7. Template guidelines

Templates

Templates are used in template messages to open marketing, utility, and authentication conversations with customers. Unlike free-form messages, template messages are the only type of message that can be sent to customers who have yet to message you, or who have not sent you a message in the last 24 hours.

Templates must be approved before they can be sent in template messages. In addition, templates may be disabled automatically based on customer feedback and engagement. Once disabled, a template cannot be sent in a template message until its quality rating has improved or it no longer violates our business or commerce policies.

Creation

Use the Business Management API to create templates. See Create and Manage Templates to learn how. Alternatively, you can use the WhatsApp Manager to manually create templates.

Approval Process

Once you have created your template you can submit it for approval. It can take up to 24 hours for an approval decision to be made. Once a decision has been made, a notification will appear in your WhatsApp Manager and we will send an email to your Business Manager admins. In addition, we will send a webhook notification if you are subscribed to message template status changes. See Monitoring Status Changes.

If your message template is approved, it's status will be set to Active - Quality pending and you can begin sending it to customers. If it is rejected, you can edit it and resubmit for approval, or appeal the decision.

Samples

If your template uses variables you must include sample variable values (media assets, text strings, etc.) with your submission. This makes it easier for us to visualize how your template will appear to customers.

To include a sample with your submission in the WhatsApp Manager, first create your template, adding any variables that it requires, then click the Add Sample button. The preview pane will render any sample media assets or sample text values you provide.

Template creation

If using our APIs to create templates, include the examples property for each template component object in your request that uses a variable.

Common Rejection Reasons

Submissions are commonly rejected for the following reasons, so make sure you avoid these mistakes.

• Variable parameters are missing or have mismatched curly braces. The correct format is {{1}}.

• Variable parameters contain special characters such as a #, $, or %.

• Variable parameters are not sequential. For example, {{1}}, {{2}}, {{4}}, {{5}} are defined but {{3}} does not exist.

• The message template contains content that violates WhatsApp’s Commerce Policy: When you offer goods or services for sale, we consider all messages and media related to your goods or services, including any descriptions, prices, fees, taxes and/or any required legal disclosures, to constitute transactions. Transactions must comply with the WhatsApp Commerce Policy.
• The message template contains content that violates the WhatsApps Business Policy: Do not request sensitive identifiers from users. For example, do not ask people to share full length individual payment card numbers, financial account numbers, National Identification numbers, or other sensitive identifiers. This also includes not requesting documents from users that might contain sensitive identifiers. Requesting partial identifiers (ex: last 4 digits of their Social Security number) is OK.
• The content contains potentially abusive or threatening content, such as threatening a customer with legal action or threatening to publicly shame them.

• The message template is a duplicate of an existing template. If a template is submitted with the same wording in the body and footer of an existing template, the duplicate template will be rejected.

A rejection notification that includes the rejection reason will appear in Business Support Home. You can view rejections in the Business Support Home by navigating to Account Overview > View my accounts (button) > (your Meta Business Account) > (your WABA) > Rejected message templates. Rejection info will also be sent via email.

You can refer to the Business Support Home notification to see the name and language of the existing template with the same content as the rejected duplicate template. You may also choose to edit the template and resubmit.

This check does not apply to templates categorized as AUTHENTICATION.

Editing

You can edit a template using the WhatsApp Manger or the Message Template endpoint. Note that if you edit a message template and resubmit it for approval, its status will be set to In Review and it can't be sent to customers until its status has been set to Active.

Sending Templates

Once a template has been approved (its status is set to ACTIVE) you may begin sending it to customers. To send a template using Cloud API, see Send Template Messages. To send a template using On-Premises API, see Sending Template Messages.

Note that a message template's status can change automatically from ACTIVE to PAUSED or DISABLED based on customer feedback and engagement. For this reason, we recommend that you monitor status changes and take appropriate actions whenever a message template that you rely upon becomes, or is in danger of becoming, paused or disabled.

Statuses

Templates can have the following statuses.

• In-Review: Indicates that the template is still under review. Review can take up to 24 hours.

• Rejected: The template has been rejected during our review process or violates one or more of our policies. See Appeals.
• Active - Quality pending: The message template has yet to receive quality feedback or read-rate information from customers. Message templates with this status can be sent to customers. See Quality Rating.
• Active - High Quality: The template has received little to no negative customer feedback. Message templates with this status can be sent to customers. See Quality Rating.
• Active - Medium Quality: The template has received negative feedback from multiple customers, or low read-rates, but may soon become paused or disabled. Message templates with this status can be sent to customers. See Quality Rating.
• Active - Low Quality: The template has received negative feedback from multiple customers, or low read-rates. Message templates with this status can be sent to customers but are in danger of being paused or disabled soon, so we recommend that you address the issues that customers are reporting. See Quality Rating.
• Paused: The template has been paused due to recurring negative feedback from customers, or low read-rates. Message templates with this status cannot be sent to customers. See Template Pausing.
• Disabled: The template has been disabled due to recurring negative feedback from customers. Message templates with this status cannot be sent to customers.

• Appeal Requested: Indicates that an appeal has been requested. See Appeals.

You can view a template's status by going to WhatsApp Manager > Overview, mousing over the suitcase icon (Account tools) and clicking Message templates. If you have multiple WhatsApp Business Accounts, select the account whose template statuses you want to view from the list of accounts in the dropdown menu in the top-right corner.