Why WhatsApp Could Give Your Brand an Advantage This BFCM
Black Friday Cyber Monday is one of the busiest periods in the eCommerce calendar.
It is also one of the hardest times for brands to hold a customer’s attention. Inboxes fill quickly, promotions begin to look similar, and even strong offers can be missed.
That is where WhatsApp can add something different to the BFCM marketing mix.
Rather than relying only on crowded email inboxes, brands can use WhatsApp to create faster, more direct and more conversational customer journeys.
A more visible channel during peak season
Email remains an important part of BFCM planning, but customer attention is under particular pressure during peak trading periods.
According to information shared by Alvio partner GoKwik, email open rates can fall to approximately 4–5% during BFCM because of increased volume and inbox saturation. By comparison, its data indicates average UK WhatsApp open rates of 92%, with 84% of messages opened within five minutes.
The advantage is not simply that customers may see a WhatsApp message sooner.
WhatsApp also gives brands an opportunity to create a two-way conversation. Customers can ask questions, receive support, return to their basket or move towards checkout without having to work through a longer email journey.
During a high-intent period such as BFCM, reducing even a small amount of friction can make a meaningful difference.
Supporting customers, not just promoting to them
WhatsApp is most effective when it is used as part of the wider customer experience rather than simply as another broadcast channel.
In the weeks leading up to BFCM, brands can use it for useful messages such as:
- Order confirmations
- Shipping and delivery updates
- Product advice
- Customer-service conversations
- Reorder reminders
- Review requests
- Back-in-stock notifications
- Early access to selected offers
These interactions help customers become familiar with the channel before promotional activity increases.
They also give brands time to understand which messages, customer segments and journeys generate the strongest engagement.
A stronger abandoned-cart journey
BFCM brings a large increase in browsing and purchase intent, but not every visit results in a completed order.
The GoKwik brief estimates that 72% of carts are abandoned and that around 35% may be recoverable. It also reports a 20% improvement in recovery from first-touch WhatsApp automation sent within 30–60 minutes.
A WhatsApp cart-recovery message can be more useful than a standard reminder because it can help the customer resolve the reason they did not complete their purchase.
For example, they may want to check:
- Delivery times
- Product availability
- Sizing or compatibility
- Returns information
- Whether a promotion applies
- Whether support is available
Giving the customer a simple way to ask and receive an immediate answer can help turn interest into a completed purchase.
Relevance matters more than sending more messages
The strength of WhatsApp comes from relevance and timing.
A message sent to a customer based on their previous purchases, browsing behaviour or loyalty status is likely to feel more useful than a general promotion sent to everyone.
GoKwik reports click-through rates of up to 60% for segmented WhatsApp content. Its KwikEngage benchmarks also include a sustained click-through rate of 16.6% across active automation flows.
For BFCM, brands could create different journeys for:
- VIP customers
- Recent purchasers
- Lapsed customers
- Cart abandoners
- Subscription customers
- Customers interested in particular categories
- Customers who have previously engaged through WhatsApp
This allows brands to create a more considered experience while avoiding unnecessary or repetitive communication.
Connecting WhatsApp to the wider commerce stack
WhatsApp becomes even more valuable when it is connected to the systems a brand already uses.
KwikEngage supports integrations with platforms and applications including Shopify, Klaviyo, LoyaltyLion, Recharge, Rebuy, Judge.me, Salesfire, Loop Returns and Relo.
These connections can help brands build automated journeys around real customer actions.
A typical journey might include:
- An order confirmation after checkout
- A delivery update when the order is dispatched
- A product guide once the order arrives
- A review request after the customer has used the product
- A relevant reorder or complementary-product suggestion later
By the time BFCM arrives, WhatsApp can already be an established and useful part of the customer relationship.
Why preparation needs to start early
Building a WhatsApp channel is not as simple as turning on a promotional campaign the week before BFCM.
Meta requires new WhatsApp Business accounts to go through a building phase. During this period, the quality of messaging plays an important role in unlocking the tiers that allow brands to send higher volumes of messages.
That means brands need time to build account health, test customer journeys and prove that their messages are useful, relevant and wanted.
This is where timing matters.
We are hearing from more and more eCommerce brands that they plan to deploy WhatsApp for BFCM. But there is a kicker: if your account is not live and building health and quality scores by the second week of September, BFCM on WhatsApp may already be out of reach.
Brands that try to immediately push high-volume marketing messages to customers during BFCM risk running into blocked accounts, lower deliverability and messages not being sent.
The right approach is to start earlier with utility-led and personalised messaging. That means order updates, helpful customer journeys, product guidance, service-led messages and relevant automations before moving into heavier promotional activity.
Preparation gives brands time to:
- Connect the right systems
- Set up compliant opt-in journeys
- Test automations
- Build useful customer segments
- Improve account health
- Learn which messages drive genuine engagement
- Unlock higher messaging capacity before peak season
For WhatsApp, the brands that prepare early are likely to have a much stronger chance of making the channel work when customer attention matters most.
A valuable addition to the BFCM mix
WhatsApp does not need to replace email, SMS or paid media.
Its role is to complement those channels by giving customers a faster and more conversational way to engage with a brand.
For BFCM, that could mean:
- Helping more customers see important messages
- Answering questions at the point of purchase
- Recovering more abandoned carts
- Giving loyal customers early access
- Creating more personalised offers
- Making the path back to checkout easier
The brands likely to see the greatest benefit will be those that use WhatsApp to improve the customer journey, not simply increase the volume of promotions.
With early preparation, useful automation and relevant segmentation, WhatsApp can give brands a meaningful advantage during BFCM.
