Whatsapp for Outbound Campaigns
To create Outbound Campaigns and WhatsApp Templates, you need to request the activation on your license of WhatsApp Connector Outbound Channel.
Otherwise you can’t see WhatsApp Campaign and Templates sections on your menu
You can use WhatsApp Connector to send outbound campaigns through the use of templates approved by Meta.
The company can start a certain number of unique conversations (explore Meta's messaging limits here) in a 24-hour time window. Conversation starts when the first WhatsApp template is delivered to the customer, opening a time window of 24 hours.
Let’s see how you can create an outbound WhatsApp campaign.
Requirements
You need to be registered as Facebook Developers on http://developers.facebook.com
You need to have a Business Account
You need to create an App for WhatsApp
On your Facebook Developers account, you can access to WhatsApp Manager > Overview Dashboard > Insights tab to check your messaging limits (explore here official Meta documentation)
WhatsApp Templates
To create outbound campaigns it is necessary to use templates, the preconfigured messages containing variables inside.
By clicking on WhatsApp Templates section, you have to select created Meta Account to view all created templates.
Templates must be approved by Meta to be used for campaigns
Create a template
From WhatsApp Templates you can create a new template (up to a maximum of 250) by inserting:
Template name
Provider
Account
Category that can be:
MARKETING (e.g. for promotions, offers, welcome messages, newsletters…)
UTILITY (e.g. for Confirmation of an existing transaction, payment notification…)
Find out more about Template Categorization, by clicking here
Template language
Enable as Recontact Template: if you switch on this option, you will be able to select it as recontact template on Advanced section, by editing a created template. Facebook manages conversations as time windows within which the agent can write to the contact. Recontact template will be used to contact the customer beyond the expiration of Customer Service Window
Scenario
Agent sends a template at 11am, customer replies at 12pm, a 24h time window opens and starts from the moment when the agent has sent the template (so from 11am). At the end of these 24 hours, the agent can no longer write WhatsApp messages to the customer, but only send a recontact template already approved by Meta. This can be for example a general message such as “Hello {{NAME}}, the chat window has expired, please reply to this message if you still need support”.Available to agents: by selecting this option, you allow agents to send the specific templates to a single contact. Explore documentation about it at this link
Content (max 1024 characters): here you can write text template content (you can use one or more variables if you want).
Find out more about message guidelines and Common Rejection reasons, by clicking here.
Then you can select the different tabs to enable header, footer and/or buttons
Enable Header that can be a text, an image, a video or a document.
If you choose image/video/document you need to upload relative file (Drag & drop option)
If you select text you can write text you want, max 60 characters.
Morever it’s possible to include a variable
Enable footer text, max 60 characters
Enable Buttons: you can activate two tipology of buttons
Example of WhatsApp Template with call to action buttons:
Call to Action: you can choose to enable:
Call Phone Number to start a call directly, by inserting a Button text and a telephone number to call with prefix
Visit the website, by inserting button text and website url (so the customer will open a browser with the indicated link).
For this option, to avoid spam, Facebook doesn’t allow the use of short links or variables in url (only variable in query string is permitted)
Example of WhatsApp Template with quick reply buttons:
Quick Reply: you can create a choice with a max of 3 buttons with text (max 25 characters)
If the customer clicks on one of proposed choice, system sends a message with the relative text button
Click on Add WhatsApp Message Template
When you create a new template, it remains in Pending Status to be approved by Meta in more or less 24h:
You can see the same information from Meta messages templates at this link entering in your business manager account, where you can see Active Templates and templates in control
Templates have a quality status: customer can report business account as spam or undesired contact. Facebook registers all answers and if a lot of customers report a template, Facebook downgrades quality.
As long as the template is active (even if low quality) it’s possible to send it, after that it will be put on pause (so not possibile to send it). Find out here guidelines about quality rating and template pausing.
After template creation, you can see the list of created templates with relative category and status:
If you click on Preview template, a modal will appear with the preview template
Moreover you can edit a WhatsApp message template, by clicking on Edit template mapping
You can see:
template name
Chosen category
Recontact Template option (switch on/off)
Available to agents option (switch on/off)
Header content
Content
If in content or header you have inserted some variables, you can do the relative mapping.
System populates automatically the list of variables used in text template. So you can choose which field of customer's database to insert within the variable (e.g. selecting first name)
Create a WhatsApp Campaign
You can create a new WhatsApp Campaign, by clicking on WhatsApp Connector → WhatsApp Campaign → + button
Insert campaign Name
Select Provider (Meta)
Choose Account (Meta type)
Select WhatsApp Templates (you will see only approved templates) and the eye icon shows a preview
Select sending Interval
Indicate Response Timeout (expressed in days, minimum 1): specific option for WhatsApp campaigns, indicating time available for the customer to answer the question, in order to consider this answer valid and part of the campaign itself
Include customers with an active interaction: option to send campaign also to customers in an active conversation with agent. By default this option is switched off because for a client it can be unusual to receive a message while already talking to an operator. There may be instances where you want to send it anyway, for example an information campaign to warn that customer service number is changing, so you may decide to send it to everyone.
Start date: you indicate when campaign must start (day and time). Leaving the field blank, the campaign starts immediately
Click on Add WhatsApp Campaign
After campaign creation, you will see it in the list with status (e.g. RUNNING when it starts)
On this section, by default all the created campaigns are shown and you can filter by account to see the relative campaigns
By editing it, you can see:
Settings with campaign information
Hopper with summary of customers:
total number
fresh, so contacts still to be contacted
retry, failed contacts to retry sending to
pending, so contacts waiting for response
closed, contacts with completed campaign
Pending: contacts in pending status after sending the template message waiting for response (a contact remains pending until his answer or until end of the campaign)
Contacts History with the result of the campaign (you will see contacts with relative answers or failed contacts)
For failed contacts, it’s possible to enable Retry campaign
Selecting the 3 dots of the menu you can edit campaign / stop it / Start WhatsApp Retry campaign, so it tries to send again messages to failed contacts.
It is possible to make several retries up to the duration of the campaign
A running campaign can also be stopped by clicking on the 3 dots in the campaign → Stop WhatsApp Campaign
Campaign interactions
When a campaign starts, the system, as a first check, verifies if there is already a campaign running for that contact (in that case contact remains on pending status until the open interaction is closed so the system can make a new retry).
Going on WhatsApp Accounts → 3 dots menu → Go to Interactions you can see interactions of running campaigns.
First of all if customer sent an answer, interaction status is equal to Closed, while if customer has not yet replied, the interaction results Open
Scenario
You can create a campaign with question "How would you like to be contacted?" with quick reply buttons Phone call | WhatsApp message | Email
If the customer answers within the indicated response timeout, the system registers that he has answered a certain option and closes the conversation related to campaign → status Closed
Moreover for the Customer Service Window of 24h, system opens an interaction for the agent (becoming an inbound conversation) → status Open and agent can manage the conversation (by reading the sent template message and relative customer’s answer
If answer arrives after timeout expiry, it is not considered valid for the campaign, but the conversation moves on to an agent (becoming an inbound conversation) → first conversation status Closed + open new conversation status Open
Conversation passes to agent management even if the customer replies e.g. "Please contact me by Phone call", so he provides a different answer from those proposed, so the contact in the campaign remains in Pending and a Conversation with Open status is managed by the agent
Moreover clicking on 3 dots menu → Spy you can see the conversation with the customer.
Troubleshooting
If this kind of message appares, it's due to token's expiry.
Check your token and remember to insert a long-lived user access token (discover how on this Meta documentation)
If sending campaign, an error occures you can check contacts:
phone numbers must be inserted with prefix
numbers should be entered necessarily in Phone field