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Send Broadcast via WhatsApp

Introduction

Before getting started, you need to learn the basics about sending broadcast messages via WhatsApp Cloud Integration.

Conversations

WhatsApp Business Cloud API is conversation based. A conversation is measured in fixed 24-hour sessions, it starts when the first business message in a conversation is delivered, either initiated by the business or in reply to a user message:

CategoryDescription
User InitiatedA conversation that initiates in response to a user message. Whenever a business replies to a user within the 24 hour customer service window, that message will be associated with a user-initiated conversation. Businesses can send free-form messages within this 24 hour customer service window.
Business InitiatedA conversation that initiates from a business sending a user a message outside the 24 hour customer service window. Messages that initiate a business-initiated conversation will require a message template.

Message Template

The broadcast notifications that businesses would like to send, are usually outside the 24 hour customer service window. In this case, it will be a business-initiated conversation, which requires a Message Template.

Message Templates are message formats for common reusable messages a business may want to send. This allows a business to send just the template identifier along with the appropriate parameters instead of the full message content. Your message templates will be reviewed to ensure they do not violate WhatsApp policies.

WhatsApp currently supports the following types of message templates:

CategoryDescription
MarketingSend promotional offers, product announcements, and more to increase awareness and engagement.
One-time passwordsSend codes that allow your customers to securely access their accounts.
TransactionalSend account updates, order updates, alerts, and more to share important information.

Message Template Submission

In order to send Message Template on WhatsApp, you must first submit the message content to WhatsApp team for approval. Only approved templates can be sent to users.

Create Message Template

  1. In "Platform", select "Message Template. This section allows you to manage your WhatsApp message templates.
  1. Click "Create" to create a new message template.
  1. Fill in the necessary details of the message template:
PropertyDescriptionRequired
NameCan only contain lowercase alphanumeric characters and underscores ( _ ); No other characters or white space are allowedY
CategorySelect the correct category of your templateY
LanguageSelect the correct language of your template; The template name will be the same for all translations; You will specify the language field when sending out the templateY
ContentThe content of your message template; support parameter placeholders in the format of {{1}}, {{2}} and so onY
HeaderThe header of your message template; support "Text", Image", "Video", "Document"; character limit is 60N
BodyThe body of your message template; character limit is 1024Y
FooterThe text footer of your message template; character limit is 60N
ButtonsThe button(s) of your message template; call-to-action or quick reply; 3 buttons max.N
  1. During the creation of message template, please note that:
  • You can fill in parameter placeholders in the format of {{1}}, {{2}} and so on
  • For any media or text with parameters, you are required to add sample as part of the review process
  • You may click "+ New Language" to add multiple translations under the same template content
  • You should create all translations of the same content under the same message template
  1. Click "Submit" to submit your message template. Once submitted, a new template will be created and pending for approval.
  1. You can hover over the template in order to preview the content.

Submission Status

After submission, your template might appear in one of the following status:

  • Yellow
    : Pending from approval
  • Red
    : Rejected
  • Green
    : Approved
  • Light Grey
    : Pending to delete
  • Dark Grey
    : Deleted

Send Message Template

When the message template is ready, we can move on to Broadcast and proceed with sending the broadcast notifications.

Create Audience Group

Before sending the broadcast, we need to specific who can receive the broadcast by creating an audience group.

  1. In "Broadcast", you can create audience group by select "+ New Audience" on the left panel.

  2. Name your audience group, but the description is not compulsory.

Create Audience
  1. Select your WhatsApp Cloud channel.
Create Audience
  1. The broadcast page provides 2 methods to select the target audience:

Select a few members

Send to a few members only is useful for manually picking a small group of members as audience. Once this option is selected, the audience size will start from 0, until you add more members to the group.

By checking Send to a few members only, the "Select Members" section will be displayed.

Select a few members

"Select Members" allows you to view the list of available members, click on the member to add him/her to the audience group.

Select a few members

Select a group of members

Send to a group of members is useful for filtering and selecting a larger size of audience. Once this option is selected, the audience size will start from the total number of audience of the selected channel. You can apply criteria to filter out the unwanted segment.

By checking Send to a group of members, the "Criteria", "Add Members" and "Exclude Members" sections will be displayed.

Select a group of members

In "Criteria", you can apply the filters to get the target audience.

PropertyDescription
GenderYou may simply select All, Male or Female to segmentize your audience
LocaleYou can select In or Not In to include or exclude subscribers according to their language settings on the platform
TagYou can select In or Not In to include or exclude subscribers according to the pre-defined member tags
Select a group of members
  1. After saving the audience group, you can view the list of members selected by selecting "Member List". And click on Estimate Size to check the size of this audience group.
Select a few members

Create & Send Broadcast

Now, we can move on to the right panel and create a broadcast.

  1. Select "+ New Broadcast" to create a new broadcast.
  1. Name to your broadcast message. The "Description" is not compulsory.
  1. Under "Include Audiences", select the audience group you have created.
notes

"Exclude Audiences" will always consider the "Unsubscribed" audience list by default.

  1. Priority is used when you have two or more broadcast messages on your sending list. The default value is 1.
NOTES

For example, if you are sending out broadcast A to your subscribers and would like to send an ad-hoc broadcast B to the subscribers because broadcast B is more important. In this case, you need to set a higher priority for broadcast B and it will interrupt the sending order and get broadcasted before broadcast A.

  1. "Member Tagging" allows you to mark the audience with self-defined member tag, which is useful for future analysis. In this example, let's add a member tag to keep track of which member has received this broadcast.
  1. Click on "Messages" to start configuring the broadcast message.
  1. If the audience added is in WhatsApp Cloud, a screen for configuring message template will be displayed.
  1. Select an existing templates, the status of approval will be shown as well.
  1. Once an template is chosen, you can configure the template content and click "Confirm" to save.
  1. In additional, you can also message template directly in this modal by clicking "+ Message Template"
  1. After creating the template, just click "Submit" to submit this template for approval.
  1. The newly created template will be "Pending" until it is approved to be utilized. You can use the "Refresh" button to get the latest status.
  1. You can also use "Edit template" to edit an existing template and submit it for approval again.
  1. Finally, set a scheduled date and time to blast out the broadcast and click "Save and send".
s NOTES

Without the "Scheduled Start Time", you can only save the broadcast as draft.

Broadcast Analytics

  1. After that, the broadcast result will be available under the same broadcast. You can make use of the analytics in order to evaluate the broadcast performance.

Besides, you can click "Export" to download the detailed broadcast report.

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