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Opesta is a messenger bot tool created by marketer Ethan Sigman. I met him and knew him before he ever launched this software.
But that’s not why I’m writing an Opesta Review. I genuinely love this tool.
Most of the Facebook Messenger bots you see out there are nothing more than glorified customer service automation tools. They’re just like those automated phone trees where you have to keep hitting zero to get to a real customer service representative.
These are known to be annoying and frustrating for consumers. And when it comes to marketing, well, they do next to nothing to really nurture leads and get them to take the next action.
Most messenger bot software isn’t built specifically for marketing by marketers. They had some inherent limitations and missing features.
That’s why Sigman decided to create Opesta. It’s the first bot that’s specifically designed for Facebook Messenger marketing automation.
I loved that idea so I was one of the first people to sign up for the tool. Now that I use it all the time, I decided to write an Opesta review to explain what it’s all about to others.
Opesta Facebook Messenger Marketing Automation
Let me start off my Opesta review by explaining how it works. To get started with Opesta, all you have to do is add a piece of code to your website. This allows it to track visitors through their IP address.
Then Opesta builds a database of people who want you to interact with them through Facebook Messenger. Once people opt in, Opesta can build a complete profile of every interaction they have with your business.
You’ll be able to look at things like:
• How many messages they open
• How long they stay on your website
• What pages they’ve viewed
• How often they come back
• What free offers they’ve requested
• What they’ve purchased
• And more
Getting a deep understanding of your audience is really important, because then you can create custom automated marketing campaigns based on their actions.
Opesta can help you communicate with your audience in 2 main ways: (1) Automations and (2) Broadcasts.
Automations (Campaigns)
If you know a little bit about email marketing lingo then you can compare Opesta automations to email campaigns. You create a series of messages, then feed them to your audience every few days to nurture them as leads.
Creating automations involves 3 simple steps:
1. Trigger
Define a certain action your audience has to do to start an automation. For example, they could click a certain link, comment on a FB ad, go to a certain page on your website, etc. You can add multiple triggers.
2. Content
Here you define what content to send to your audience after the trigger. This can be a series of messages that you space out over days, at certain times of day, etc. You can also have buttons that lead deeper in to that sequence to teach and sell them different things.
3. Goals
Goals are some kind of behavior you’re hoping to achieve that can effectively end the sequence. For example, if your goal is for them to buy a product and they do that, then that will trigger an end to the sequence.
This setup is really useful for people who work in marketing. It’s also simple and makes sense for people who don’t work in marketing as well. That’s why I love it.
Broadcasts
Broadcasts are individual messages that you send out to all or part of your audience whenever you want. Creating a broadcast is a simple 3-step process:
1. Message Type
First you select what kind of broadcast you want to send: Subscription broadcast, subscription event reminder broadcast, promotional broadcast, or follow-up broadcast.
2. Targeting
Next select who you want it to go out to. Send the broadcast to everyone or only to subscribers who meet certain conditions. You can tag people based on all sorts of behavior (just like with email marketing).
3. Schedule Broadcast
Lastly you can choose to send your broadcast now or schedule it for later.
Like with email marketing, Opesta will track your audience behavior on your website and on Messenger. Then you can use this information to create a marketing message personalized to individual subscriber behavior.
For example, say you create a sequence and in the first message you offer a free lead magnet. If a subscriber doesn’t opt-in, then you can send them a copy of the lead magnet in Messenger. If they did opt-in, then you can automatically send them a message about advanced classes.
Then if they opt into the training class, you could send them a welcome message. If they don’t, then you can send them a message asking if they have any questions.
Opesta messenger marketing makes it easy to deliver the right message at the right time to the right subscribers.
Opesta Pricing
Opesta pricing is pretty reasonable and cheaper than most email marketing software. You can start with a 14-day free trial then sign up for one of their plans at $49, $99 or $149/month:
All three plans include all the main features you really need. So there’s no reason to upgrade just to unlock features. You could upgrade to the Essential or High Volume packages if you’re building a huge subscriber list or need to link more than 2 Facebook accounts for marketing.
Opesta vs Manychat
Like I mentioned before, there are a lot of messenger bots out there but most of them don’t have a lot of helpful features for marketing automation.
Right now Manychat is Opesta’s only real competitor in this niche. I’ve never used Manychat before, but I took a close look at their features for this Opesta review.
Manychat is a bot platform designed for marketing, e-commerce and support. You can use it to create marketing automations similar to what Opesta has to offer.
Manychat has more features than Opesta because it’s a generalized tool used to facilitate all sorts of interactions. As a result, there’s more of a learning curve to navigate the system and build the marketing sequences you want.
I took a look at Opesta Zapier integrations vs Manychat. At a glance, they seem to integrate with all the same important apps. So if you want to expand your use of Opesta beyond just marketing, you can do that with the various Opesta Zapier integrations.
Opesta vs ManyChat Pricing
Opesta pricing is set up differently from ManyChat, and at first glance can seem more expensive. ManyChat tiers pricing gradually based on your number of subscribers.
So for 5,000 subscribers you’d pay $45/month.
With Opesta pricing, you’d pay $49/month for 5,000 subscribers. But if you look at the fine print on ManyChat’s packages, they only offer one linked Facebook page (Opesta offers 2 on their cheapest plan, 4 on their Essentials plan).
So if you want to link more than one Facebook page, you have to pay double with ManyChat!
Opesta Messenger Marketing Pros and Cons
I like Opesta a lot, but every tool has its pros and cons. I wanted to quickly go over those in the Opesta review so you know what to expect if you try it out.
Opesta Pros
- Simplicity — Opesta is really easy to learn, especially if you know email.
- Not buggy — I’ve never had any problems with Opesta because it’s simple and easy to figure out. Also it doesn’t have a bunch of bugs and fixes like a lot of software out there.
- Good support — Opesta doesn’t have a huge support team because they’re kind of a small business. But the team they have is great. I’ve never gone more than 20 minutes without getting a response from their support team.
No, they don’t have telephone support but I don’t think you need it. The software is simple so their support team doesn’t get overrun, making it easy to get a quick response from chat. - Affiliate program — If you’re an affiliate marketer you’ll be happy to know they have an affiliate program. They’re one of the only messenger bot tools out there that does.
So, if you like promoting the tools you use in life then this is a great opportunity. - Share sequences — This is one of my favorite things. So if you just go to a campaign and look at your sequence, you can click “Share campaign” and it creates a link that you can copy and share with anyone.
If someone I send it to opens the link, they can see the whole sequence. So if you have a pre-made webinar or sales automation, you can easily share them with other people.
Also I believe you get commission if you share a sequence and someone signs up from that.
Opesta Cons
- Smaller business — They are a new business so they don’t have as many shared automations out there. A lot of people like to share their automations on other platforms, and in this case you just don’t have access to as many because not so many people are using Opesta yet.
- Less options — Like I mentioned, Opesta has fewer options than some of the big bot tools out there, but I’ve never had need for them. They won’t have the capabilities if you want to do a bunch of complicated things with your bot.
- Less documentation — Opesta doesn’t have as much support documentation as other tools, but because it’s so simple I’ve not needed much. Some of the other big tools out there have hours and hours of documentation on how to do things.
Because Opesta is new there just isn’t that much content out there like guides or YouTube walkthrough videos of how to do different things. They’re getting there and building their documentation, but it takes time.
Should You Even Use Messenger Bots?
If you’ve never marketed on Messenger before, maybe you’re wondering if you should even invest in Facebook Messenger marketing automation. I’d like to touch on the topic in my Opesta review because like all marketing initiatives, Messenger has some good and bad aspects.
Let’s start with the good. Facebook Messenger has over a billion active users. That’s more than the number of people that use Twitter, Pinterest, and Snapchat combined.
Messenger also has amazing open rates and click through rates. 80% of Facebook Messages are opened, and they get 7-10 times higher click through rates than email.
So messenger marketing is a huge opportunity to engage and nurture your audience. But there are a couple drawbacks:
Rules
There are lots of rules on how and how often you can bug people on Messenger. You’re doing this on Facebook and their reputation is on the line. So there’s all kinds of regulations for using messenger bots on the platform.
Ownership
You can use messenger bots to get traffic from Facebook, but at the end of the day you don’t own that traffic. So if Facebook decides they don’t like you, then can kick you off the platform.
Or if they decide they don’t like messenger bots at all, then all your hard work goes to waste.
Compare that to actually collecting someone’s email address. Even if the platform you used to capture it shuts you down, you still have that contact information.
To maximize the pros and minimize the cons of messenger bots, I use it in conjunction with email. So I focus on sending out emails.
But if there’s a big event or big promotion that I’m pushing, then I’ll reach out through my messenger bot as well. That way I’m not overdoing it by constantly battering them with promotional content on different channels.
Final Conclusion
Congratulations on making it all the way through my Opesta review. Now you have a great understanding of how the tool works, its pros and cons, and why it’s valuable for marketers.
If you’d like to try out Opesta, then here’s my affiliate link:
https://buildapreneur.com/recommends/opesta
And if you want more advice and insights about digital marketing, please check out my free courses and tools:
https://buildapreneur.com/free
https://buildapreneur.com/tools