Getting your Templates Approved

Before using your message templates, you must submit them to WhatsApp for approval. Depending on your WhatsApp inbox or CRM, you might be able to submit your templates through them. You can also submit them through your Facebook Business Manager. If you want to use Rasayel as your WhatsApp inbox, you can submit message templates from there directly.

In your submission, there are four main things you must pay attention to:

Compulsory Fields

Except for the template body (content), the compulsory fields below are not visible to your customers. They are needed only when you want to submit your template for approval to WhatsApp.

Message Template Name

This is the name you choose for your template. It can include lowercase letters, numbers, and underscores only. The name is limited to 512 characters. Space, capital letters, or other characters are not acceptable. Customers do not see your template’s name.


Examples of valid names: welcome_message, away_message
Examples of invalid names: Welcome_message (Capital letters are not allowed), away message (Spaces are not allowed)

Template Category

There are three message template categories:

  • Marketing - messages like promotional offers, product announcements, and anything to increase awareness and engagement fall into this category.
  • Transactional - messages like order updates, payment confirmations, alerts and alike that facilitate a specific, agreed-upon request or transaction are transactional templates.
  • One-Time Password - messages with codes that allow your customers to securely access their accounts are in one-time password category.

Template Language

You must choose a language that matches the template content. You may have a message template in more than one language. In that case, select all of the languages that apply. All of the translations of a message are under one template name only. In How to Submit Your Message Templates for Approval on WhatsApp Manager you can see how it looks like during submission.

Message Template Content (body)

The body is the actual message that your customers see. It is limited to 1024 characters. The body must be free from mistakes and should suggest that the customer has interacted with or showed interest in your business. In other words, it must show context and relevance to the customer. If necessary, it should include call-to-action buttons. For example, if you want to send a payment confirmation message to customers that have bought a product from you, the template you submit to WhatsApp could look like this:

_Dear customer, your purchase has been confirmed and we received your payment. Thank you for shopping with us._

The message above shows the context and relevance to the customer because you confirmed their purchase and payment right after they bought something from you. A call-to-action is not needed here.

Another situation would be to invite your current customers to visit your new products:‍

_Hi there! We have some great news πŸ₯³ We just added a new feature to our software that lets you run campaigns on WhatsApp. To make use of this new feature, please click here and follow the instructions. We hope you enjoy it β™₯️_

Message Template Format

The template you submit can contain placeholders for variables such as the customer’s name, price, number of products, etc. Having placeholders for variables and parameters lets you personalize your message before you send it. The correct format for a placeholder is two curly braces on either side of a number. No other format or character, such as #, $, or %, is accepted. For example:

_Hello {{1}}, we have received your payment. Thank you for your interest in our services._

In the example above, {{1}} is a placeholder for the variable of customer name.

A template could have more than one placeholder. In that case, the strings of numbers in the braces must be sequential. Here are examples of acceptable and unacceptable templates:

Acceptable (All variables are in numerical sequence):

_Hello {{1}}, We have received your payment of {{2}}. The expected delivery date is {{3}}._

Unacceptable (The variable {{2}} is missing):

_Hello {{1}}, We have received your payment of {{3}}. The expected delivery date is {{4}}._

If you use WhatsApp with Rasayel to create a campaign, these variables can be dynamically filled. For example, let’s say that you have created a message template with a placeholder for the name of the recipient, and you want to automate sending this template to many of your contacts as part of a marketing campaign. With Rasayel, the names for the placeholder will automatically match the name of each recipient before the message gets sent to them.

Optional Fields

If you decide to include it, you must select its type (text, photo, video or document). For text-based headers, the maximum number of characters is 60.

It can include maximum 60 characters.

Buttons

With buttons, you can create an interactive message template;

  • Call-to-action buttons β€” There must be two buttons in text format; one must include a phone number to call and the other must include a URL of a website.
  • Quick-reply button β€” There could be up to 2 buttons in text format.

Each button is limited to 20 characters.

Components of an interactive WhatsApp message.

Samples

It is highly recommended that you include a sample before submitting your template for approval. With a sample, you provide examples for any media or text variables that your template requires. This way, you help the WhatsApp approval team see how your template will appear to customers and how it helps them. If your template is rejected, you’d need to submit a sample anyway, so you may want to include it already with your first submission. Make sure the samples are examples and do not include any confidential or personal information of your customers.

What to do if your template is rejected?

If your template is rejected you can either edit it and submit it again or appeal the decision.

Follow the steps in the Meta Business Help Center if you want to edit a rejected template. After you edit and resubmit your template, it will be reviewed again. If approved, you can use it.

If your template is rejected and you would like to appeal, you need to submit a sample. You can appeal using your WhatsApp Manager. Follow the steps under Appeal in WhatsApp’s message template guidelines.

Limitations

  • You can edit a template only when it is in a state of Approved, Rejected, or Paused in your WhatsApp Manager.
  • A template can be edited once per day, up to 10 times per month.
  • WhatsApp Business Accounts can only create 100 message templates per hour.
  • WhatsApp Business Accounts can have up to 250 message templates. That means 250 message template names, each of which can have multiple language translations. For example, a message template called welcome message translated into two languages counts as a single message template in regards to this limit.