If you work in B2B sales, you already know how hard it is to get (and keep) a prospect’s attention. Maybe your team invested in Freshchat, hoping it would make conversations a breeze. But unless you actually use its campaign features smartly, it’s just another tool in the stack gathering dust. This guide is for folks who want practical, real-world ways to use Freshchat’s campaign features to actually get results—not just check a box for “digital engagement.”
Let’s skip the fluff and dig into how to use Freshchat campaigns to boost real customer engagement. I’ll walk you through what works, what to avoid, and how to keep things simple.
Step 1: Get Clear on What You Want to Achieve
Before you touch a single setting, ask: what’s the point of your campaign? Are you trying to:
- Book more demos?
- Nudge prospects to respond to a quote?
- Get feedback from trial users before they disappear?
Freshchat’s campaigns let you do all this, but if you’re not clear on your goal, you’ll just annoy people with generic messages. Write down what “success” looks like for this campaign. Make it something you can actually measure (like replies, meeting bookings, or click-through rates).
Pro tip: Don’t try to do everything in one campaign. Focus on a single action. If you want meetings booked, don’t also cram in a survey link and a product update.
Step 2: Segment Your Audience (Don’t Blast Everyone)
One of the best features in Freshchat is the ability to create targeted audiences for campaigns. This is where most teams get lazy and just blast everyone. Don’t. You’ll annoy your best prospects and waste your shot.
Segment your audience based on:
- Stage in the sales process: Are they new leads, warm prospects, or stalled deals?
- Company size or industry: Your message for a tech startup should not be the same as for a big finance firm.
- Behavior: Have they visited your pricing page? Did they ignore your last email? Use these signals.
How to do it in Freshchat:
- Go to the “Contacts” section.
- Use filters to create a segment (by tag, activity, or custom property).
- Save the segment for your campaign.
What works: Narrow, relevant segments. Sending a tailored message to 50 people beats a generic one to 500.
What doesn’t: One-size-fits-all blasts. If you’re thinking, “Well, this message kind of applies to everyone…”—rewrite it.
Step 3: Choose the Right Campaign Type
Freshchat offers a few campaign types. Here’s the honest take:
- Trigger-based (Event-based) campaigns: These send messages when someone does (or doesn’t do) something specific, like visiting a page or not replying for X days. These work best—context matters.
- One-time (Bulk) campaigns: Good for announcing something important to a segment, but easy to overdo. Use sparingly.
- Recurring campaigns: Handy for ongoing nudges, like reminding trial users about features. But they can get annoying fast if you’re not careful.
Reality check: Trigger-based campaigns are usually the only ones that don’t feel like spam. Start there.
Step 4: Craft Messages That Sound Like a Human
This is where most campaigns fall flat. If your message sounds like it was written by a robot, people will ignore it or worse—mark it as spam.
What actually works:
- Be direct. Ditch the long intros. “Hi [Name], noticed you checked out our pricing page—any questions I can help with?”
- Keep it short. One or two sentences, tops. If you need a paragraph to explain, it’s probably not a good fit for chat.
- Use their name and company. Personalization isn’t magic, but it helps.
- End with a simple question or call to action. “Want to see a quick demo?” or “Is Thursday still good for a call?”
What to ignore: Fancy HTML, GIFs, or anything that screams “marketing.” Stick to plain text unless you have a really good reason.
Step 5: Set Up the Campaign in Freshchat
Here’s how to do it without getting lost in menus:
- Go to “Campaigns” in Freshchat.
- Click “New Campaign.”
- Pick your segment and campaign type (see above).
- Write your message. Use variables for name/company (Freshchat supports this).
- Set your trigger (e.g., “Visited Pricing Page in last 24 hours”).
- Double-check your schedule and audience. Seriously, check it again—sending the wrong message to the wrong group is a classic mistake.
- Start the campaign.
Pro tip: Send a test to yourself or a teammate first. You’d be surprised how often messages look weird in the wild.
Step 6: Track What Happens—But Ignore Vanity Metrics
Once your campaign is live, Freshchat will show you open rates, click rates, and replies. Here’s what matters (and what doesn’t):
- What matters: Replies, booked meetings, real conversations started.
- What doesn’t: “Impressions” or “delivered” counts. If no one responds, it didn’t work.
How to track: Build a simple spreadsheet or dashboard. For each campaign, write down:
- Number of people targeted
- Number of replies/conversations started
- Number of meetings booked or next steps taken
If you’re not seeing replies: Your message is probably too generic or you’re targeting the wrong people. Go back and tweak. Don’t just send it again and hope for the best.
Step 7: Don’t Annoy People—Set Sensible Limits
You want to engage customers, not make them block you.
- Don’t send more than one automated campaign per week to the same person.
- Always make it easy to opt out or say “not interested.”
- Review your segments regularly. Remove people who have already responded, booked a meeting, or asked not to be messaged.
Honest take: If you’re getting more unsubscribes or negative replies than positive engagement, you’re overdoing it.
Step 8: Use Automation, But Don’t Set and Forget
Freshchat lets you automate follow-ups, reminders, and more. This is helpful, but don’t just launch a bunch of flows and disappear.
- Review campaign results every month. Kill what isn’t working.
- Update your messages based on feedback and common questions.
- Coordinate with your sales team. Make sure automated messages don’t overlap with personal outreach (nothing kills trust faster than two people from your company asking the same question in the same week).
What to ignore: Fancy drip sequences with a dozen steps. You’re not a B2C e-commerce brand—keep it focused and practical.
Common Pitfalls (and How to Dodge Them)
Let’s be honest—here’s what trips up most B2B teams:
- Over-automation: If no human ever jumps in, people will notice.
- Too many campaigns: If you’re running more than 2–3 at once, it’s chaos.
- Not segmenting well: Your CTO prospects and your junior admins don’t care about the same things.
- Ignoring replies: If someone responds and gets no answer for hours, you just burned a lead.
Wrapping Up: Keep It Simple, Iterate, and Don’t Overthink It
You don’t need a PhD in marketing automation to get value from Freshchat campaigns. Pick one clear goal, build a narrow segment, send a short, human message, and track what actually matters. See what works, adjust, and repeat. If you keep it simple and stay focused on real conversations, you’ll do better than most teams.
Don’t let the bells and whistles distract you from the basics. Start small, learn fast, and remember—no one likes spam, no matter how clever the tool.