Why do I need WhatsApp templates to initiate a conversation?
You need to use WhatsApp templates because Meta only allows businesses to message customers freely for 24 hours after the customer's last response. Once that window has expired, businesses can only re-initiate contact using a pre-approved template message.
You must therefore use a WhatsApp template if the last message from your contact was over 24 hours ago or if you are writing to a contact for the first time.
Note: This rule is part of WhatsApp’s anti-spam policy. It ensures that businesses only contact customers who have given consent and that outbound messages follow a clear, approved format.
How do I create a (Wildcard) WhatsApp Template, and how do I start a conversation with this Template?
Navigate to the Settings → Templates → WhatsApp templates → New template
Here, you can either Create your own templates, Discover popular templates or Let AI create a template. For the purpose of this tutorial, we will be selecting a pre-existing template and altering it slightly.
In popular templates, you can scroll through pre-existing templates that can be utilised for various use cases.
You can then customise the text and add further variables (including wildcards) to make the template more specific to your use case (to understand template variables in more detail, you can click here). You can then click Submit for review at the bottom right.
At this point, all you need to do is wait until Meta has reviewed and approved the template. This usually only takes a few minutes (but can take up to . You can see the status of your template in the WhatsApp templates section.
Note: Please wait 10 minutes before using the WhatsApp Template!
What do I do if my template has been rejected?
Occasionally a template might be rejected, but it is usually very easy to fix, as explained in the following article: WhatsApp Template Rejected: Now what?
Otherwise, you can also find help here: