Imagine having the ability to create and design a message once and use it countless times, all while maintaining the personalized touch that your contacts appreciate. That's the power of a WhatsApp template!

Create and submit your WhatsApp template to Meta for approval in advance to ensure it will be ready when you need to use it for your automations or launch a WhatsApp campaign.

❓ What is the difference between a WhatsApp template and a WhatsApp campaign?

A WhatsApp template is a pre-approved and reusable WhatsApp message that you create ahead of time and simplifies your communication workflow. Instead of creating a new message from scratch each time, you can use one message template to use for your WhatsApp campaigns or automations. For example, WhatsApp templates can be used to send welcome, birthday, or feedback messages, but also one-time, impactful communications such as exclusive Black Friday offers or exciting Summer sales.

WhatsApp templates can be personalized with variables that automatically adapt to your contacts' attributes such as their first name, email address, or birthday.

A WhatsApp campaign is the process of sending out a WhatsApp template to a group of recipients. You decide who receives your WhatsApp template, when they receive it, and from which phone number it should be sent.

When you create a WhatsApp campaign from Brevo and choose to create the message content from scratch, it is automatically transformed into a WhatsApp template to allow you to easily reuse it for your future communications. To prevent any spamming of contacts and ensure high-quality communication, WhatsApp templates require approval from Meta.

Before you start

Make sure you've already linked your WhatsApp Business account to Brevo. To learn more, check our dedicated article Link your WhatsApp Business account to Brevo .
To be able to send your WhatsApp campaigns without the daily sending limit, make sure your WhatsApp Business account has been verified. To learn more, check our dedicated article Get your WhatsApp Business account verified.
To learn the best practices to create WhatsApp messages, check our dedicated article Best practices for WhatsApp messages .

📄 Create a WhatsApp template

🛠️ Step 1: Set up your WhatsApp template settings

In your Brevo account, go to Campaigns > Templates > WhatsApp.
Click Create a template.
Choose a name for your template (up to 60 characters). This name will only be visible to you, not to your recipients. It will help you easily spot your template in Campaigns > Templates > WhatsApp.
Choose the type of content for this template. You can either choose:
- Marketing template type that includes promotional offers, product announcements, or other advertisements that increase awareness and engagement.
- Utility template type that includes important information such as account updates, order updates, alerts, or any other important information based on an action that the contact performed.
Select the language in which you are going to write your template message. This setting can be changed later if necessary.

💡 Good to know
We currently support more than 60 languages.
In the WhatsApp Business account drop-down, select the WhatsApp phone number under your WhatsApp Business account that should be used to submit the WhatsApp template for approval.
Once your WhatsApp template is approved by Meta, only this phone number will be authorized to send this WhatsApp template.
Click Start.

🧑‍🎨 Step 2: Design your WhatsApp template in the editor

This step requires the most work and creativity but has the biggest payoff: this is where you design your WhatsApp template content.

You will be able to add:

a Header (Optional)
a Body
Buttons (Optional)

Once you are done with your WhatsApp template design, click Save at the top-right of the editor.

Header (Optional)

Toggle the Header option to provide additional information to your contacts.

Your header can either be:

Up to 45 characters.

❗️ Important

New lines, formatting characters, emojis, and asterisks are not allowed in the header.

Insert variables to go further in the personalization of your text and replace them with your contacts' attributes when sending the campaign. Click 👤 and, from the Insert a variable pop-up window, choose the attribute you want to use in the Contact attribute drop-down list. In the Value if empty field, enter a default value to insert if your contact's attribute is empty and click Save. For example, if the FIRSTNAME attribute of one of your contacts is Patrick, the FIRSTNAME placeholder will be replaced by Patrick.

❗️ Important

Ensure that the maximum number of characters is not exceeded once the variable is replaced by your contact's attributes. If your text header exceeds 60 characters, your campaign won't be sent. We suggest you use short header text to avoid any campaign sending failures.

Supported formats are:

Images: JPG, JPEG, PNG (5MB)
Documents: PDF (100MB)
Video: MP4 (16MB)

Body

Add text to the body of your message (up to 1,024 characters) and personalize it by using emojis or bold, italics, strikethrough formatting, and variables.

❗️ Important

To prevent your WhatsApp campaign from being rejected:
- Never add variable parameters at the beginning or end of your body text,
- Never use only variables in the body,
- Never put two variables next to each other, or
- Never Insert a variable that contains special characters such as #, $, or %.

Buttons (Optional)

Toggle the Buttons option to add up to 3 quick replies options or 2 call-to-action buttons to your WhatsApp message.

❗️ Important

You can only add one type of button per message. For example, if you already added quick reply options to your WhatsApp message, you won't be able to add call-to-action buttons.

Click + Add button to add a:

Marketing opt-out reply. This button offers recipients a quick and easy way to unsubscribe from your WhatsApp messages. Once your recipient clicks the button, they are automatically blocklisted from your WhatsApp sending list. We recommend adding the marketing opt-out button to avoid being blocked by your recipients and increase your quality rating.
In the Footer text field, you can enter clear unsubscribe instructions to guide your recipients. Then, in the Button text field, enter a sentence that clearly lets your recipients know they will unsubscribe by clicking this button, such as Stop promotions.
Custom reply. Custom replies are useful to give recipients a quick and easy way to answer your message by clicking predefined answers. For example, you could ask your recipients to Confirm or Cancel an appointment thanks to custom reply buttons. In the Button text field, enter the possible answers you want to propose to your recipients.

💡 Good to know

You can add up to one marketing opt-out button and two custom replies simultaneously.

❗️ Important

If you add call-to-actions, we recommend adding clear unsubscribe instructions containing the keyword STOP to your body text.

Click + Add button to add a:

Link. Enter the text that contains the link in the Button text field, and then enter the URL.

❗️ Important
Make sure you include a valid URL. A valid URL is a full URL with a domain that belongs to your business and starts with HTTP(S). For example, a valid URL would be https://www.yourdomain.com/en/product/white-shirt. Never use short links (bit.ly, tinyurl, etc.), or direct links to WhatsApp (wa.me) because they are known to obscure the intended link destination.
Call number. Enter the text that contains the phone number in the Button text field and then enter the Phone number.

❗️ Important

You can add only one type of call-to-action button at a time. For example, you cannot insert two links.

✅ Step 3: Submit your message for approval

Now that you have designed your WhatsApp template, you need to submit it for approval to WhatsApp. This step is mandatory. WhatsApp reviews all new messages to make sure they comply with WhatsApp Commerce Policy and Business Policy. To submit your message for approval, click Submit for approval.

Most of the time, it will only take a few minutes for WhatsApp AI to approve your message. However, in some cases, WhatsApp will need to manually review your message before approving or rejecting it. This manual review can take up to 24 hours.

Once your message is approved by WhatsApp, you'll receive a notification in Brevo, as well as an email. Your WhatsApp template will appear as Approved in Campaigns > Templates > WhatsApp.

What happens if my message is rejected by Meta?

If your message is rejected by Meta, your message will appear as Rejected in Campaigns > Templates > WhatsApp. You will receive a notification in Brevo, as well as an email. The reason for the rejection of your WhatsApp template will be stated there.

Taking into account that reason, you'll need to edit your template and submit it for approval again.

❗️ Important

Only WhatsApp templates with the Draft status can be edited. To learn how to edit the content of your rejected WhatsApp template, check our dedicated section Edit a WhatsApp template.

🚀 Step 4: Send your WhatsApp template

Once your WhatsApp template has been approved by Meta, you can use it to send WhatsApp campaigns or create automations. To learn more, check our dedicated articles Create a WhatsApp campaign and Send WhatsApp messages through an automation workflow.

🗂️ Manage your WhatsApp templates

All your WhatsApp templates can be found in Campaigns > Templates > WhatsApp. From there you can find the desired WhatsApp templates using the search bar or Status drop-down filter.

❗️ Important

Be careful not to mistake the status of your WhatsApp templates with the status of your WhatsApp campaignss. To learn more about the different statuses of WhatsApp campaigns, check our dedicated article Analyze the statistics of your WhatsApp campaigns.

Depending on the status of your WhatsApp template, you can only perform certain actions:

Status and description	Edit	Duplicate	Delete
✅ Approved The template has been approved by Meta and can be used in automations or to send WhatsApp campaigns.	❌	✅	✅
🙅 Rejected The template has been rejected by Meta because it didn't follow their guidelines. Duplicate, edit, and submit it for approval to Meta again.	❌	✅	✅
⌛️Pending The template has been submitted for approval to Meta and is pending validation. Once approved, you will be able to use it in automations or to send WhatsApp campaigns. If it is rejected, you have to duplicate, edit, and submit it for approval to Meta again.	❌	✅	❌
📝 Draft The template is currently being designed. You can edit its settings and content at any time.	✅	✅	✅
⏸️ Paused The template has been paused by Meta because it returned too much negative feedback from your recipients. It will resume after a pause period defined by Meta. To learn more, check our dedicated article My WhatsApp campaign has been paused.	❌	✅	✅

❗️ Important

Only WhatsApp templates with the Draft status can be edited. To learn how to edit the content of WhatsApp templates with other statuses, check our dedicated section Edit a WhatsApp template.

You cannot delete a WhatsApp template that is currently being used in an automation, or WhatsApp campaign.

✍️ Edit a WhatsApp template

Only WhatsApp templates with the Draft status can be edited. To edit the content of WhatsApp templates with other statuses:

Go to Campaigns > Templates > WhatsApp.
Duplicate the template.
The duplicated template appears at the top of your template list with a _copy tag at the end of its name.
Click the three-dot icon > Edit.
Edit your WhatsApp template in the editor.
Once your WhatsApp template is ready, click Save then Submit for approval.

You will be able to use your WhatsApp template once it has been approved by Meta. To learn more, check the dedicated section Submit your message for approval.

⏭️ What's next?

🤔 Have a question?

If you have a question, feel free to contact our support team by creating a ticket from your account. If you don't have an account yet, you can contact us here.

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