A WhatsApp template is a pre-made message that you can use to communicate with customers over WhatsApp. Before you use them to message customers, they must be approved by Meta. The types of messages you can send with templates include promotions, reminders, updates, order confirmations, and more.
In this article, you'll learn about WhatsApp templates and the approval process.
Take note
Images in this article are from Hilos, a company we recently acquired to bring native WhatsApp automation and richer conversational experiences, expanding our marketing automation platform. We’ll provide updated screenshots as soon as they are ready; however, the experience is similar. For more product documentation, visit the Hilos help center.
Learn how to create a template for WhatsApp.
How WhatsApp templates work
Templates are required to start a conversation with a customer who hasn't written to you in the last 24 hours (or ever). For example, if a customer writes to you today at 2:03 PM, you have until tomorrow at 2:03 PM to respond, just as you would in a normal WhatsApp conversation. If the customer replies, the 24-hour period restarts.
If the customer doesn't answer you by 2:04 PM, the conversation will be "closed." You will need to use a WhatsApp-approved template to contact them again.
Before you can use a template, it must comply with WhatsApp policies and undergo an approval process. Learn more about templates and Meta's approval process.
WhatsApp template categories
There are three categories of WhatsApp templates:
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Utility
This is for transactional messages, such as purchase confirmations. With this message type, you can send:- PDF documents, such as invoices and account statements
- Images or video tutorials
- Emojis to personalize the message
- Variables to personalize your message or call-to-action
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Marketing
This is for mass promotional messages, such as notifying customers of sales, discounts, and other promotional uses related to your business. When you create your template, you have the following options:- Sending PDF documents such as quotes, offers, etc.
- Promotional images or videos
- UTMs for tracking your WhatsApp marketing campaigns
- Using variables to trigger messages with custom variables and URLS
It is currently not possible to send WhatsApp marketing templates to customers with a United States phone number. For more information, please see Per-User Marketing Template Message Limits.
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Authentication
This is for sending messages such as one-time codes.
How WhatsApp templates are structured
Before adding content to your template, you need to complete the following configuration options:
- You will need to give the template a name
- Select a category for the template - Utility, Marketing, or Authentication
- The language you will use for the template content
Next, you will add the content. This is divided into four parts:
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Header (optional)
You can use this option to add text with variables, an image, or a video to the top of your message. -
Body (required)
The full text you will add to your template. You can use emojis and insert variables into your text. -
Footer (optional)
The footer appears in gray text at the bottom of your message. This should contain additional, but non-critical details. For example, if you're sending an automated message, you may want to let customers know that they shouldn't respond to it. It's not possible to add emojis here. -
Buttons (optional)
There are two types of buttons you can configure: Quick Reply and call-to-action (Visit Website and Call Phone Number). WhatsApp doesn't allow more than one button type in a template.
The “Quick Reply” button
The "Quick Reply" button has the following characteristics:
- They are buttons that only have text
- The text is limited to 20 characters
- WhatsApp allows you to have a maximum of 3 buttons in a message
- When a user clicks the button, it is interpreted as if the user had typed that text
With these buttons, you can type the text you want displayed. Having quick reply buttons is powerful because it allows you to create automated actions with messaging flows based on your customers' responses to the template.
Call-to-action buttons
There are two types of call-to-action buttons: "Visit Website" and "Call Phone Number." While you can choose which buttons to add to your template, there are some restrictions:
- You can have a Call phone number and Visit Website buttons in your template
- You cannot have two call phone number buttons or two visit website buttons in your template
For the “Call” button, you choose the text you want to display and add a phone number. When your customer selects this button, they'll be given the option to call that number directly.
The "Visit Website" option works similarly, except that instead of making a call, it directs the person to a web page. If you look closely, the URL we added has a variable. Here, the first part of the URL must always be the same, but the second part can contain a variable. By adding a variable to the URL, you can send each person who receives this template to a different page.
Template approval process
The approval process can take up to 48 hours. This is because some templates are automatically approved using AI, while others are reviewed manually.
WhatsApp uses several criteria to approve or deny a template:
- For each template, you must provide examples of what will go into that template. If you say an image will be included in that template, you must provide a demo image. The same concept applies to all other variables you have, whether it's text or something like the variable in the URL.
- The template name is also relevant so that WhatsApp can understand what your template is about.
- Content plays the biggest role in the decision-making process. If you find that you have a rejected template, you can review the section below to see what you can do to resolve it.
Reasons why templates may be rejected
Below are some of the more common reasons why a template may be rejected during the approval process:
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Incorrect Category was selected
This is the most common reason why templates are rejected. Your templates have to fall into one of two categories: Utility or Marketing (leaving Authentication aside for now).
Typically, in these cases, you create a template with the utility category and then see that it is rejected. In this case, WhatsApp considers your template to have content related to marketing topics, which has an impact on your operating costs, as marketing templates are more expensive than Utility templates.
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Incorrect Format
There are a couple of details that WhatsApp regulates. For example, your templates can't end in a variable (but they can end with a variable and a period). Another is that you can't have consecutive variables, for example, "Hello {{1}}{{2}}."
If your template is too broad, it's likely to be rejected, as WhatsApp is not able to determine what it's being used for. These are templates like "Hello {{1}}." In this case, you just need to add a little more detail so WhatsApp understands what the template is designed for.
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Suspicious content
There are a couple of details that WhatsApp regulates. For example, your templates can't end in a variable (but they can end with a variable and a period). Another is that you can't have consecutive variables, for example, "Hello {{1}}{{2}}."
If your template is too broad, it's likely to be rejected, as WhatsApp is not able to determine what it's being used for. These are templates like "Hello {{1}}." In this case, you just need to add a little more detail so WhatsApp understands what the template is designed for.
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Products that go against terms and conditions
There are certain types of business that are more strictly regulated by WhatsApp. For example, political, government, or even medication. WhatsApp's terms and conditions lists product categories that are prohibited in content.
If your business is listed there, it means that you can't use WhatsApp to transact with these products. Pharmacies are an example here. Selling drugs of any kind is against the terms and conditions, so if you have marketing templates promoting these products, they'll likely be rejected. However, you can continue using the same WhatsApp account for support, order tracking, customer service, and more.
Tips for managing templates
Below are some tips to help you with template approval:
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Keep templates broad and use variables to give them context and personalization
For example, the invoice template below isn't reusable as it addresses something very specific:
Hello {{1}}, I'm writing to tell you that I have the May invoice (number 12345) ready!
Instead, we recommend turning the month and invoice number into variables so you can reuse the template for more than one invoice message:
Hello {{1}}, I'm writing to tell you that I have the invoice for {{2}} (number {{3}}) ready!
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Name each template clearly
The template name is one of the variables Meta uses to decide whether to approve or reject a template. It also helps you remember what the template is for when looking at them in your account, and helps you avoid duplicate names.
As a best practice, we recommend adding certain groupings at the beginning of the template based on what makes sense for your business. For example, you could divide it by language or area that uses the template. With that, an effective template name might be something like "is_support_reply_after_end"
Iterate on your templates
There are two primary reasons we recommend this approach: approval rates and conversion rates.
Let's first look at approval. Although WhatsApp doesn't make its method for approving or rejecting templates public, it's possible that your template won't be approved (in the category you want) the first time. Here, it's relatively easy to adjust the content in your template to align with your objective of increasing the approval rate. For example, if you have a template that mentions a promotion, discount, code, etc., WhatsApp will most likely classify it as marketing, even though the objective is actually transactional.
The second goal of iterating to increase conversion follows the same key concepts. Here, it's recommended to do two things to increase your conversion rate: think about the value you provide to your prospect, and the relevance of that value (and you can use UTMs in your templates to track it).
By relevance, we mean purchasing patterns. For example, if you have a business that sells products generally targeted at women, but you notice that you have male buyers, you can run campaigns before Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Christmas, etc., and focus the content of those templates on how great that product is as a gift. If your campaign is aimed at women, it's more likely that it will be for them in this hypothetical case, so it's worthwhile to highlight the benefits of your product in use.