WhatsApp just rolled out WhatsApp Channels globally. Especially for companies, this seems like an exciting new broadcasting option. However, WhatsApp already offers two broadcasting tools for businesses, the WhatsApp broadcast and the WhatsApp marketing notifications. So, what's the difference, and what's best for businesses? A comparison!
WhatsApp Channels just rolled out globally, and the new tool is already generating a lot of buzz. Essentially, it allows private users but also businesses to send out bulk messages.
However, WhatsApp already offers two broadcasting tools for businesses: WhatsApp broadcast and WhatsApp marketing notifications. In the following, we compare the different tools, and examine which version might be better for your business.
WhatsApp Channels vs. WhatsApp broadcast vs. WhatsApp marketing notifications
While the WhatsApp Channels, the WhatsApp broadcast, and the WhatsApp marketing notifications all allow you to send out one-to-many bulk messages to your audience, there are a few key differences.
WhatsApp Channels
Channels are a one-way broadcast tool for admins (private users, influencers, businesses) to send text, photos, videos, stickers, links, and polls to their followers.
👍There's no limitation on the number of people who can follow you or see your updates.
👎Aside from emoji reactions, there's no way for followers to answer or interact with your posts. You also can't use automations or targeting, and you don't get any insights into the performance of your updates.
Best for: one-way push communications, such as newsletters or influencer updates.
💡Read our complete guide on WhatsApp Channels
The WhatsApp broadcast
The WhatsApp broadcast also allows private users and businesses to send one-to-many messages. For businesses, it's available through the WhatsApp Business App.
Here, you set up a broadcast list, and share a message with a selected group of contacts. You can only send a message to a maximum of 256 unique recipients per list, and you can only broadcast to people that have your number saved in their contact list. So, overall, you can't reach as many people as you can with the Channels,
However, your messages end up in the users' personal inbox, and they can answer you as well, which makes it a better tool for starting up a one-on-one chat.
👍 More options for targeting through different broadcast lists and one-on-one chat possibilities.
👎Very limited reach, no options for automating campaigns through templates or chatbots.
Best for: small businesses with a smaller audience that want to use WhatsApp marketing to drive sales.
💡How to WhatsApp broadcast: A step-by-step guide
WhatsApp marketing notifications
For businesses, WhatsApp also offers the WhatsApp Business Platform, an application programming interface (API) that companies can access if they really want to scale their business through WhatsApp. Here, businesses get access to several types of business messaging that allow them to communicate with customers in different ways.
For sending out one-to-many messages, the WhatsApp API offers the WhatsApp marketing notifications. They are a lot more versatile than the one-to-many broadcasts or Channels.
For instance, you start with a minimum of 1,000 recipients, and you can scale your campaigns to potentially reach an unlimited number of users. You can also reach users that don't have your number saved in their contacts (prior opt-in required), and even add automations to your campaigns like lead generation chatbots, automated reply templates, and much more.
💡WhatsApp notifications for businesses: A complete guide
Unlike the WhatsApp Channels and the WhatsApp broadcasts, messages that you send through the API aren't free of charge. However, they also come with a lot more options when it comes to scaling and optimizing your campaigns, such as adding chatbots, integrating CRM systems, setting up target groups, and analytics.
👎Businesses have to pay for messages they send to customers.
👍They combine the best of WhatsApp Channels and WhatsApp broadcast and offer a 360-degree tool for updates, broadcasts, marketing campaigns, re-engagement, and sales with possibilities to add CRM systems, chatbots, segmentation, personalization, one-on-one chats, and post-campaign analytics.
WhatsApp Channels vs. WhatsApp Broadcast vs. WhatsApp Business messaging: What's best for what?
We recommend WhatsApp Channels to private users and influencers that want to share regular updates with a large audience. For businesses, the Channels are mostly interesting if you're only interested in one-way push notifications.
WhatsApp broadcasts are best suited for small businesses that have a small target audience, and want to combine one-to-many notifications with one-on-one conversations.
WhatsApp Business messaging through the WhatsApp Business API is the best choice if you're a mid-sized or larger company and want to scale your WhatsApp marketing, for instance by using automation, generating leads, and pushing sales.
Watch this free webinar to learn how to better reach your customers through WhatsApp!
Limitations of the WhatsApp Channels
When taking a closer look at WhatsApp Channels, you'll see that for most companies that want to do WhatsApp marketing, the feature is too limited (especially when compared to WhatsApp Business messaging through the API).
No interaction, no personalization
For one, as mentioned, WhatsApp Channels are exclusively for push notifications. So, administrators can broadcast content, but followers can't answer, so direct interaction or engagement with the audience isn't possible.
In addition, with WhatsApp Channels you're sending the exact same message to your entire audience, so there's no way to personalize your campaigns, set target groups, or customize them to fit specific users.
No automation, limited target audience
You also can't add chatbots to the feature nor use templates, so your updates have to be sent manually without any possibility of automation.
Also keep in mind that users need to either follow your channel to see your broadcast or at least actively search for your business in the Updates tab. That limits your target audience. Especially if you want to run lead generation campaigns, reach potential customers, or re-engage an existing audience, your possibilities are extremely limited.
Push notifications isn't the standard
One of the benefits of WhatsApp notifications over an e-mail newsletter or a social media post is that there's no deterring algorithms and you end up on the users' lock screen and get their full attention. However, that's not the case (by default) with updates in Channels.
Users can choose to get your updates as a push message, but they have to actively select this option as it's not the standard setting (unlike with WhatsApp Business messaging).
Low visibility
Your business channel will just be one of many channels people follow, and your conversations don't show up in the more prominent inbox. So, your messages don't benefit from being in the same environment as messages from friends and family.
Instead, they're hidden behind the Updates tab. And even if users go there, they can only see the channels in chronological order (based on the latest updates). So, the user experience is very similar to an overloaded e-mail inbox.
With this set-up, you most likely will get similar results to e-mail newsletters: open rates of around 30% (vs. 95% with WhatsApp push notifications) and click-through rates around 3% (vs. 35% with WhatsApp push notifications).
No end-to-end encryption
Also keep in mind that there might be some security and data protection issues, as messages in the channels are not end-to-end encrypted.
Conclusion: WhatsApp Business API best choice if you're serious about WhatsApp marketing
While WhatsApp Channels can be interesting small-scale marketing tools for influencers or as newsletter push, they're not well-suited for actual marketing campaigns.
As they lack targeting, personalization, automation, and even analytics, you won't be able to run a large-scale campaign, optimize your campaigns, or use marketing messages to jumpstart a sales conversation. There's also no way to use Channels for re-targeting or re-engagement campaigns.
In other words, if you're looking for the best tool for WhatsApp marketing, sending WhatsApp marketing notifications through the API is still your best bet!
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