Connect Marketing Cloud & WhatsApp for Customer Journeys

For those used to using Journey Builder to create triggered customer journeys, you’d be forgiven for assuming the process for WhatsApp is similar to sending email and SMS.

There’s a typical assumption that you can create a Data Extension from your contact data, add a phone number in a dedicated field, and include it in your journey. The WhatsApp activity is visible in Journey Builder, so ‘boom’, you have everything you need to start chatting with potential customers, right?

Unfortunately, it’s not that straightforward.

Moreover, there are considerations for using WhatsApp within marketing journeys. This guide will take you through the steps you need to send outbound WhatsApp messages from Marketing Cloud.

Before we begin, it’s worth noting that WhatsApp will assign you a quality score between 0 and 5, based on messages sent in the past seven days. The higher the quality score, the more WhatsApp messages you can send. In the beginning, you’ll be limited to Tier 1: 1000 business-initiated conversations.

First things first, you’ll need a WhatsApp Business account that is integrated with Marketing Cloud Engagement. This ensures that all your outbound messages are branded and that recipients know the communication is coming from a legitimate business.

You can set up an API integration between Marketing Cloud Engagement and Meta by creating your WhatsApp Business account using a Meta Business Manager and following all steps to verify yourself as the owner. 

Once your account is created, within Meta you can configure your ‘channels’ - one for each brand you want to communicate via WhatsApp. As part of this, you will specify the number you will be using for your communications, plus how your account will appear to your end user. 

It is possible to configure multiple numbers for WhatsApp sends in Marketing Cloud, although these will appear as separate channels in Journey Builder.

To create a business-initiated chat message, you need to have your message template approved as being compliant by WhatsApp (Meta). You can do this by:

• Going to the WhatsApp tab in Mobile Studio and selecting ‘Message Templates’

• Choosing a ‘Name’ and ‘Category’ for your message template

• Adding the design and content of your message

• Submitting your message for approval

A single message template can be used across multiple WhatsApp channels.

Approvals usually arrive fairly quickly, but allow a couple of days for this process to complete. Once a WhatsApp message template is approved it will exist in the ‘Content Builder’ part of Marketing Cloud Engagement. 

Side note: After a template is approved, you can no longer edit it. To make changes, you will need to create and submit a new message template for approval.

Creating a Data Extension for WhatsApp is different from what you’ll be used to when using Data Extensions for email campaigns. 

With email, you need a Subscriber Key and a valid email address. For WhatsApp, you need a Subscriber Key, Phone, and Locale field. 

• Subscriber Key is the field that identifies the record within Marketing Cloud

• Phone contains the contact's phone number in the correct format

• Locale determines which locality the phone number is valid for. 

Simple enough, right? Well, no, there are a few gotchas that you need to be aware of:

• Make sure the phone number is in the correct format. The correct format uses only numbers and no prefixed zeros. Example 1: +1 202 555 1234 becomes 12025551234. Example 2: 00447901123445 becomes 447901123445

• The Phone field must have the data type ‘Phone’ and the Locale must have the data type ‘Locale’. This is so Marketing Cloud Engagement understands how to process the data correctly.

The Locale field must be valid for use within WhatsApp. A big gotcha is that the Locale list for WhatsApp is different from SMS, so if you intend to reuse a Data Extension configured for an SMS send, you will likely get an error. See the Salesforce help documentation for a full list of valid locales.

You can't send WhatsApp messages to any Data Extension and expect to be successful. WhatsApp requires that you explicitly opt-in records before you send. 

The way Marketing Cloud enforces this is that you have to explicitly opt-in an audience via a data import definition that adds contacts to an opt-in list. The opt-in list works separately from your Data Extension and will act as an exclusion/inclusion overlay at the point of send. 

For those familiar with the ‘All Subscribers’ list for email sends, the WhatsApp opt-in list works similarly, but crucially when you configure the data import definition you must select 'Chat Messaging: Create import definition for chat subscribers' as your import type, then select ‘WhatsApp’ as the Chat Messaging App and also select the relevant channel (WhatsApp number). 

You also have three options for sourcing your data to build these audiences:

• a file from your local machine (not recommended)

• a file from your Marketing Cloud Engagement FTP store

• an existing Data Extension. 

Which source you use depends on your business use case, however, if you are familiar with Data Extensions and have Marketing Cloud Connect setup, the simplest option is to use an existing Data Extension.

Once you have configured your import, you will be asked to agree to the opt-in certification policy. Before proceeding, make yourself familiar with the policy and ask yourself if you have the correct permission to send to all the records in the list import. Non-compliance in this area can quickly lead to a bad reputation with Meta and may lead to a diminished service and larger compliance issues.

Lastly, you will be asked to map your import fields to the relevant fields. The three fields that are required are:

• _MobileNumber

• _ContactKey

• _Locale. 

You can map other fields, such as first and last name, which may be useful for personalisation (although you can also use Data Extension fields).

Once created, an import definition can be run at any time - you can even run it via Automation Studio to keep your lists up to date.

With the integration and configuration sorted, being able to use WhatsApp in Journey Builder is easy and incredibly powerful. When designing your journey, simply drag and drop the ‘WhatsApp’ activity onto your canvas.

Due to some restrictions on usage and how Marketing Cloud Engagement works with the WhatsApp API, you will want to make choices in the design phase that will help you build useful and maintainable journeys. 

Some tips:

• Carefully consider the value of sending a WhatsApp message. For example, email is considered the lowest cost channel for reaching your audience, yet if you work in a region where people engage more readily with WhatsApp then the value equation could make sense.

• Most WhatsApp Analytics aren't generated in real-time, so you will not get too much instant feedback. While we can listen for specific replies, such as REGISTER or STOP, handling open responses is not possible in real-time. You will get general performance analytics via the WhatsApp Intelligence dashboard in Journey Builder after the journey has been running for a while, but more granular data requires configuring a data export. At MarCloud, we have implemented some nice solutions for making this data more accessible, but there is no way around the fact that you will need to wait up to 24 hours for detailed feedback from your WhatsApp interactions.

• You can combine outbound messages with a follow-on chat session. These are controlled using the ‘Wait for Chat Response’ decision step in Journey Builder.

• Due to anti-spam restrictions on the Meta API, you should keep your first few sends below 500 in a 24-hour period. You should also be looking to send to your more responsive contacts as positive engagement will help raise your limits quickly and avoid reputation damage. 

All WhatsApp communications from Marketing Cloud Engagement use ‘Super Messages’, which are the way Salesforce enforces a quota on various activities. 

WhatsApp message sends vary in terms of Super Message costs from region to region and based on whether the message is outbound or a chat session message. 

Predicting Super Message usage can be a complex task and requires a good understanding of the charging mechanism and predicted business needs. MarCloud can help you make most of your quota and help you plan your growth and avoid any unanticipated licence costs.

If you’d like support with your Marketing Cloud WhatsApp integration or customer journey setup, send us a message. We’ll save you the learning curve and ensure everything is configured in line with best practices.