CHALLENGE

Reduce friction in a long car-buying journey

KIA Italia, the Italian arm of KIA Corporation, wanted to reduce the time between ad impression and sale. In automotive, interest rarely turns into a purchase in a single step. Prospective buyers usually compare models, ask questions, visit dealerships, and follow up multiple times before they commit. That made speed and relevance critical. 

The team also wanted to reduce the cost of lead qualification. Traditional methods, including call-center-driven follow-up, required time and resources before a lead could be properly assessed.  

To overcome these challenges, KIA Italia needed a scalable solution to capture intent the moment it appeared, keep the conversation moving, and move high-intent shoppers toward a quote or test drive without adding friction. 

KIA Italia partnered with Infobip to build a conversational sales experience on WhatsApp. The campaign used ads that click to WhatsApp on Facebook and Instagram to send interested people directly into a chat with an AI agent.  

The setup was also tightly integrated with Salesforce. Every notification or message sent toward WhatsApp was triggered by Salesforce Marketing Cloud, allowing KIA Italia to orchestrate the journey from its marketing stack. Then, once a user shared their details in the conversation, a lead was automatically created in Salesforce, helping the team move qualified prospects into its sales process without manual handoff. 

Instead of filling out a form and waiting for a callback, people who tapped the ad entered a WhatsApp conversation that felt closer to speaking with a knowledgeable sales advisor than completing a marketing flow.

The agent was designed to do two things at once:

1. It qualified leads through natural dialogue, prompting users to share key details such as their name, email, phone number, and postal code without the friction of a traditional form.
2. It answered product questions in real time, including pricing, features, availability, trim options, and financing.

That made the experience feel more like a dealership visit, except it happened instantly, on the customer’s phone, at the moment they chose to engage. When a prospect was ready to take the next step, the agent directed them to their nearest dealership for a quote or a test drive.

The result was a sales journey that connected paid media, automation, and conversational support in one continuous flow. 

1. From ad click to conversation 
   People who tapped the ad moved directly into WhatsApp, where they could start a conversation immediately. 
2. From conversation to qualification 
   The AI agent gathered lead details naturally, helping KIA Italia qualify prospects without a static form. 
3. From interest to dealership handoff 
   When a customer was ready, the agent routed them to the nearest dealership for a quote or test drive. 

144 qualified leads, 40x return on ad spend, and a lower cost per sale

Within four weeks, the campaign generated significant results including:

• 144 qualified leads
• 116 car quote request
• 8 direct car sales

KIA Italia also reported a 40x return on ad spend and a 53% lower cost per car sold compared with its usual approach of ads that click to WhatsApp, based on results from Meta Ads Manager, Infobip, and KIA’s CRM. On average, engaged sessions included 10.3 messages which is more than twice the number typically needed to collect lead information in a standard flow.

This showed that people were willing to stay in the conversation long enough to ask questions, compare options, and keep moving toward a purchase. The campaign gave KIA Italia a faster, more efficient way to turn paid media into measurable sales outcomes.

By combining ads that click to WhatsApp with an AI agent, the brand turned WhatsApp into a direct sales channel that could qualify interest, answer questions, and move buyers toward the next step without losing momentum.