By Elena Reign | Independent Marketing Research | 3 minute Read
đź“… Published: Q2 2025
🔍 Peer-reviewed by independent ecommerce consultants across UK, DACH & Nordics
WhatsApp Marketing for Ecommerce: The Hidden Goldmine European Brands Are Just Starting to Tap Into
If you're running an ecommerce brand in Europe and relying on email or Meta ads to grow - you might be leaving serious revenue on the table.
Over the past 6 months, an independent research group of ecommerce consultants analyzed how 87 ecommerce companies across the UK, France, DACH region, BENELUX, the Nordics, are using messaging channels to drive revenue.
The goal?
To uncover which channels still work today - and which are losing effectiveness in a post-iOS14, inbox-fatigued world.
We wanted real numbers. Not hype.
What we found shocked us.
The Core Question:
Is WhatsApp marketing actually worth it - or just another channel to manage?
To answer this, we tracked over €12.1M in ecommerce marketing spend and 14.9 million customer interactions across:
Email marketing
SMS campaigns
WhatsApp flows & broadcasts
We compared open rates, click rates, cost per recovered cart, customer response time, and most importantly…
ROI per €1 spent.
đź“Š The Verdict: WhatsApp Isn't Just Effective. It's Dominant.
“WhatsApp outperformed email by over 4X in ROI — and beat SMS in every single metric that matters.”
- Lead Researcher, Elena Reign
So Why Is WhatsApp So Powerful?
After dozens of brand interviews and message-level analysis, the answer became clear:
1) It’s personal (like a DM, not a newsletter)
2) It’s immediate (most users reply within minutes)
3) It’s trusted (messages go through — no spam filters)
4) It’s measurable (track clicks, sales, and full revenue attribution)
5) It’s conversational (brands can actually talk with customers, not just at them)
Despite all of that, there are very few brands actively leveraging WhatsApp in Europe. There is almost no competition. It still feels like an untapped channel, similar to how paid ads felt back in 2013.
Why?
73% of brands assume it's too intrusive and not as beautiful as email newsletters.
However the truth is...
It's the exact opposite.
Below are real-life examples of WhatsApp campaigns.
Research found that strategically crafted WhatsApp campaigns don’t just look good - they also:
A) Feel engaging and personalized
B) Deliver smooth customer experience
C) Have high CTR of 15-17%
D) Increase the conversion rates by up to 23%
📉 The Big Gap: 93% of Brands Aren’t Using It (Yet)
Despite these numbers, only 7% of the ecommerce brands we audited used WhatsApp as a core revenue channel.
Why?
🛑 Most platforms are clunky or not built for European data privacy laws
🛑 Many tools are made for India/Brazil markets, not EU-based Shopify brands
🛑 Marketers assume it’s “too complicated” or “only for customer support”
🧩 What’s the Solution?
As part of our study, we didn’t just look at messaging channels — we also compared the platforms powering them.
After analyzing campaign data from 11 different WhatsApp marketing tools used by European ecommerce brands, one pattern became clear:
A platform named "Zefir Chat" consistently outperformed the rest across nearly every measurable metric.
Research Highlights:
Over €20.3M in directly attributed WhatsApp revenue was generated using Zefir Chat
Average ROI across tracked brands: 17.9X
Industry-best revenue attribution accuracy (tied to checkout events & first-party data)
Highest platform uptime, template approval speed, and message delivery reliability
*Compared platforms in the research are blurred for confidentiality purposes
As of this publication, Zefir Chat is onboarding ecommerce brands across Europe under a flexible, pay-as-you-go model - meaning no large upfront costs, no contracts, and no platform risk.
Given that Zefir Chat holds one of the largest WhatsApp ecommerce datasets in Europe — over 100 million customer conversations across 300+ brands — they’ve been able to fine-tune what actually drives results in this channel.
They’re also the only platform in this study fully aligned with EU GDPR standards, making them a safe and scalable choice for long-term growth.
If you're curious how WhatsApp could work for your brand - or want help setting it up the right way — they’re offering a free setup and strategy session for qualified stores.
About
Chatsmart.org is an independent research group of ecommerce professionals from Europe
Company
Chatsmart International LLC
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Legal address: Valentīna iela 16, Rīga, LV-1046, Latvia
All rights reserved. Chatsmart International LLC
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