Hernan Vazquez walks through Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger's new payment and shopping features launching in 2020. WhatsApp Payments is testing in Brazil and Argentina, while Instagram and Facebook Shops let you sell directly in the app. He warns not to rely on a single platform, keeping backup traffic sources like Shopify and email lists.
Hope that you guys are doing amazingly well. Welcome to the show, and I wanna share with you guys some really, really cool news that are coming up, rather, on the Facebook realm and Instagram realm and actually WhatsApp realm as well. Let me give you guys a little bit of a background. In Latin America, WhatsApp has been present for, I don't know, 6, 7 years maybe or something like that, or maybe a little bit longer. And then Facebook bought it and it didn't have a lot of adaptation, I would say, or a lot of take rate in places like the US, right? Europe, you know, went kind of the second. So it began in Latin America and then it kind of expanded to Europe. But now a lot of people in the US are also using WhatsApp, which is kind of cool. And WhatsApp got bought by Facebook a couple years ago. And now what's going on is that Facebook is allowing people to buy directly from WhatsApp. And I'm going to share with you guys some of the great news that this entails. And also what's good is that Facebook is also allowing people to buy from Facebook as well, from Facebook directly. And also Messenger is starting to receive payments. So what we're kind of starting to see is that Facebook and Instagram and WhatsApp and all of these apps, they're kind of creating an ecosystem where you do not need to leave the app to actually purchase products and services. Okay, but actually let me share with you guys the screen real quick so that I can show you exactly what I mean. So this is a new— this is something that came up actually yesterday is that payments through WhatsApp is starting to happen in Brazil. Okay, and Brazil is a great— it's a huge market. You know, the take rate in WhatsApp in Brazil and Argentina as well, they're huge, right? And Brazil is a big expanding economy. There's millions of people doing digital business pretty much every day. I have friends that are crushing it in Brazil. And what happens is that this is kind of the test platform, the test realm of Facebook when it comes to payments. And usually they do roll it out on a country that has A, enough data, but also B, enough adoption of technology, for instance WhatsApp. And this is allowing entrepreneurs in Brazil to actually receive payments through WhatsApp. There's a feature on Facebook Ads that allows you to start WhatsApp conversations. So I have a friend here in Argentina, he's running ads for his shoe store, and I sent him the news because he's closing a lot of sales through WhatsApp conversations, right? And then he's sending them to his online store through WhatsApp conversations, through IG DM, you know, direct messages conversations, and also through Facebook Messenger conversations while these advertising campaigns are aimed to get a conversion on an ecommerce store, what happens is that most people are buying after having somebody interacted with them. So this is great news. This is great news for advertisers, not necessarily in ecommerce, but pretty much in all ways of online business in general. Like ecommerce is like a no-brainer because you can say, hey, I like that shirt. How much is it? Here it is. Send me the payment, we will send you the tracking number or whatever, right? So that is pretty straightforward. The same with Instagram Shops and Facebook Shops where people are starting to buy within Facebook, within the ecosystem as well. But the good news about this is that Facebook allows you to advertise to generate WhatsApp conversations. It also allows you to advertise to generate Messenger conversations, which is coming up. You're allowed right now to send money through Messenger, but You know, there's a lot of stuff that's happening right now that's in the works when it comes to allowing you to buy stuff through Messenger and allowing you to buy stuff from Facebook and to Instagram and whatnot. And the good thing about that is that people already know Facebook, they already know Instagram, they already know WhatsApp, so you don't need to explain them how your store works. You don't need to explain them how to send you money because they already know it, right? It's natively to the platform. One of the downsides of this, of course, is that you cannot— you do not control the environment. And that's a major disadvantage. Like, it happens to a lot of ecommerce peeps when it comes to Amazon. You know, they're relying too heavily on Amazon and they do not own their business. This might happen the same with Facebook if you rely too much on your Facebook Shop, if you rely too much on your IG profile. But it's good for you to get started. It's good for you to open a new profit center That could be Facebook Shop or Instagram Shop and all of that. I'm really looking forward for this to expand to the rest of the world and also expand in other avenues. Like for instance, if you're a coach, a consultant, or if you have an info product, I know that a lot of people are killing it right now with IG DMs, you know, Instagram DMs. So it's like DM me XYZ and you start a conversation with the person, then they can apply to have a conversation with you. I know that there's a lot of people doing really, really well with that. But the fact that this is growing and Facebook is starting to create an ecosystem where you can basically buy without leaving the platform is really good for advertisers. And also, it's always a good idea to actually leverage this opportunity, but also have additional sources of traffic and revenue and income. I wouldn't say, hey, get rid of your Shopify store, get rid of your WooCommerce store, get rid of your funnel, get rid of your website, and go all in on Facebook or go all in on Instagram or go all in on WhatsApp. That's not what I'm saying. Because a brand gets resilient through time and through several, you know, sources of revenue, several profit centers, and also several sources of traffic, right? This is something that I've been telling you guys for a while. Do not ever depend on one source of traffic. Doesn't matter what it is. If it's your IG profile, if it's your Facebook group, it is like try to get people from those places to your email list, from those places to other different places in all of that. Okay, but I think this is really, really cool, and, you know, I just want to share this with you guys. And again, this is opening to ecommerce stores because it's, you know, it just makes sense for them. But I'm really looking forward for them to start opening to coaches, consultants, info products, and all of that, which right now it's kind of working and it makes sense. But again, these are additional ways of generating revenue that you can add to your strategy, and you know, grow your business like that, which I really hope that you do with the help of these videos, with the help of the stuff that I'm putting out. And if you find this helpful, go ahead and share it, like it, comment, whatever. But also, if you want my personal help running your ads, if you want my personal help, you know, when it comes to writing copy for your advertising, go to hernanvasquez.com/perfect and you will find a quick rundown of what the Perfect Ads Formula, the Perfect Ads Workshop It's all about. I hope that you enjoy it. In any case, thank you for stopping by. Thank you for watching. I'll see you guys really, really soon. Have a great day. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.
