What You Should Know About Chatvertising
Sometimes referred to as conversational commerce, chatvertising is a technique many experts in the marketing realm think is the latest worthwhile way to advertise products, services or brands to consumers. Put simply, it involves using chatbots to reach out to the target audience. Then, individuals can interact with brands through chatbots.
Facebook Made Its New Messenger Ads Compatible With Chatbots
Perhaps one of the most telling signs that chatvertising is the way of the future is that Facebook recently updated its ads businesses can insert into Messenger. That means they serve as gateways to placing orders with chatbots.
Specifically, Messenger contains targeted content that makes viewers want to buy things, but the key is letting a chatbot guide people the rest of the way through the purchase process. Theoretically, programmers could give chatbots the ability to respond to the most common questions customers might have, such as queries about average shipping times and whether apparel is available in certain sizes, too.
Chatbots Can Help With Repeating Purchases
There is also a possibility of people interacting with chatbots to make ongoing purchases. In this scenario, the chatbot might not directly entice a person to buy something, but the associated company behind the technology could promote the chatbot as an easy method of purchasing a product without interacting with humans.
Nuance Communications reportedly showed off its newest chatbot technologies at the CES 2018 conference, and some of those developments included updated chatbot capabilities for mobile providers. Details are scarce, but a press release from the company promises chatbots that deliver “personalized services, such as top-ups.”
There are already various ways to top up, including entering details via smartphone keypads or using ATMs. However, if chatbots become another way to get more phone minutes, that method might be even more efficient, especially if the bots remember past purchase amounts and credit card details associated with the users that depend on them.
Today’s Chatbots Embody Brand Voices
Forward-thinking developers are also working hard to create chatbots that authentically support the brands that use them. Developers spend time determining how chatbots would help achieve business goals, then make their responses seem as close as possible to the ones people would get if they were speaking to humans that work at the respective companies.
Chatbots Interact With Smart Home Systems
In another new development, Netatmo, a French company, launched a chatbot that controls users’ connected devices in their homes. Netatmo systems already work with the Amazon Echo, Siri and others, but now, people can engage with a Netatmo chatbot via Messenger and type things like “Turn on the lights in the family room.” The chatbot gets smarter the more a person uses it and can handle more complicated questions such as “Who’s at home right now?”
Some People Assert the Technology Is Far From Perfect
Despite all these exciting new things on the chatbot horizon, there are those who say today’s algorithms can’t truly understand all the nuances of natural language. Even though the social media site recently enabled more chatbot-powered advertising options, Facebook will shut down M, its virtual assistant that lives in Messenger.
The company put no limits on what people could ask the chatbot to do, and perhaps that was part of the problem. The more successful chatbots are highly focused regarding the capabilities they offer. Additionally, M always required human assistants to partner with the technology to help carry out tasks. Analysts believe that for particular duties carried out by all chatbots, human assistance is crucial for the foreseeable future.
In closing, it’s best for people — and brands — to have realistic expectations of what chatbots can do. Although they seemingly showcase many of the same characteristics humans have, the bots aren’t as knowledgeable as people. They sometimes require additional input from authorized representatives to help customers get what they need. Nonetheless, while chatbots still require human support, the technology of conversational commerce is constantly developing and remains prevalent in the marketing industry.
