F8 2019: Making It Easier for Businesses to Connect with Customers on Messenger

Facebook Business

April 30, 2019

Messenger has become one of the world's most popular messaging tools by offering a platform that brings people and businesses closer together. Currently, there are approximately 300,000 developers building on the Messenger Platform, and people and businesses are exchanging over 20 billion messages on Messenger each month. Facebook internal data, April, 2019

Today at F8, Facebook’s annual developer conference, we introduced two new ways we're making it easier for brands to connect with people and get business done on Messenger.

Businesses use Messenger in many different ways, but generating leads is one of the most common use cases we've seen on the platform. So we’re making it even easier for businesses to connect with potential customers by adding lead generation templates directly into Ads Manager. Businesses can create an ad that drives people to an automated question and answer flow in Messenger to learn more about what their potential customer is looking for. General Motors, one of the world's largest automotive manufacturers, teamed up with a developer partner, Smarters, to build a Messenger lead generation experience that created 3,000 leads in eight weeks at a 30% higher conversion rate compared to other digital marketing channels. See what a lead generation experience could look like for your business below.

People are also using Messenger to book appointments with businesses. To make the booking process seamless, we created an appointment booking interface in the Messenger Platform API which can be integrated with a business' calendaring system, so people can see the most up-to-date appointment availabilities. Sephora worked with a developer partner, Assist, to build an appointment booking experience on the Messenger Platform which led to a 50% increase in in-store bookings compared to other channels. Appointment booking through Messenger can be used across industries from restaurant reservations to haircut appointments, test drives and more.

Both appointment booking and lead generation in Messenger are still in beta testing, but will be available later this year.

For more information about Messenger and other announcements at F8, visit the Facebook Newsroom.

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