Cross-selling and upselling are efficient ways to re-engage customers to purchase additional products or more profitable products during peak seasonal sales periods, helping to generate incremental revenue and higher customer lifetime value (LTV) for your business. With 61% of holiday shoppers reporting spending extra time online during the holidays¹ and so many shoppers already using WhatsApp for communications during peak periods, WhatsApp is the ideal platform to implement cross-sell and upsell strategies at scale—especially because you can easily automate all or part of the process.

What’s more, it’s not just your holiday or Mega Sales Day revenue that will benefit. Communicating with customers via business messaging during the holidays is convenient for them and helps you build personal connections that can drive results. When you bring your customers personalized and relevant ideas for products and services, you bring value to the relationship, so everyone wins.

Here’s how a value-added cross-selling experience might look:

WhatsApp for Business gives you many options for upselling and cross-selling to customers.

Businesses can use marketing messages to deliver personalized cross-sell promotions based on past purchases. A retailer, for example, could share a recommendation for a pair of slippers to go with the cozy robe that’s on its way from a customer’s recent order.

Upsells are also a natural progression in a message thread that’s offering a consultative shopping experience. Using automation or live agents, you can deliver messaging that creates an experience akin to how a salesperson would offer assistance in a shop. That can be a great way to turn browsers into buyers and small baskets into larger ones.

You can even use reminder messages about an abandoned shopping cart or a customer feedback interaction as a cross-selling or upselling opportunity.

Meta Business Messaging Partners can help you explore all the engaging and scalable opportunities for cross-selling and upselling on WhatsApp, such as:

• Using chatbots and/or human agents to make personalized recommendations based on a customer’s previous purchases or inquiries
• Creating additional in-thread purchase opportunities using a product catalog or rich media to showcase related offerings
• Optimizing your messaging to collect opt-ins for future cross-selling promotions and product recommendations

To make the most of your upsell or cross-sell strategy, there are a number of best practices you’ll want to follow to be sure you optimize every opportunity:

• Capture customer opt-ins so you can leverage data for personalized cross-sell and upsell recommendations
• Integrate with your backend systems like CRM, ecommerce, and contact center systems to create a seamless customer experience
• Use the Conversions API for Business Messaging to apply your marketing data to optimize ad targeting, decrease cost per action, and measure results across Meta technologies
• Create custom experiences with WhatsApp Flows to create convenient conversion opportunities and make it easier for customers to take action with your business right within WhatsApp

By delivering personalized, relevant recommendations on the messaging app shoppers prefer, you can bring in incremental revenue, drive engagement, and deepen relationships with your customers during peak sales seasons.

Use what you know about your customers, and treat every interaction during holidays and Mega Sales Day events as an opportunity to cross-sell, upsell, and optimize your overall seasonal performance.

Explore our WhatsApp for Business playbook for additional seasonal use cases and best practices, and find even more holiday and Mega Sales Day resources here.

And if you’re not yet using WhatsApp for Business, take the first step here. Start your journey to stronger results and customer relationships throughout the year!