Introduction
WhatsApp Business provides businesses with the ability to communicate with their customers through the Spur dashboard. To ensure that these conversations are effective and efficient, WhatsApp Business has established guidelines for the types of messages that businesses can send to customers. These guidelines include the use of specific templates for different types of messages.
Utility Templates
Utility templates are pre-approved message templates that you can use to confirm, suspend, or change a specific transaction or subscription. They are meant to be functional rather than promotional, so any template that contains both marketing and utility content will be classified as a marketing template instead.
Here are some examples of the types of messages that would fall under the utility template category:
Message Objective | Business Goal | Example Templates |
Opt-In Management on WhatsApp | Confirm opt-in for receiving messages on WhatsApp as a follow-up to opt-in collected via other channels (e.g., website, email). Also confirm opt-out. |
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Order Management | Confirm, update, or cancel an order or transaction with a customer using specific order or transaction details in the body of your message. |
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Account Alerts or Updates | Send important account updates, including time-sensitive alerts, safety information, payment reminders, and other information relevant to already-purchased or subscribed products and services. These messages should not intend to upsell or cross-sell new products or services. |
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Feedback Surveys | Collect feedback on previous orders, interactions or ongoing relationships with customers. These messages should not be about requesting feedback related to potential upsell or cross-sell opportunities. |
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Continue a Conversation on WhatsApp | Send a message to start an interaction on WhatsApp that began in another channel. These messages should not be initiated without a user having requested the conversation to be moved to WhatsApp. |
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Note: Examples are illustrative only, templates containing similar content or content including this example text may be categorized differently based on their exact content.
Marketing Templates
Marketing templates are our most flexible – they do not relate to a specific, agreed-upon transaction and instead may relate to the business and/or its products/services. These templates may include promotions or offers; welcoming / closing messages; updates, invitations or recommendations; or requests to respond or complete a new transaction.
Any template that has a mix of utility and marketing content will be classified as a marketing template.
Here are some examples of the types of messages that would fall under the marketing template category:
Message Objective | Business Goal | Example Templates |
Awareness | Generate awareness of your business, products, or services among customers who have subscribed to receive messages from your business on WhatsApp. |
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Sales | Send general promotional offers to customers related to sales events, coupons or other content intended to drive sales. |
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Retargeting | Promote relevant offers or other call-to-actions to customers who may have visited your website, used your app, or engaged with your products and services. |
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App Promotion | Request customers to install or take a specific action with your app. |
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Build Customer Relationships | Strengthen customer relationships through personalized messages or by prompting new conversations. |
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Authentication templates
Authentication templates enable businesses to authenticate users with one-time passcodes (usually 4-8 digit alphanumeric codes), potentially at multiple steps in the login process (e.g., account verification, account recovery, integrity challenges).
Authentication templates are our most restricted. For a template to be classified as authentication, a business must:
Use WhatsApp’s preset authentication message templates, which include optional add-ons like security disclaimers and expiry warnings
Configure a one-time password button (copy-code or one-tap)
Follow content restrictions: URLs, media, and emojis are not allowed for authentication template content or parameters. Additional length restrictions of 15 characters also apply to parameters.
Definition | Examples |
Authentication code |
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Guidelines by Meta
For more details- Please refer to our Updates to Template Category Guidelines PDF for additional detail.
Note: Examples are illustrative only, templates containing similar content or content including this example text may be categorized differently based on their exact content.