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Following META Guidelines

WhatsApp is developed by META, which enforces strict guidelines regarding the content of the messages.

This means that you send a WhatsApp campaign through Actito, or through any provider, it must first be validated by META. This validation is carried out by an automated system and usually takes only a few minutes.

caution

If you are planning a time-critical campaign, you should remember that, by META's terms of use, it can take up to 24h.

However, we found that in practice this is never so long, unless the message does not follow the META guidelines.
Respecting the following guidelines is therefore important to ensure a validation time of only a few minutes.

tip

The validation process starts as soon as a campaign is scheduled. To guarantee sending the campaign at the time of your choice, we advise to schedule it 24h in advance.

The following content should be avoided as they can lead to the rejection of your campaign:

Format restrictions​

  • The content cannot start or end with a personalization
    Avoid gender tests at the beginning of the message and prefer a neutral greeting, and pay attention if you want to insert a link through a personalization: it cannot be at the very end of the message.

  • Two personalizations cannot appear next to each other
    Please ensure that there is enough text between personalizations. This also means that the message cannot contain only personalizations.

This is not OK

Dear ${genderTest} ${lastName}, check our new personalized offer here: ${link}

  • Consecutive newsline characters
    Avoid skipping two blank lines in a row (carriages returns) when formatting your message.

Content restrictions​

  • Duplicate contents
    A campaign can be rejected if its content is the same as a previous campaign.

  • Shortened URLs
    Avoid URL shorteners (like bit.ly and others) when inserting links, as it obscures the link destination. Prefer full links, even if they are longer: WhatsApps has a much bigger character limit than SMS.

  • Spelling or grammatical errors
    A message can be rejected because of too many grammatical mistakes (because they are typical of spam).

  • Mismatching languages
    Your message should match the language chosen in the campaign interface and not be a mix of two languages.

  • Direct link to WhatsApp conversation
    You cannot use links that redirect to a WhatsApp conversation (https://wa.me/ URLs).

  • Content violating the WhatsApp Business Policy
    You message must respect the WhatsApp Business Policy: you cannot request sensitive information from targeted profiles, such as credit card numbers, national ID numbers, etc.

  • Content violating the WhatsApp Commerce Policy
    Messages offering goods or service for sale must follow the WhatsApp Commerce Policy, which restricts a number of topics and categories of goods:

    • Drugs
    • Pharma products
    • Alcohol and tobacco
    • Guns
    • Sexual content
tip

Breaking these guidelines may result in your campaign being rejected.
Extensive testing by Actito showed that this is not always the case. Indeed, as the validation is automated, rejections are certainly triggered by certain keywords and patterns that are not documented more precisely by META.

Nevertheless, we advise you to treat these guidelines as strict rules to ensure that your messages are validated in almost real-time.

info

More info can be found on META's Developers documentation.
Nevertheless, please note that all guidelines do not apply, as you are creating your message through Actito: you must use Actito's personalization format ${personalization} instead of META's {{1}}.

Understanding META error codes​

When you schedule your campaign, it will undergo the validation by META, and should be cleared in a few minutes, as long as you followed the guidelines.

As soon as the result of the validation (SUCCESS or REJECTED) comes in, the user who created the campaign will receive a WhatsApp validation report.

If it's a SUCCESS, the campaign will be scheduled at the previously defined time (or sent immediately if past the scheduled time).

If the content is REJECTED, you will receive a status report with a message explaining the rejection reason for each language (each language of the campaign is evaluated separately).

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The error codes are coming directly from META: some are very straightforward, while others can fit multiple issues.

  • Message body can't have more than two consecutive newline characters or only have parameters.: The message has 2 blank lines in a row or 2 personalizations in a row (which is also the case if the message only has personalizations).

  • INVALID FORMAT: The message has encountered a formatting issue, which can be due to several reasons: personalizations at the end or the start, duplicate content, invalid link or language issue.

  • ABUSIVE_CONTENT: The content does not comply with the WhatsApp Business Policyor the WhatsApp Commerce Policy.

  • SCAM: The content was marked as fraudulent, such as attempting to acquire sensitive data.

A rejected campaign will go back to the drafts with a warning icon and the error code, to allow you to correct the issue and reschedule the campaign.

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