettük meg, hogy a bot megépítése előtt az egész tölcsért együtt kell gondolkodnunk, a hirdetéstől kezdve (and as a consequence we stated designing ads together with the bot — using this super cool tool for hirdetési makettek).

Having said that, we can now go more into the details of what to look at when improving the different steps of the funnel.

1. Optimising the acquisition KPI (= cost per click)

These are the key questions we ask ourselves when the ad is not performing as intended (i.e. CPC consistently out of the expected range).

• Használ Messages célkampányokat (kampányszintű optimalizálás)?

Tesztjeink során bebizonyosodott, hogy folyamatosan jobban teljesítenek, mint más kampányok, beleértve a konverziós kampányokat is.

• A megfelelő közönséget használja (hirdetéskészlet szintű optimalizálás)?

Kiderült, hogy ez óriási hatással van a hirdetés teljesítményére, ahogy ez minden más típusú Facebook-kampánynál is előfordul. Itt csak annyit érdemes megemlíteni, hogy egy jó optimalizálási technika a következő: miután jó sok beszélgetés összegyűlt, létrehozható hasonló közönség to target people similar to the ones that already chatted with your bot. And this works pretty well.

• Alacsony erőfeszítést igénylő cselekvésre ösztönzést (CTA) használ (hirdetésszintű optimalizálás)?

In our tests, CTAs implying high potential effort for the user (e.g. “Send message”) performed worse than low effort ones (e.g. “Learn more”).

2. Az aktiválási KPI (= üdvözlő üzenet konverziós aránya) optimalizálása

These are the key questions we ask ourselves when the welcome message is not performing as intended (i.e. conversion rate consistently below 25%).

• Is your welcome message content consistent with the ad text and image?

As highlighted before, the main reason for bot acquisition campaigns to fail is that the ad and bot experience have not been thought together. Align the content of the ad with the one of the welcome message.

• Kevés erőfeszítést tesz fel?

Az üdvözlő üzenet szerepe lényegében az, hogy megkérje a felhasználót, hogy engedélyezze a bottal folytatott beszélgetést. Ennek következtében a lehető legkisebbre szeretné csökkenteni a súrlódást. Az üzenet megfogalmazásának pedig nagy hatása van. Mint Michael kiemeli benne cikkét, az alacsony erőfeszítést igénylő kérések jól működnek, különösen, ha olyan formában vannak szónoki kérdéseket. Examples could be “Do you want to start?” or “Do you want to receive a free coupon code?”.

3. Optimalizálja a konverziós KPI-t (= potenciális ügyfelek konverziós aránya)

Being the concept of lead different from company to company, it is difficult to abstract lessons on how to optimise this KPI. Please keep that in mind when reading the key questions we ask ourselves when the lead conversion rate is not performing as intended (i.e. conversion rate consistently below 25%).

• Is the conversation building enough trust for the user to leave its contact details?

While carrying out our tests we realised something we had not expected before. We initially moved from the design assumption that shorter bots would have performed better than longer ones, since users would have gone through less steps.

De ezek a rövid robotok nem a várt módon teljesítettek, és a kérdések eltávolítása még rosszabb eredményeket hozott. Amikor UX-teszteket futtatunk, a következőhöz hasonló megjegyzéseket kaptunk:

“Feels like it hasn’t been enough questions to give out email address”

"Hogyan fog ez nekem személyes árajánlatot adni ilyen korlátozott számú információval?"

It paradoxically seemed that users expected many questions before they could consider the bot reliable and decide to provide their personal details. In other words:

Questions build trust

The reality is indeed that the bot funnel of a lead generation bot looks more like the one you can see below.

• Elmagyarázza, miért kéri a személyes adatokat?

Before you ask for an email or a phone number, is always a good practice to explain why you need such information and what will happen after the user submits it, including when they will be contacted, by whom and for which reason (e.g. “We will send you a custom quote”, “We will book a visit in our apartments for you”).

• Biztosítasz valamilyen ösztönzőt?

Jó gyakorlat, ha arra ösztönzik a felhasználót, hogy hagyja meg személyes adatait, például ingyenes árajánlatot, mintát vagy jó minőségű tartalmat. Ez már a hirdetés szintjén megengedhető, és az üdvözlő üzenetben hangsúlyozható, de végső soron terméknyereséget kell elérni a potenciális ügyfelek konverziójának szintjén.

These are some of the lessons that we have learned over the last year while approaching Messenger bots as funnels and optimising them in a data-driven fashion (some further insights itt).

I hope this will be helpful for you as well.

Have a good journey,
 - Livio

14/12/2018

> Disclaimer: this article has been published a year after it was originally written. In the meanwhile, the project Visualbots has been discontinued and many things have changed in my life and in the chatbot landscape. I am sharing this article in the hope that the insights gathered in over one year of activity could still be useful for the Messenger marketing community. <

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Tölcsérvezérelt megközelítés a Messenger robotokhoz a lead generálásához (valós mérőszámokkal) eredetileg a Chatbots magazin a Medium oldalon, ahol az emberek folytatják a beszélgetést, kiemelve és válaszolva erre a történetre.

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• Source: https://chatbotsmagazine.com/a-funnel-driven-approach-to-messenger-bots-for-lead-generation-with-real-metrics-dedb1e87f795?source=rss—-d6dc2c824f17—4