WhatsApp updates

WhatsApp allows users to set preferences for marketing messages

Starting November 22, 2024, WhatsApp will begin gradually rolling out user preferences for marketing messages. This feature may not be available to WhatsApp users in some regions initially.

WhatsApp provides a setting (Offers and announcements) that allows users to stop or resume delivery of marketing template messages from your business, or to indicate their interest level in these types of messages.

Stop/Resume controls

WhatsApp users can use the Offers and announcements setting to stop or resume delivery of marketing template messages from your business.

If you attempt to send a marketing template to a WhatsApp user who has stopped marketing template messages from your business, the API will process the request but not send the message. Instead, the API will trigger a messages webhook with:

status set to failed,

code set to 131050,

title set to Unable to deliver the message. This recipient has chosen to stop receiving marketing messages on WhatsApp from your business

To be notified whenever a WhatsApp user stops or resumes delivery of marketing template messages from your business, subscribe to the user_preferences webhook.

Interested/Not Interested feedback

WhatsApp users can use the Offers and announcements setting to indicate how interested they are in receiving marketing template messages from your business.If a user chooses Not interested, it can affect per-user marketing template messaging limits between you and the user.

Include read rates as an indicator for account assessment

To best connect with your customers, all messages should be relevant and expected.

Beginning Nov 22, we are expanding the existing account-level quality enforcements to take action on accounts with extremely low read rates. Businesses will be provided with the existing business experience to unblock messaging if/when enforced. This change will be rolled out globally across all API accounts.

Rules

When an account read rate drops significantly (extremely low read rates) - where the majority of messages sent by the account are unread, enforcement in the form of messaging blocks begins on the account, with an increase in severity if consistently low read rates at scale are observed.

If the WABA read rate is extremely low:

• Businesses (WABA) will be blocked from sending business-initiated messages. They can still respond to customer-initiated messages. This first soft account lock may be acknowledged by clicking on the acknowledge button in Account Quality to begin messaging again.

• If read rate continues to drop or remains low after the soft lock, businesses may face a gradual increase in enforcement actions (few days of messaging restrictions).

• Businesses will have to wait for the enforced-upon limit to begin messaging again. If read rate continues to remain low after repeat soft locks, the account will eventually be offboarded.

How to stay updated on these warnings and enforcements:

For real-time updates, businesses should subscribe to the account_update webhook if they have not already. Similar to existing platform enforcement , businesses will be notified about these actions and have the ability to acknowledge using the Account quality page in Business Manager. Please ensure you have the correct details listed as Admin in Business manager so you do not miss these notifications.

Notifications about severe spam violations will be:

• Surfaced in the Business Manager Notifications Center
• Sent as an email to all admins set in Business Manager
• Sent as a webhook notification to those subscribed to the account_update webhook

Updates to customizable message validity periods

WhatsApp continues to invest to improve consumer experiences and business outcomes. For utility and authentication, WhatsApp is updating the range for customizable message validity periods (aka time-to-live or TTL) to provide businesses more control and flexibility, to ensure these messages are always timely and relevant for users.

• Utility: From 30 seconds to 12 hours, for businesses on Cloud API
• Authentication: From 30 seconds to 15 minutes, for businesses on Cloud API or On-Premises API