WhatsApp Marketing

Customers in India read WhatsApp far more reliably than email or promotional SMS, which is why it can drive real revenue, and why misuse is punished quickly. Recipients can block or report a business in two taps, those signals feed the quality rating behind every message, and per-user limits withhold marketing from people who ignore it. A business that treats WhatsApp as a free blast channel ends up paying for deliveries that do not convert and losing reach; one that treats it as a consented, relevant conversation earns replies and repeat orders it can measure.

1. 1

   Grow a consented list

   Collect opt-in at checkout, sign-up, in-store QR codes and website widgets, saying clearly what you will send. Store when, where and for what each person opted in.

2. 2

   Open conversations with entry points

   Click-to-WhatsApp ads, Status ads, QR codes and chat buttons let customers message you first. Each chat opens a 24-hour window for free-form help and a natural moment to ask for marketing consent.

3. 3

   Plan campaigns by segment

   Choose the audience before the message, write a marketing template for it, get it approved and send it as a broadcast, through the standard Cloud API or the Marketing Messages API for WhatsApp, which adds Meta's delivery optimisation.

4. 4

   Automate the moments that matter

   Trigger messages from behaviour such as abandoned carts, deliveries and inactivity, and keep one frequency cap across automation and campaigns so they never pile up on the same person.

5. 5

   Measure, then prune

   Report delivered, read, clicked, replied and converted per campaign, watch blocks and quality, and stop sending to segments that never respond.

Messaging someone first

Opt-in and an approved template required

Marketing rate (India)

₹0.94 per delivered marketing template

Billing model

Per delivered message, by category (since 1 July 2025)

Chats started from ads

72-hour free entry point window if you reply within 24 hours

Per-user marketing limit

Caps marketing per person across businesses (error 131049)

Marketing to +1 US numbers

Not delivered

Default throughput

Up to 80 messages per second per number

• Buying or scraping a list

  Messaging people who never opted in breaks WhatsApp's policies and draws blocks that lower quality and can restrict the account. Grow the list yourself, through entry points that record consent.

• Treating WhatsApp as a free channel

  Every delivered template is billed by category, and service replies have been charged in India at ₹0.145 since 1 October 2026. Budget per delivered message, not per campaign.

• Hiding promotions in utility templates

  Meta reviews and re-checks template categories; promotional content submitted as utility is approved as marketing or recategorised. Write marketing as marketing.

• Sending everything to everyone

  Whole-list blasts collect blocks and hit per-user marketing limits, so a share of the list never receives the message. Segment, cap frequency and drop people who never engage.

• Measuring only sends and reads

  High read rates feel like success but pay no bills. Track clicks, replies, orders and blocks per campaign, and compare cost per conversion with other channels.

• Make every campaign easy to answer: a quick-reply button or a question invites replies, and each reply opens a 24-hour window.
• Offer an easy stop option in marketing templates and honour it at once.
• Keep one calendar for broadcasts and automation so customers receive a sensible number of messages.
• Start with a small, sharp segment; a 2,000-person test that converts teaches more than a 50,000-person blast that gets blocked.