With the year’s most anticipated double-digit online shopping festivals approaching, brands have a prime opportunity to connect with new customers and build loyalty. From 9.9 to 11.11, Filipinos—who spend over half of their time online researching products and brands—intensify their shopping, driving record-breaking e-commerce sales.
One platform that brands can leverage to maximize their double-digit campaigns is Rakuten Viber, which is known for its strong presence in the Philippines with over 70% of the user base being in the prime of their economic activity.
DataReportal reveals that 98.2% of Filipinos’ online time is spent on chats and messaging apps, and Viber can offer brands a range of business solutions which allow them to build all-in-app customer journeys.
Retail campaigns can take advantage of Viber Ads and Viber Rich Business Messaging to engage customers, drive conversions, and enhance the shopping experience during these peak shopping periods.
Viber Ads offer a versatile inventory of native and display placements within the Rakuten Viber app, featuring high viewability, CTRs of up to 4%, and rich media options. From the frequently viewed main chat screen to the interactive Viber Explore, where users check local news and content, the app creates unobtrusive points of connection with potential customers. On average, Rakuten Viber records over 70 million ad opportunities daily in the Philippines. This enables brands to increase awareness of their sales events and drive traffic directly to their e-commerce website, specific product pages, or a chatbot within the Viber app.
“Click-to-Message” is a new advertising solution on the Rakuten Viber app that brands can try to lead customers from an ad directly to a chatbot-powered conversation, reducing time-to-conversion.Here, the chatbot can answer simple queries and let users complete a purchase via in-app webview. Brands can also use Viber Ads to target users based on interests and demographics, enhancing engagement and brand recall even during peak seasons.
Viber Business Messages, meanwhile, allows brands to have one-to-one conversations with their customers and send personalized alerts, promotions, and notifications directly to their Viber Business Inbox. It’s also a space where users can reply or send questions to businesses, facilitating two-way interactions that can help strengthen brand-customer relationships and drive more conversations. This solution supports rich media content like images, videos, click-to-action buttons, and links, perfect for sharing personalized offers, special deals, and promotional messages during the sale season.
Examples of campaigns with Viber Ads and Viber Business Messages
Parent-focused e-commerce platform edamama used Viber Business Messages with the help of the app’s messaging partner m360 to push out engaging, relevant content to its entire user base during special sale events like 9.9 and Save Our Sweldo Sale. The goal was to increase conversions by bringing back lapsed users and attracting repeat business. They used special discount vouchers and free shipping promos that can give customers that final incentive to check out their carts on the edamama app. Leveraging Rakuten Viber, a top messaging app among edamama users, allowed the brand to achieve a 2.6 times higher conversion rate compared to SMS and 25x higher compared to push notifications.
Viber Business Messages was also instrumental in refining customer targeting and geo-targeting, enabling brands to deliver personalized offers based on location and preferences. SM Supermalls used the app’s capabilities to reach customers within a 10km radius and promote a 3-day summer sale event in SM City CDO Uptown in Cagayan de Oro City, leveraging the technical support of their messaging partner Promotexter. Showing that Business Messages results can also be translated offline, SM Supermalls got a 60% open rate and a 10% increase in foot traffic during the sale period.
Apart from tailor-fit solutions for a brand’s specific business goals, Rakuten Viber can also provide performance analytics including seen and click-through rates to refine campaigns and boost impact. The app’s partner brands have also benefited from Rakuten Viber’s cost-efficient solutions and smart targeting, allowing them to maximize their ROI.
With the 9.9 and 11.11 shopping festivals set to drive unprecedented e-commerce activity, now is the perfect time for businesses to streamline and enhance every point of the customer journey with dynamic advertising and rich business messaging solutions offered on Rakuten Viber.
