Templates and campaigns

A template is a message Meta has approved in advance. It is the only thing you can send to someone who has not written to you in the last 24 hours, such as an order update, an appointment reminder or a new-stock announcement.

Templates lists yours with their state: Draft, With Meta, Approved, Rejected, Paused by Meta or Disabled. Everyone can see them; owners, admins and managers write, send and delete them.

1. Press Write a template. Give it a name (lowercase, with underscores: order_ready), a category and a language (English, Kiswahili and six more).
2. Write the message. Put the parts that change in double braces: {{1}}, {{2}}, or names like {{first_name}}, with an example of each. Meta reads the examples when it reviews.
3. Add a header if you want one (Words, Picture, Video or Document) and buttons: Quick reply, Link, Call, Copy code or Form.
4. Save as draft, then Send to Meta from the list. Meta usually answers within a day, and the state changes by itself.

A marketing template can also be A limited-time offer, with a code to copy and an end time shown on the message, or A carousel of two to ten cards, each with a picture and buttons.

The category decides the price, and Meta checks it:

• Utility: something the customer is expecting about a thing they did, such as an order confirmed or ready, a delivery on its way, an appointment tomorrow, a receipt.
• Marketing: anything that promotes, such as offers, new stock, a sale, “we miss you”. The dearest kind.
• Authentication: one-time login codes. These are sent by your own systems through Sema’s Verify API, not from the inbox.

A utility template with anything promotional in it (“and 10% off your next order”) is marketing, and Meta will reject it or move it. Keep the two apart. What each costs is in what each message costs.

• Say who you are in the first line; the customer may not have your number saved.
• Do not start or end the message with a variable, and do not put two variables next to each other.
• Give a real example for every variable, the kind of value it will actually hold.
• In a utility template, only what the customer needs to know about their own order or appointment. No offers.
• In a marketing template, give people a way out: a Quick reply button such as “Stop promotions” is counted as an opt-out.
• For a hospital or clinic: say that something is ready or due, never what it is. “Your results are ready, please call us” is fine; a diagnosis, a result, a medicine or a clinic that names a condition is not, because a WhatsApp message is read on a lock screen by whoever holds the phone. A workspace set up as a hospital, clinic or pharmacy has its templates checked for those words.

Or start from one already written: the template library has order updates, reminders, fee notices, repayments and more, each in the right category. Use this template opens it in your workspace with its examples filled in, ready for your own words.

If Meta rejects a template, Sema shows why in plain words, on the Templates page and in a notice at the top of every page. Choose Edit on it to fix what Meta objected to and send it again.

An approved or paused template can be edited too. Meta reviews the change, and the template cannot be sent until it approves it. Meta allows an approved template one edit a day and ten in 30 days, and its category, name and language stay as they are. If Meta does not accept a change, the template goes back to exactly how it was, and the Templates page shows what Meta said.

Meta can also pause or disable an approved template when many people report or block it. It is then shown as Paused by Meta or Disabled. Campaigns using it stop; Sema tells you. A paused template usually comes back on its own after a few hours; a disabled one does not.

A campaign sends one template to many people. Owners, admins and managers create them in Campaigns → New campaign:

1. Name it, choose the number it goes Send from, and the approved Template.
2. Under Fill in, say what goes in each blank: the same words for everyone, or each person’s own name, from their contact.
3. Choose who receives it (below), check Before you send, and either send it now or Send later at a time in your time zone.

Track clicks turns every web address in the message into a short link of each person’s own, so you can see who opened it.

Marketing templates go through Meta’s Marketing Messages API, which Meta delivers better and which will be the only way for offers from 13 October 2027. An admin of your business on Facebook accepts its terms once: in WhatsApp Manager, Overview → Alerts → Accept terms, or from the email Meta sends every admin when you press Ask Meta to email them to your admins on Numbers. If you accept them while connecting your number, Sema knows at once. Numbers says whether it is done. Until it is, your offers still go out the old way. A marketing template can also say how long it is worth delivering, under Stop trying to deliver it after, so a weekend sale is not delivered on Tuesday.

To help more people read an offer, WhatsApp may adjust a marketing message for each person, for example touching up its picture or turning a line into a headline. All of these are allowed unless you turn them off, one by one, under Changes WhatsApp may make to it when you write the template. The reads and taps on the Templates page count every send, whichever way Meta delivered it.

Who receives it starts from Everyone who agreed, or from an audience you saved. Then narrow it:

• Only people who agreed to hear from us: on unless you turn it off. Leave it on for anything promotional.
• Limit to tags and Leave out tags.
• Last heard from: recently (7, 30 or 90 days), or not for a while.
• Custom field: a value in a field of your own, such as an estate or a class.

Save this audience as keeps it for next time. People who opted out are never included, whatever you choose.

Before you send shows Will reach, Will cost and Your balance, and the send button carries the price: Send to 240 for KES ….

A marketing template can say The most Meta may charge for one message, set when you create it. Meta then charges that or less for each message it delivers, and Sema adds its share of what Meta took. While a message is on its way your credit holds it at the most it could cost, and the difference comes back as soon as Meta says what it charged. Meta allows a maximum only on a template created with one.

The campaign’s page shows Sent, Delivered, Skipped and Failed as they happen, what it was estimated to cost against what was actually charged, Who was left out and why, and Clicks.

• Pause and Resume while it sends. Cancel stops it for good.
• A message that fails has its cost returned to your credit.
• Your number can start conversations with only so many people a day (its daily limit). People past it are skipped, marked “Daily limit for this number reached; try again tomorrow”, and not charged. See daily limits.

When people reply, their conversations arrive in the inbox like any other, with a fresh 24-hour window.

Not sure which of two messages works better? In New campaign, tick Test a second version first and choose:

• Version B: another template, or the same one with other words;
• how many people it is tested on, split evenly between the two versions;
• what Better means: more people read it, more tapped a button or link, or more replied;
• how many hours to wait before deciding;
• how many to hold back and send nothing on WhatsApp, to compare with a text message you send them yourself.

Start the test sends both versions. The test's page shows them side by side as they are read; when the time is up, the better one goes to everybody else as a campaign of its own. You can send either version to the rest sooner, or stop the test. Each version needs at least 25 people, or the difference between them says nothing.

The page also shows the orders each group placed in the 14 days after, the held-back group too: orders your shop reports to Sema, and M-Pesa payments in a chat. The numbers held back can be downloaded, to send your SMS to.

On Templates, each template shows its last 30 days: how many were sent, how many of the people it reached read it, and the taps on its buttons. How it is doing opens its own page, for the last 7, 30 or 90 days:

• sent, delivered, read and failed, day by day, and what you were charged for it;
• the quick replies people tapped;
• taps on every button, links included, once an owner or admin presses Turn on taps from WhatsApp. WhatsApp counts these, not Sema. Meta does not let it be turned off again, and may use the figures, without your customers’ details, to improve its own services. Sema keeps them after WhatsApp’s 90 days;
• why people block it, in Meta’s words, once it and another of your templates have each gone out 1,000 times in 30 days, with what to do about it;
• its quality over time, with what Meta said when it changed.

A new template’s first ten days are when blocks and reports count most with Meta. Its page says which day it is on and how often it is read against your other templates, and you are told if Meta lowers its quality.