A few years ago, messaging apps entered the market. Since then, they have become increasingly popular, reaching billions of users. This has made them the most convenient way for people to get in touch with each other. Yet, many businesses struggle to find effective ways to start conversations with potential new clients or customers.
In particular, WhatsApp is the most popular messaging app and comes with a feature to allows anyone to easily start a chat with you. Defining a WhatsApp CTA link is therefore easy and officially supported by the app natively. So, let’s see what WhatsApp’s click-to-chat feature is, how to use it to create WhatsApp CTA links, and what advantages it can bring to your business.
What Is WhatsApp’s Click-to-Chat Feature?
WhatsApp’s click-to-chat feature allows you to begin a chat with someone without having their phone number saved in your phone’s address book. As long as you know this person’s phone number and they have an active WhatsApp account, you can create a link that will allow you to start a chat with them. By clicking the link, a chat with the person automatically opens. Click to chat works on both your phone and WhatsApp Web. — WhatsApp official website
So, thanks to WhatsApp’s click-to-chat feature, you can let anyone start a conversation with you with a single click. This prevents clients and customers from having to manually add your phone number to their contact list, a notoriously tedious task.
On the contrary, by harnessing this feature, neither your business nor the client needs to save any phone number before they can start chatting. Thus, you are simplifying the interaction required to be contacted. Consequently, this approach may significantly increase the conversion rate of conversations with new potential clients.
Keep also in mind that this feature comes with WhatsApp natively and it is completely free! So, let’s see everything required to start employing it.
Define Your WhatsApp CTA Link
A WhatsApp link is nothing but a CTA allowing people to start a chat with you on WhatsApp. There are two officially supported ways to create WhatsApp CTA links. Let’s see them both.
1. WhatsApp Direct Links
You can easily define a valid click-to-chat WhatsApp link by adopting the following format:
https://wa.me/<number>number represents your full phone number including your country code. In other words, if your phone number is 555–2368 and your country code is +1 , this is what your WhatsApp link will look like:
https://wa.me/15552368As you can see, the — and + characters were omitted. This is because any trailing zeroes, brackets, special characters, or dashes must be removed when adding your phone number to create your WhatsApp CTA link.
When clicking on it, this is what people interested in start chatting with you will see:
2. WhatsApp Direct Links with Pre-Filled Messages
WhatsApp allows also you to customize the message shown on the click-to-chat webpage. This can be achieved by adopting the following format:
https://wa.me/<number>?text=<url-encoded-message>number represents your full phone number including your country code, while url-encoded-message is the URL-encoded pre-filled message that will be shown on the click-to-chat webpage.
So, assuming that your phone number is 555–2368 and the message you want to appear on the webpage is “Are you troubled by strange noises in the middle of the night? Do you experience feelings of dread in your basement or attic? Have you or your family ever seen a spook, specter, or ghost? Chat with us!”, this is what your WhatsApp link will look like:
https://wa.me/15552368?text=Are%20you%20troubled%20by%20strange%20noises%20in%20the%20middle%20of%20the%20night%3F%20Do%20you%20experience%20feelings%20of%20dread%20in%20your%20basement%20or%20attic%3F%20Have%20you%20or%20your%20family%20ever%20seen%20a%20spook%2C%20specter%2C%20or%20ghost%3F%20Chat%20with%20us%21And this is what people clicking on it will see:
If you have trouble turning your plain text into URL-encoded text, you can use one of the many free online tools, like this or this one.
Why Use WhatsApp Links
WhatsApp links allow customers and clients to engage with you effortlessly. This is definitely the most important benefit you and your business can get from adopting them. Thanks to them, your audience can contact you with just one click. Thus, redundant email exchanges can be avoided. This cannot but represent an improvement in terms of sales and customer satisfaction. Moreover, making your business more accessible will lead to a more loyal recurring customer base.
Plus, WhatsApp links can be used almost anywhere. This makes them a versatile tool you can place in websites, email, or automatically added signatures. Keep also in mind that they are nothing but links. Thus, you can easily turn them into more captivating buttons, QR codes, or even integrate them into images or GIFs. In other words, they natively allow you to turn them into effective CTAs, and this is an invaluable benefit.
You should also consider shortening them with one of the URL Shortener services. This way, sharing them will be easier. This is particularly important when adding pre-filled messages, which will make them longer than usual links. On the other hand, being able to show customers or clients a predefined custom message should not be overlooked. In fact, you might be receiving vague messages, which usually leads to time-consuming follow-up interactions. Choosing the right pre-filled message should prevent this from happening and allow customers and clients to structure their messages the way you want them to.
Conclusion
Today, we looked at how to create WhatsApp CTA links. This is possible thanks to WhatsApp’s click-to-chat feature, which allows you to define links to start a chat with just one click. Plus, you can also customize the webpage shown when they are clicked by adding custom messages. By using them, you will be able to let customers and clients start a conversation with you effortlessly. This will make your business more accessible and your clients happier. Adopting them is easy, and explaining everything about them was what this article was aimed at.
Thanks for reading! I hope that you found this article helpful.
