Chat as a Service, monetising Botim chats

The problem

Chats were where Botim users spent their time, but the surface earned nothing. Businesses still paid to reach the same users through SMS and WhatsApp Business.

How I approached it

The monetisation team and I set this out as one of Botim's monetisation strategies for chats, alongside revenue from GIFs. Botim opened its chats to businesses, like WhatsApp Business but priced below it, at ••• fils (•••) per message. The monetisation business team owned pricing. I owned the product: how ads are set up, the limits that protect users, and the experience inside the chat.

• Two products on one rail. Verified business accounts send verification messages (OTPs) to confirm a user, and promotional messages for advertisers with a banner, short copy and one clear call to action.
• Ad setup. I owned how advertisers set up their promotional messages.
• Spam and frequency limits. Users only get value from chats if they aren't flooded, so I set limits on how often a business can message a user.
• The user experience. Messages arrive in a dedicated chat for each verified business account, separate from personal chats.

The trade-off

More business messages meant more revenue, but they could also annoy users and hurt the chat experience Botim depends on. I made user annoyance a guardrail metric, tracked through user feedback on business messages, alongside the spam and frequency limits.

Outcome

• Chat monetisation brought in approx ••• USD in revenue in its first ••• months after launch. Split ••• verification, ••• promotional.

Design