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Brevo Conversations is the chat + inbox layer most teams ignore until they're drowning in support emails. Adding it to your site captures 5-15% more leads (chat converts higher than form fills) and routes inbound to one inbox instead of five. Here's the build that doesn't ghost customers.
Who this is forBrevo accounts adding live chat for the first time, OR teams replacing Intercom/Drift/Tidio with Brevo's bundled chat (saves $50-300/mo). If you get 20+ inbound questions/week, this is your next move.
What you'll need
Step 1
Brevo top menu → Conversations → Activate. Free plan includes 1 agent + basic chat; Pro unlocks team routing + chatbots.
Brevo top menu → Conversations → click Activate.
Free plan: 1 agent (user), basic live chat widget, manual conversation handling. Good for solo founders.
Pro plan ($15/agent/mo): team inbox, chatbots, advanced routing, integrations. Required if 2+ people handle inbound.
Conversations dashboard now appears. Sub-sections: Inbox, Channels, Chatbots, Reports, Settings.
Step 2
Channels → Live Chat → Widget. Customize colors, greeting, working hours, and the offline message.
Conversations → Channels → Live Chat.
Customize widget appearance: brand colors, position (bottom-right is standard), agent avatar (use a real person, not the brand logo — 30% higher engagement).
Greeting message: shown to visitors after 3-10 sec on site. Keep short and specific: 'Hi! Anything I can help with about [product/service]?' Generic 'How can I help?' converts worse.
Working hours: set business hours per time zone. Off-hours: widget switches to email-capture mode with 'We'll reply within X hours' message.
Pre-chat form: ask for name + email BEFORE the conversation. Without this, you get anonymous chats that you can't follow up if disconnected. Email capture rate: 80-90%.
Step 3
Channels → Live Chat → Install. Paste the script tag in your site's <head>. Works on WordPress, Shopify, Webflow, custom HTML.
Conversations → Channels → Live Chat → Install.
Copy the JavaScript snippet (small <script> tag with your account ID).
For WordPress: install plugin 'Brevo' OR paste into theme.php header.
For Shopify: Admin → Online Store → Themes → Edit code → theme.liquid → paste before </head>.
For Webflow: Site Settings → Custom Code → Footer Code (Webflow places head custom code in body by default — fine for the widget).
For custom HTML: paste in the <head> of every page.
Save. Visit your site in incognito — widget should appear within 5-10 seconds.
Step 4
Channels → add Email and Facebook Messenger so all inbound (chat + email + FB) lands in one inbox.
Conversations → Channels → add Email. Connect a Gmail or any IMAP inbox (e.g., support@yourbrand.com). Brevo pulls incoming messages into the Conversations inbox.
Channels → add Facebook Messenger. OAuth into your Facebook page. Inbound Messenger messages route to Conversations.
Channels → add Instagram (Business accounts only). Same flow — OAuth into your IG Business account.
Channels → add WhatsApp (requires WhatsApp Business API + approval, separate process).
Unified inbox means a single dashboard for all customer inbound. Saves 30-60 minutes/day of switching tabs.
Step 5
Chatbots → Create chatbot. Build a simple FAQ tree: opening message → buttons for common questions → answer or escalate to email.
Conversations → Chatbots → Create chatbot (Pro plan).
Trigger: visitor sends first message on chat. Or visitor returns and opens widget.
Step 1: Welcome message + 3-4 buttons: 'Track my order,' 'Return / Exchange,' 'Product question,' 'Talk to a human.'
Each button leads to a branch: 'Track my order' → ask for order #, then provide a link to your shipping page. 'Return / Exchange' → link to policy + start return form.
'Talk to a human' button always available → ESCALATES to human agent during business hours, or captures email + 'We'll reply in 4 hours' off-hours.
Test by chatting yourself. Verify every branch lands correctly. Test the human escalation works (alerts the right agent).
Activate.
Step 6
Settings → Team. Add agents, assign by skill/language, set notification preferences.
Conversations → Settings → Team → Add agents.
Each agent gets login + email. Brevo notifies via desktop browser, mobile app (download Brevo Conversations app for iOS/Android), or email when conversations route to them.
Routing: choose round-robin (next agent in line) OR by skill/tag (e.g., 'shipping' goes to Sarah, 'returns' to Mike).
After-hours routing: route to an email auto-responder + create a ticket. Visitor gets 'We'll be back at 9am — your message is logged.'
Test: send a test chat from incognito. Verify the assigned agent gets notification within 30 seconds.
Step 7
Settings → Integrations → enable 'Create contact in Brevo from chat.' New chats auto-create a contact record.
Conversations → Settings → Integrations.
Enable 'Auto-create Brevo contact from chat.' When a new visitor chats (with email captured), a Brevo contact is created and added to a designated list.
Choose target list: 'Chat leads' or 'All subscribers' depending on consent model.
Add tags to chat-created contacts: 'source: chat' makes segmentation easy later.
Compliance check: pre-chat form must ask for marketing opt-in if you'll send marketing. Otherwise the contact is added with NO marketing consent — can only receive transactional follow-up.
Verify: chat from incognito with a test email. Check Brevo → Contacts — should see the new contact with the right tags.
Common mistakes
Activating chat without coverage capacity
What goes wrong: Visitors chat, no one replies for 2-4 hours. Trust damage. Conversion rate drops 8-15% vs no chat (broken promise worse than no promise). For a store doing $30K/mo, that's $2,400-4,500/month in lost conversions.
How to avoid: Set realistic working hours. Off-hours: switch widget to email-capture mode with honest expectation: "We reply within 4 business hours." Cover the hours you advertise.
Generic greeting message ('How can I help?')
What goes wrong: Generic greetings convert 30-50% lower than specific ones. Visitor sees 'How can I help?' and closes widget without engaging.
How to avoid: Specific greeting: 'Hi! Anything I can help with about [your product/service category]?' Or product-page-specific: 'Questions about [product name]?' Use Brevo's URL-targeting to vary greeting by page.
No pre-chat email capture
What goes wrong: Anonymous chats can't be followed up. Conversation drops, you have no way to reach back out. Lose 30-60% of chat-conversation value.
How to avoid: Pre-chat form: ask name + email BEFORE chat starts. 80-90% completion rate. Now disconnected chats can be followed up via email.
No bot for after-hours OR no human escape on bot
What goes wrong: After-hours visitor finds no help. Or bot loops endlessly. Either way, 40-70% abandon and don't return. Loses chat as a channel.
How to avoid: Build a basic FAQ bot for off-hours. Every bot branch must offer "or talk to a human" → captures email + creates ticket.
Adding chat contacts to marketing list without consent
What goes wrong: Visitor chats once, gets blasted with promo emails. Reports as spam. Unsubscribe + complaint rates damage marketing reputation.
How to avoid: Pre-chat form asks "Want our newsletter?" with an OPTIONAL checkbox. Only contacts who check it go to marketing list. Others can receive transactional follow-up only.
Ignoring chat analytics
What goes wrong: No visibility into response time, conversion rate, peak hours, or common questions. Can't improve what you don't measure.
How to avoid: Conversations → Reports → review weekly. Median response time should be under 2 min during business hours. Conversion rate (chat → contact created) should be 50%+ with email capture.
Recap
Done — what's next
How to set up a Brevo account from scratch (sender, DKIM/SPF/DMARC, GDPR)
Read the next tutorial
Hand it off
Chat is high-impact only if response time is fast and routing is smart. A specialist who's set up 30+ chat programs builds the bot, routing, and CRM integration in 2-3 hours that DIY teams often spend 10+ hours getting right. Typical engagement: $300-500 at $14-16/hr.
See specialist rates
Yes — Free plan includes Conversations with 1 agent and basic features (live chat, email channel, manual handling). Pro plan ($15/agent/mo) unlocks chatbots, team routing, advanced reports. Most solo founders are fine on Free; teams of 2+ need Pro.
Brevo: cheapest (free for 1 agent), integrated with email marketing + CRM, simpler UI. Intercom: more powerful for product onboarding tours + segmentation, $39+/seat/mo. Drift: best for B2B sales chat + conversational marketing, $50+/seat/mo. Brevo wins on cost; Intercom/Drift win on feature depth at $40-100+/seat/mo.
Sort of — Brevo's main CRM is separate (Brevo Sales Hub / CRM). Conversations creates contacts in your master contact list with chat as a source. For sales-pipeline tracking, connect Conversations to Brevo CRM via the integration in Settings.
Yes — Conversations integrates via webhook or API with HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, and most major CRMs. Pre-built integrations in Conversations → Settings → Integrations. Custom CRM connections via webhook fire conversation events.
Under 2 minutes during business hours. After 5 minutes, 40% of visitors close the widget. After 30 minutes, 80% are gone. If you can't commit to <5 min response, use bot for instant ack + 'human will reply in 30 min,' OR switch to email-capture-only mode.
The widget script is async-loaded (doesn't block page render) and is about 50KB compressed. Performance impact under 100ms on most pages. If you have hard performance budgets (sub-1s LCP), test before deploying. Most sites see no measurable impact.
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