Line Thailand is rolling out various tools and features for targeted advertising, aimed at increasing opportunities for merchants to enhance their sales revenue with better cost optimisation.
The company admitted its display advertising had declined as brands became more cautious about spending, but said it had no plans to reduce its headcount.
The platform is sharpening its focus on the growth of Line Official Accounts (OAs), which mainly serves as a channel for customer engagement among companies and organisations.
"With a global economic recession that will impact Thailand's economy, we expect to face another two years of a perfect storm," said Phichet Rerkpreecha, chief executive of Line Thailand. "Line will position itself as a core platform that enables more tools to assist businesses and working partners to overcome this challenging time."
He delivered his remarks online to Line Thailand Business 2022, the firm's annual seminar that gathers representatives from various sectors to share ideas about economic directions.
Norasit Sitivechvichit, chief operating officer of Line Thailand, said the country had demonstrated its resilience through digitalisation during the pandemic.
He said there were positive signs that Thailand has the potential to escape the middle-income trap and move towards becoming a developed country.
According to the UN Development Programme, Thailand scores more than 0.8 on the human development index, which is comparable to several developed nations, he said.
"The average wage in Thailand continues to rise, which was true even last year, before Thailand reopened its borders. These factors show that we have overcome the crisis and continue to thrive, even though the tourism sector -- the main economic engine of Thailand -- is still recovering," Mr Norasit said.
During this quarter the platform launched Line Shopping Ad, which has a conversion tracking feature that allows merchants to pay advertising fees only when buyers purchase their products.
"This will make their ad spend more effective compared with other platforms," Mr Norasit said.
In the second half of 2023, Line will provide additional service tools for "Persona Targeting" by taking into account customers' demographics, interests, behaviour and purchase intent. This is expected to increase the conversion rate by 85%.
The MyCustomer feature will allow small and medium-sized enterprises to pursue customer relationship management with users.
Mr Norasit said Line is having to control costs, similar to other tech firms, but it has no plan to downsize.
Line Thailand has 400 staff, and more than half are engineers as the company is building features and services to serve local needs. It has more than 5.5 million Line OAs, with a compound annual growth rate of 31% from 2017 to 2021.
Lertad Supadhiloke, head of e-commerce at Line Thailand, said the company is empowering online merchants through Line OAs with their fan base, allowing brands to increase sales and understand their customers' behaviour.
The platform will offer live commerce features and social referrals that allow customers to share the links of products and services provided by their favourite merchants.
"When they share recommended links, they will be able to earn Line Points," Mr Lertad said.
The firm also plans to have a "Gift" feature, whereby users buy products from existing merchants to send to other people without needing to ask the address of the receivers. All new tools will help merchants increase sales opportunities with their fan base and new customers, said Mr Lertad.
