WhatsApp enquiries from $0.25 each, across five gadget repair outlets in Oman

A gadget repair and electronics chain in Oman has five outlets in different regions of the country. Instead of one national campaign, we gave each outlet its own local Meta campaigns, aimed at the people who live around it, and built every ad to start a WhatsApp chat.

Over six months, on a total spend of $5,407.51, the campaigns reached 778,148 accounts in Oman. At the best outlet, a WhatsApp enquiry cost $0.25. The second-best outlet came in at $0.43 and the third at $0.51.

At a glance

The client

Our client is a consumer electronics retail and repair chain with five outlets spread across different regions of Oman. It both sells gadgets and fixes them.

That gives it two kinds of customer. Some are shopping for something new and are happy to compare and take their time. Others have a phone that has just stopped working and want it sorted as soon as possible. The second group decides fast, and the decision is mostly about where to go.

For a repair, the buying journey is short. Something breaks. The owner wants to know whether it can be fixed, how long it will take and what it will cost. Then they choose a shop they can get to. Distance and a quick, clear answer usually matter more than anything else.

The challenge

The goal was high-intent WhatsApp enquiries and more people walking into all five outlets.

Repair is a local business. When a screen cracks or a phone will not charge, the owner wants it fixed soon, at a shop within reach. Because the outlets sit in different regions, a customer near one store is often a long way from the others. An enquiry from one region does nothing for an outlet in another.

A single national campaign treats five shops as one. In reality they are five local businesses, each with its own catchment area, the area its customers come from. Ads shown to people far from every outlet are spent on people who will never visit.

Measurement suffers as well. When five outlets share one campaign, the total can look good or bad, but nobody can tell which store's area is responding and which one needs attention. The business ends up managing an average that describes none of its shops.

What we did

A campaign map that follows the stores

We built localised Meta messaging campaigns and mapped each one to a store's catchment area. Each outlet's ads went to the people living around it, not to the whole country.

This is the foundation of the work. It puts the budget in front of people close enough to walk in, and it gives every outlet a set of results that belongs to it alone.

WhatsApp as the first step

Every campaign was a messaging campaign, built to open a WhatsApp enquiry. For a repair, the first questions are simple: can it be fixed, how long will it take, and how much will it cost. A chat can answer all three before the customer makes the trip.

Starting with a message also suits the customer. Asking a quick question is far easier than calling or visiting a shop on the chance that it can help.

Fine-grained, over six months

Across six months, the work ran to 260 ad sets on a total spend of $5,407.51. An ad set is a group of ads with its own audience and settings. Splitting the budget this finely meant each outlet's area could be judged on its own cost per enquiry, instead of disappearing into a national average.

A longer period helps here too: each area needs time to build up enough results to be compared fairly.

The results

The three best outlets drew WhatsApp enquiries at between 25 and 51 cents each. Almost any phone or gadget repair is worth many times that amount.

So even if only a modest share of those enquiries become paid jobs, the advertising cost behind each job stays small. And because every outlet has its own figure, the business can see clearly which areas give it the most for its money.

Why it worked

Distance decides where a repair goes. Mapping the campaigns to each store's catchment meant the budget reached people close enough to visit, not people who would never make the journey.

WhatsApp fits how people in Oman contact a shop. It is an everyday tool there, and a chat costs the customer nothing. For a repair business, that lowers the barrier to the first question, and the first question is where every repair job begins.

Every outlet was measured on its own. With a cost per enquiry for each store, the business can see which areas respond best and move money towards them, rather than averaging five different local markets into a single number.

We used the same thinking for a water purifier brand in Kerala, which split its campaigns by district, and for a vehicle dealership chain in Kerala that advertised each showroom to its own neighbourhood.

Five outlets are five local markets, so advertise each one as its own.

How to apply this to your business

• Treat each branch as its own local business, with its own campaign aimed at the area around it.
• Draw your ad map around where customers can realistically travel from, and leave out places too far from any branch.
• Make the first step a WhatsApp message, so people can ask whether you can help before they make the trip.
• Answer the questions people ask first: can it be fixed, how long will it take, and what will it cost.
• Track cost per enquiry branch by branch, then move budget towards the areas that respond best.
• Give a new campaign enough time to build up results before you judge one branch against another.

Questions business owners ask

How much does a WhatsApp enquiry cost for a phone repair shop?

It depends on the area and the competition. In this case, across six months in Oman, the best outlet drew WhatsApp enquiries at $0.25 each, the second-best at $0.43 and the third at $0.51. The key is to measure each shop separately, so you know your real figure for each location.

Should a repair chain run one campaign or one per branch?

One per branch, or at least one per catchment area. Customers choose a repair shop they can reach, so an ad shown far from every branch is mostly wasted. Separate campaigns also show you which branches are getting value from the budget.

Why use WhatsApp instead of asking people to call?

A message is easier to send than a call is to make, and it costs the customer nothing. For a repair, the first questions are short and practical, and a chat answers them quickly. That makes it more likely the customer will take the next step and visit.

Running outlets in more than one town? Book a 20-minute call.