How to create a template for WhatsApp

In this article, you will learn how to create templates to send WhatsApp campaigns to your customers using social channels.

Before you get started, you'll need to make sure you have:

• Connected your Sinch Engage and Whatsapp accounts.

How to create a WhatsApp message template

1. Go to Templates > Social templates.
You'll see the templates list where you can manage all of the templates in the account.

2. To start creating a new template, click the Create template button.
The Template details view opens.

 

3. Fill in the information regarding the template:

A)Template name - The name can contain alphanumeric characters (a-z in lowercase only, 0-9) and underscores (_). Spaces aren't allowed.
B)Template language - Select the languages of your template. You can select more than one.
C)Template category - Select the category to which your template belongs. Marketing, Utility or Authentication.

• Marketing templates are the most flexible – they aren't related to a specific, agreed-upon transaction. Instead, they may relate to the business and/or its products or services. These templates may include, for example:
  • Promotions or offers
  • Welcoming or closing messages
  • Updates, invitations, or recommendations
  • Requests to respond or complete a new transaction.
• Utility templates cover a specific, agreed-upon transaction. They either confirm, suspend, or change a transaction or subscription.
• 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 (for example, account verification, account recovery, or integrity challenges).

4. Click Next step. The Select pre-made template view opens.

5. If you want to:

Create a template from scratch, select the first template, which is empty.

Use a pre-made template, select the one you want to use of the other templates.

6. Click Next step.

7. In the header component it is possible to add a text, multimedia content or none as it is optional
The header is also a placeholder where you can insert an image, video or document when you send a message using this template:
In the Type field, select the type of the header:

A) Text: Enter the header text. The maximum length is 60 characters. You can also use one variable in a text header.

B) Image, video or document: Upload the file you want to use as the placeholder. Users can replace the media files when sending a message using this template.

C) None: No header is used in your template.

8. In the Text field, write the body text, mandatory, for the message template. The maximum length of the text is 1024 characters. You can also add variables, which are placeholders that users replace with customer-specific data when sending a message using this template.

9. In the footer component it is possible to add a text that contains additional information
The maximum length of the footer text is 60 characters.

10. Buttons are optional interactive components that perform specific actions when tapped.

A) Quick Reply: This allows the user to easily send a text message by clicking a button, such as “Yes”, “No”, or “Maybe”. You can add a maximum of three buttons. They can only contain text (numbers and letters), a maximum of 25 characters in each button.

B) Call To Action: This type of button contains a URL or a phone number and opens a website or the user's telephone app for calling when they click on the button.
You can use both static and dynamic URLs. A dynamic URL contains a variable and can therefore refer to different menu items within a website. The user must fill in this variable when sending the campaign. You can add a maximum of two buttons of different types.

11. If you want to add the template in several languages:

A) Click on Manage template tab at the top of the page to open a modal. 
B) Find the languages you want to add by typing or searching on the language list and click on the language to add it to the template.
C) Close the modal to see the added languages tabs. If more than 3 languages were added a See more tab will appear with the rest of the languages.
D) Click on the language tab. Templates in different languages ​​are individually verified by Meta.

12. To finish creating your template, you can either first save it as a draft and continue working on it later or submit it for Meta's approval right away:

A) To first save the template as draft to continue later: 

A1) Click the Save as draft button at the bottom right of the page.

A2) All languages will be saved as draft and a modal will appear with a button to Go to templates page or just close the modal to keep working on the draft templates.
You will see the templates saved as drafts in the Templates view. To continue editing a template, expand the template field and click the Edit option related to the template.

B) To submit the template to Meta for approval, click the Submit button. Note that you cannot edit the template after you submit it for approval and you need to submit each language individually. After Meta has reviewed and approved your template, its status changes to Approved and you can start using the template.

You can see the current status of the template in the Templates > Social templates list by expanding the details of each template:

	Reviewed and approved by Meta
	Waiting for Meta's review
	Rejected by Meta
	Saved as draft and not yet sent to Meta for review