Skip to content

Creating a WhatsApp message

WhatsApp campaigns are great for directly reaching and programmatically conversing with your customers. You can use Liquid and other dynamic content to create a personal experience with your users and create an environment that fosters and enhances an unobtrusive user experience with your brand.

Prerequisites

To create a WhatsApp message and leverage the Whatsapp channel, you must first read through the WhatsApp overview and do the following:

  • Acknowledge policies, limits, and content rules
  • Set up your WhatsApp connection
  • Build out initial templates in Meta to use in your messages

Step 1: Choose where to build your message

WhatsApp creates different message templates for each language. Either create a campaign for each language with segmentation to serve the correct template to users, or use Canvas.

Not sure whether your message should be sent using a campaign or a Canvas? Campaigns are better for single, simple messaging campaigns, while Canvases are better for multi-step user journeys.

Steps:

  1. Go to the Campaigns page and click Create Campaign.
  2. Select WhatsApp, or, for campaigns targeting multiple channels, select Multichannel Campaign.
  3. Name your campaign something clear and meaningful.
  4. Add Teams and Tags as needed.
    • Tags make your campaigns easier to find and build reports out of. For example, when using the Report Builder, you can filter by particular tags.
  5. Add and name as many variants as you need for your campaign. You can choose different platforms, message types, and layouts for each of your added variants. For more on this topic, refer to Multivariate and A/B testing.

Steps:

  1. Create your Canvas using the Canvas wizard.
  2. After you’ve set up your Canvas, add a step in the Canvas builder. Name your step something clear and meaningful.
  3. Choose a step schedule and specify a delay as needed.
  4. Filter your audience for this step as necessary. You can further refine the recipients of this step by specifying segments and adding additional filters. Audience options will be checked after the delay at the time messages are sent.
  5. Choose your advancement behavior.
  6. Choose any other messaging channels you want to pair with your message.

Step 2: Compose your WhatsApp message

To compose your message, select an approved WhatsApp template.

If you added variables while creating the WhatsApp template in the Meta Business Manager, those variables will show up as blank spaces in the message composer. Replace these blank spaces with Liquid. If you opted to include images when building your template, upload or add images from the media library.

Note that disabled text fields (highlighted gray) cannot be edited as they are part of the approved WhatsApp template. If you would like to make updates to the disabled text, you must edit your template and get it reapproved.

Step 3: Preview and test your message

Braze always recommends previewing and testing your message before sending it. Switch to the Test tab to send a test WhatsApp message to content test groups or individual users, or preview the message as a user directly in Braze.

Step 4: Build the remainder of your campaign or Canvas

Next, build the remainder of your campaign. See the following sections for further details on how to best utilize our tools to build WhatsApp messages.

Choose a delivery schedule or trigger

WhatsApp messages can be delivered based on a scheduled time, an action, or based on an API trigger. For more, refer to Scheduling your campaign.

For action-based delivery, you can also set the campaign’s duration and Quiet Hours.

This step is also where you can specify delivery controls, such as allowing users to become re-eligible to receive the campaign, or enabling frequency capping rules.

Choose users to target

Next, you need to target users by choosing segments or filters to narrow down your audience. You should have already chosen the Subscription Group, which narrows users by the level or category of communication they wish to have with you. In this step, you will select the larger audience from your segments and narrow that segment further with our filters. You’ll automatically be given a snapshot of what that approximate segment population looks like right now. Remember that exact segment membership is always calculated just before the message is sent.

Choose conversion events

Braze allows you to track how often users perform specific actions, conversion events, after receiving a campaign. You can allow up to a 30-day window during which a conversion will be counted if the user takes the specified action.

You can also set custom conversion events based on your specific use case. Get creative and think about how you truly want to measure this campaign’s success.

If you haven’t done so already, complete the remaining sections of your Canvas component. For further details on how build out the rest of your Canvas, implement multivariate testing and Intelligent Selection, and more, refer to the Build your Canvas step of our Canvas documentation.

Step 5: Review and deploy

After you’ve finished building the last of your campaign or Canvas, review its details, test it, then send it!

Next, check out WhatsApp reporting to learn how you can access the results of your WhatsApp campaigns.

  Edit this page on GitHub
WAS THIS PAGE HELPFUL?
New Stuff!