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Template Approval Issues

Neelke Stadler Updated by Neelke Stadler

Template Approval Issues

If you are struggling to get your message templates approved, we want to help you troubleshoot so you can move forward.

Common Rejection Reasons

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

Parameter Formatting
  • 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.
  • Template contains too many variable parameters relative to the message length. You need to decrease the number of variable parameters or increase the message length.
  • The message template cannot start or end with a parameter i.e. dangling parameters are not allowed.
Content and Policy Violations
Templates may be paused or disabled automatically based on customer feedback, engagement, or for violations of our business or commerce policies.
  • 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.
Character Limits and Text Format

The body component will have different character limits depending on the format and tag of the template. The number of emojis allowed in the body component may also be limited.

Duplication
  • 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.

Rejection Notification

On turn.io, your template will be tagged as Reject. But 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.

What you can do

We don't have all the answers but here are the lessons we've learnt to date:

Personalise it

WhatsApp prefers differentiated messaging. That means messages that do not look like the exact same copy was sent to multiple people in a broadcast or a bulk send. Why don't they like that? Because that treats everyone the same regardless of their past interactions (or perhaps even no interaction). And that's not what WhatsApp is designed for.

When you personalise a message it doesn't mean adding the user's name to it, it means personalising it based on the user's past interaction.

To add personalisation to templates you use placeholder variables like {{1}}, {{2}} etc. and then populate those placeholder when you send it. Learn more about that here.

Refer to previous engagements

It's exactly what we said under personalisation, but we want to highlight it again. It's your key to success.

WhatsApp is happy that you initiate conversation to re-engage users. But re-engagement isn't about reaching out to a disinterested user - that's called bugging the user. Real re-engagement means you've had a previous conversation and there is value for the user if the engagement continues, e.g. they will get a question answered or an issue resolved.

Try wording like:

  • "We have been chatting with you for about {{1}}..."
  • "You asked us about {{1}} and we now have the answer: {{2}}"
  • "Hi {{1}}. Thanks for reaching out to us! What would you like to know about {{2}}?"
Try and try again

There's no particular consequence of getting a template rejected so try and if it fails, tweak it and try again.

There is normally a quick response as it's generally by Machine Learning, with occasional templates taking a few days which are presumably escalated for human review.

It's all about quality

The biggest quality factor is whether users block your number as a result of the message.

Examples of approved vs. rejected templates

(Spoiler alert - we're sharing the key takeouts before we share the examples)

Our key takeouts from these two examples:

  • Refer to previous times the user reached out to you

The templates in Example 1 that included the copy"We haven't heard from you in a while" got rejected. As did the template in Example 2 that said "we tried calling you a few times".

These could be interpreted as the service bugging a disinterested user. But when the template refers to a previous engagement it gets approved.

In Example 1 the template saying "We've been chatting to you for about {{1}}..." got approved. In Example 2 when it was rephrased to refer to a specific date and time a request was made it got approved.

  • Don't refer to periodic updates

In Example 1 the message that got approved doesn't refer to "this week we have new information". Referring to a periodic update makes it look like a subscription-styled message. WhatsApp does not endorse subscriptions.

Some clients have subscription type templates approved, but WhatsApp certainly got more strict regarding it.

Okay that's the key takeouts, here are the actual examples😆.

Example 1

The four templates below were all submitted but only one of them got approved.

Template submitted

Outcome

Hello, we haven't heard from you in a while! We have some new information available on {{1}}. Do you want to learn more? Reply with 'info' to get more updates.

REJECTED

Hello {{1}}, we haven't heard from you in a while! We have some new information available on {{2}}. Reply with 'info' to get more updates.

Added more personalisation but still got REJECTED

Hello! We have been chatting with you for about {{1}}. We have some new information and messages available. Want to find out what they are? Reply with 'new info' to find out more.

APPROVED

Hello {{1}}, did you enjoy learning about {{2}} last week? This week we have some information for you about {{3}}! Reply with "9" to review last week's information. Reply with "info" to find out more about this week's topic.

Another option that was also REJECTED

Example 2

Rephrasing it to refer to a specific request.

We know it's a lot to consider, but it really is for the benefit of your users. Don't lose heart 💛!

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