Black Friday does not need a rebuilt store. In this session, Alessandro Valenti (Head of Customer Success at Zipchat) went through ten small changes inside Zipchat, each one a few minutes of work. They all push in one direction: more shoppers talking to your AI. That matters because the average Zipchat conversation is worth about $10 in revenue, support chats included (Zipchat merchant averages, as of October 2026).
The recording is above, with Lorena Mendez from the Zipchat team taking questions in the chat. Below is the written version: every tip, the number Alessandro shared for it, the exact place to switch it on, and the questions merchants asked live.
The 10 improvements at a glance
| # | Improvement | What Zipchat merchants see on average |
|---|
| 1 | Proactive message above the chat | 10% more conversations |
| 2 | Chat bubble on the Shopify checkout | 5% lower checkout abandonment |
| 3 | Exit intent message on a non-Shopify checkout | 10% lower checkout abandonment |
| 4 | AI questions on product pages | 50% more conversations, 6% higher AOV |
| 5 | AI social media manager | 98% of social conversations automated, 40x return on AI cost |
| 6 | Follow-ups on WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger and email | Up to 8% of lost carts recovered |
| 7 | Promotions written into the prompt | Correct answers from the first minute of a sale |
| 8 | Email collection popup turned off | Avoids a 30% (desktop) and 65% (mobile) drop in conversations |
| 9 | WhatsApp abandoned cart campaign (Shopify) | Up to 20% of abandoned carts recovered |
| 10 | Help from the Zipchat team | Setup done with someone who knows the best practices |
1. Turn on a proactive message
A proactive message is the small popup that appears above the chat bubble and opens the conversation for the shopper. Many merchants already run one. Many still do not, and merchants with one get about 10% more conversations than merchants without.
A plain welcome works. This time of year, you can do better: name the promotion you are running, add urgency with a seasonal moment like Halloween, or write something that makes people curious enough to click.
You choose when it appears:
- After the shopper has spent some seconds on a page
- After they scroll a certain distance down a product page
- When they are about to leave the tab (exit intent), Alessandro’s favourite
To set it up, go to Campaigns, open Proactive messages inside Proactive chat, and click Create campaign. Pick the pages (specific pages, all product pages, or specific product pages on Shopify), pick the trigger, and write the copy. Shopify stores can drop the product title into the message on product pages. More on how this works on the proactive engagement chat page.
2. Put Zipchat on your Shopify checkout
About 30% of Zipchat conversations happen on the checkout page. It is the last moment a doubt can stop a sale, and the moment where an answer helps most.
By default, Shopify keeps third-party apps out of its checkout, for good reasons: payment details and personal data live there. Zipchat was approved to run on it. Stores that turn the bubble on at checkout see about 5% lower checkout abandonment than stores that do not.
To turn it on, go to Channels, find the Bubble chat section and click the checkout button (it shows in grey while it is off). Zipchat sends you to the Shopify theme editor. Click Save and the bubble is live on checkout.
One limit: Shopify does not allow proactive messages on its checkout. The bubble is what you get there, and it is already a big step.
3. Add an exit intent message to a non-Shopify checkout
If your store is not on Shopify, the bubble already shows on checkout, because it shows on every page. The extra move is a proactive message that appears only on checkout, and only when the shopper starts to leave.
Shoppers moving through checkout without trouble never see it. The ones about to close the tab get a last chance to ask the question that was stopping them. Non-Shopify stores with this message see about 10% lower checkout abandonment.
Go to Campaigns, Create campaign, choose Specific website pages and add your checkout URL. If the checkout URL changes per order, put an asterisk at the end, for example shop.com/checkout/*, so every generated checkout page is covered. Pick “User starts leaving the site” as the trigger and write your message.
4. Add AI questions to your product pages
AI product questions (PDP questions) read your product page, work out what stops shoppers from buying, and show those doubts as short questions on the page. One click and the shopper has the answer.
The numbers Alessandro shared:
- About 50% more conversations after the questions go live
- About 6% higher average order value
- Some merchants report up to 20% more sales from this one feature
- Early feedback on fewer returns, mostly for products that have to fit or work with something else
You decide how many questions show (from 2 to 6) and can give them up to 2,000 characters of instructions. For Black Friday, try “always ask a question about our current Black Friday promotion”, or steer them towards size, compatibility or delivery time.
On Shopify, go to Channels, click Turn on next to the questions, check the requirements (the bubble live on your store and access to your theme editor), and add the PDP questions block where you want it on the product page. Save, and you are live.
On other platforms, add the HTML tag Zipchat gives you where the questions should appear. The rest loads through the bubble you already installed. Font size, colours and layout are all adjustable, and custom CSS covers anything else. Alessandro’s tip: ask Claude or ChatGPT to write those few lines of CSS for you.
The AI social media manager runs Instagram and Facebook for you. It replies to public comments, reacts to them, hides or deletes abusive ones, and moves private topics to direct messages. If someone asks about their order under a post, Zipchat replies that it is sending a DM and continues there.
“I get too few comments to need this” is the usual objection. Alessandro’s answer: one comment under a post is seen by around 100 people, and their view of your brand is whatever that thread shows. Nobody can answer every comment within five minutes, all day.
It also answers comments under ads, video or image. Zipchat reads and listens to the ad itself, so the reply has the context of the ad as well as your website.
Merchants using it see 98% of social conversations fully automated and a return of about 40 times the cost of the AI replies. Turn it on before your Black Friday ads start on Meta.
Setup takes about five minutes. Go to Channels, click Turn on next to Instagram, open the account picker, choose the page, select both direct messages and comments, and click Connect accounts. Confirm on Facebook and you are live. Facebook and Messenger work the same way. After connecting, each channel has its own page for comment rules: when to reply publicly or privately, when to like, hide, ignore or delete, and the message Zipchat leaves when it moves a conversation to DMs. A draft mode lets you review replies before they go out. Alessandro suggests checking the first few replies, then letting it run.
6. Set up follow-ups
A shopper asks about a product, the AI answers, and the shopper goes quiet. A follow-up sends one more message after a delay you pick: 1, 2, 6 or up to 24 hours. It works on WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger and email.
It is not a generic “can I still help you?”. The message uses the conversation and your own rules. In the example on screen, a shopper asked whether a pair of sneakers came in blue. An hour after the last reply, the AI came back as the brand’s sales consultant, asked if they had completed the order, and mentioned the shoe also comes in red.
Two rules Alessandro recommends:
- Follow up only when the shopper asked about a product. A follow-up to someone chasing a late order only makes them angrier.
- Send no more than one follow-up in 24 hours.
He sets the delay to one hour. The shopper still remembers the chat, and nobody who wrote at 8 pm gets a message at 2 am.
Some merchants recover up to 8% of lost carts this way. To set it up, go to Campaigns, Follow-ups, Create campaign. Name it, pick the channel and delay, add the two conditions above, and under what to say write something like: “Introduce yourself as their dedicated sales consultant, then ask a qualified question based on your previous conversation.” Save, then click Start sending.
Zipchat scans your website once a week or once a day, depending on your plan. A promotion you add on Friday morning can take hours to reach the AI. Promotions also tend to live in popups, banners and images, which is the content the AI most often gets wrong.
During Black Friday, write each promotion into the prompt yourself. Go to AI training, open Prompt and skills, click Edit, and explain in your own words what you are running, the conditions, and how the AI should answer when someone asks. The prompt builder turns it into instructions.
Some stores ask for an email address before the AI answers. Outside peak season that builds a list for email marketing. During Black Friday it costs you: conversations drop by about 30% on desktop and 65% on mobile when the email is required.
The goal these weeks is to turn visitors into buyers. Go to Channels, open the Bubble chat settings, then Features, and switch off the lead collection popup. Save. Turn it back on after the season.
9. Run a WhatsApp abandoned cart campaign (Shopify)
When a Shopify cart is abandoned, Zipchat can send a WhatsApp message to that shopper. It recovers up to 20% of abandoned carts. It works best if you have been running WhatsApp for at least a month before Black Friday, so you have the phone numbers and marketing consent to reach people.
What sets it apart is the conversation. The typical abandoned cart message reads: “Hey Maya, you have something in your cart, use code BLACKFRIDAY10 for a discount.” With Zipchat, the message can start a real chat: “Hi Maya, it’s Alex from the brand, I’m your sales consultant. What’s stopping you from getting the trail running shoes?” Maya says she is between sizes. The consultant tells her the shoe runs small and suggests a 43. That is often enough.
Merchants who A/B tested the campaign with and without a discount code saw about the same results, so you do not always have to give away margin.
Go to Campaigns, WhatsApp marketing, Create campaign, WhatsApp campaign. Choose Ongoing and the Abandoned cart type. Set the delay, decide whether to send only to shoppers with explicit marketing consent, and add an image, the opening message, buttons (a dynamic checkout link or quick replies) and unsubscribe instructions. Do not skip the unsubscribe instructions: without them, Meta is likely to block your account. Then tell the AI how to sell, for example: “If the shopper is ready to buy, do not offer a discount. If price is the problem, offer 10%.“
10. Ask the Zipchat team for help
The last tip: you do not have to set this up alone. There are two ways in.
- Your customer success manager, for strategy, adopting a new channel, or improving results. Expect a reply or a meeting within about one business day, longer in peak season.
- The support team, through the chat in your Zipchat dashboard or at support@zipchat.ai, for bugs, urgent help and feature questions. An AI first line resolves about 70% of requests. The support team, led by Anel, picks up the rest in real time or close to it, and you can always book a call.
Questions merchants asked live
Can the checkout message show only to first-time visitors?
Not with an exit intent trigger on the checkout bubble. For proactive messages in general, use a normal campaign: it shows once per visitor after they dismiss it, so returning visitors usually do not see it again. A wildcard campaign shows more often. A visitor on a new device, a new IP address or an expired session can see it again, so this limits repeats but does not guarantee a one-time offer.
Only if you leave it without instructions. Under AI training, Prompt and skills, the skip conversation feature tells Zipchat to ignore certain keywords or topics, and you can limit that to specific channels. Or do the opposite and tell it exactly how to answer giveaway comments, in the additional instructions or on the channel’s own instruction page. One sports brand ran a campaign where shoppers wrote a password in Instagram comments and DMs, and the AI sent each of them a personal discount code.
Can I use follow-ups in the website chat?
No. Follow-ups work on WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger and email. Website chat visitors are mostly anonymous, with no name, email or phone number, and the chat is tied to a browser session. Nine times out of ten they close the tab when they are done, so a follow-up would reach nobody.
Can I set a start and end date for a proactive campaign?
Not at the moment. Campaigns run on triggers, like scroll depth or time on the page.
Will the recording and slides be shared?
Yes. The recording is on this page, and the slides were sent to everyone who registered.
Frequently asked questions
What are the 10 plug and play improvements for Black Friday?
Turn on a proactive message, put Zipchat on your Shopify checkout, add an exit intent message to your checkout if you are not on Shopify, add AI questions to your product pages, connect the AI social media manager, set up follow-ups, write your promotions into the prompt, turn off the email collection popup, run a WhatsApp abandoned cart campaign, and ask the Zipchat team for help when you need it.
Why do all the tips aim at more conversations?
Because conversations turn into revenue. Across Zipchat merchants, the average conversation is worth about $10 in revenue, and that average includes support conversations. More shoppers talking to the AI during Black Friday means more sales.
Can Zipchat show a proactive message on the Shopify checkout?
No. Shopify does not allow proactive messages on its checkout. You can still turn on the Zipchat chat bubble there through the checkout option in Channels, which alone lowers checkout abandonment by about 5% on average.
Will returning visitors see the same proactive message again?
Not with a normal campaign. A normal campaign shows once per visitor after they dismiss it. A wildcard campaign shows more often. A visitor on a new device, a new IP address or an expired session can see it again, so do not use it for strictly one-time offers.
Do follow-ups work in the website chat bubble?
No. Follow-ups run on WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger and email. Most website chat visitors are anonymous and leave when they close the tab, so a follow-up in the bubble would reach almost nobody.
Yes, for the peak weeks. Asking for an email before the AI answers cuts conversations by about 30% on desktop and 65% on mobile. Switch it back on after the season if you want to keep collecting leads.
Zipchat rescans your website once a week or once a day, depending on your plan, so a new promotion can take hours to show up. Promotions in banners, popups or images are also the content the AI is most likely to misread. Writing them into the prompt makes the answers right from the first minute.
For now it is only available for Shopify stores. It works best if you have been running WhatsApp for at least a month, so you have enough phone numbers and marketing consent to reach.
Do I need a discount code to recover abandoned carts on WhatsApp?
Not always. Merchants who A/B tested the campaign with and without a discount code saw similar results. You can tell the AI to offer a code only when price is the reason the shopper stopped.
Your customer success manager for strategy, a new channel or ways to improve results, usually within one business day. The support team, through the chat in your Zipchat dashboard or support@zipchat.ai, for bugs and anything urgent.
Next session: Black Friday on WhatsApp
The follow-up session is on Wednesday, 11 November at 5:00 pm CET. Alessandro and Lorena will cover WhatsApp campaign timing for Black Friday, message copy that gets clicks, and how to set up the AI so it handles questions and objections all the way to checkout. Register for free on Zoom.
Past sessions on AI search, product page questions, custom skills, WhatsApp and the social media manager are all on the livestreams page.
Hosted by Alessandro Valenti, Head of Customer Success at Zipchat, with Lorena Mendez. Recorded October 22, 2026.
Website chat Turns browsers into buyers on every page. 
WhatsApp Sell on the app your customers read. 
Instagram Answers every DM in seconds. 
Messenger Turns Facebook ad questions into sales. 
Email Answers every email in the same thread. 
