Templates

Outside the 24-hour window after a customer's last message, a business can only start a WhatsApp conversation with a template that Meta has approved. Broadcasts, sequences and form follow-ups all send templates.

Categories

Choose honestly. Meta re-categorises templates that read like promotions (below).

Write a template

1. Go to Templates and create one, or start from the starter library.
2. Give it a name in lowercase letters, numbers and underscores (for example order_update) and a language code such as en, hi or en_US.
3. Add an optional header (text, or an image, video or document), the body, an optional footer and buttons. The preview shows what the customer will see.
4. For marketing templates, add a way to opt out: the Add "Stop promotions" button, or footer text such as "Reply STOP to opt out".
5. Submit it to Meta. You can send a test to a contact once it's approved (up to 30 tests per person per hour).

Variables

• Use named variables such as {{first_name}} (lowercase letters, numbers and _), or numbered ones such as {{1}}, {{2}} in order without gaps.
• The text can't start or end with a variable, and two variables need some text between them.
• Give a sample value for each variable: Meta uses them to review the template.
• The header can have at most one variable; the footer can't have any.
• When you use the template in a broadcast or sequence, you map each variable to a contact field or fixed text, with a fallback. If a value is missing and there's no fallback, that person is skipped rather than sent "Hi ,".

Buttons and limits

• Body up to 1,024 characters; header text and footer up to 60 each.
• Up to 10 buttons, each up to 25 characters. Quick-reply buttons come before link, call and copy-code buttons.
• At most 2 link buttons, 1 call button and 1 copy-code button.
• Links must start with https:// and can have one variable, only at the end. Your organisation can limit links to its own domains.
• Track clicks on a link button: WhatsApp shows a go.i-connect.world/c/… link, each message gets its own, and a click goes straight on to your link. Broadcast reports then count who clicked (once per message; link previews and security scanners don't count). A tracked link can't have a variable.
• Call buttons need the number with its country code, like +91 98123 45678.

Product cards

A product card template is a message with 2 to 10 products that customers scroll sideways, each with its photo, name, price and one button. Meta calls it a product card carousel.

1. Connect a WhatsApp catalog with your products. Without one, i-Connect won't submit the template or send it. See Publish to your WhatsApp catalog.
2. In a new template, set Template type to Product cards. It's always a marketing template with numbered variables.
3. Write the message text. There's no header, footer or other buttons, so say how to opt out in the text, for example "Reply STOP to opt out".
4. Choose the button, which every card shares. View opens the product in WhatsApp, with the cart. Link opens your website: its text is up to 25 characters, and a link that ends in {{1}} gets each product's SKU.
5. Submit it. Meta reviews a sample with 2 cards, and an approved template can send 2 to 10.
6. Choose the products each time you send: in a broadcast, a sequence step, the inbox (press Send a template during a chat) or a test. Only products that are in stock and approved by Meta can be used, and i-Connect tells you if one can't. Forms and the public API can't send product cards, because nobody chooses the products there.

The rules for marketing apply: the contact needs marketing opt-in, even in a live chat, and the frequency cap and send window count. See Send products as cards for how orders come back.

Approval

• After you submit, the status is Pending until Meta decides. The result arrives by webhook and shows on screen without a refresh.
• Rejected templates show Meta's reason, and the creator is notified. Edit and submit again.
• Sync from Meta (Templates → Sync now) brings in templates created in Meta Business Manager and updates statuses. i-Connect also syncs every night at 02:30 IST.
• A template can't be deleted while a scheduled or running broadcast uses it.

Quality, pauses and disabling

• Meta rates each template's quality from how people react to it (blocks and reports). i-Connect shows the rating on the template.
• If Meta pauses a template for low quality, or disables it after repeated pauses, i-Connect stops sends that use it, pauses broadcasts that use it, and tells the Owners and Admins.
• To continue, edit it into a new template or wait until Meta approves it again, then resume the broadcast. See Delivery brakes explained.

When Meta changes the category

Meta can move an approved template to another category, most often from utility to marketing when it reads like a promotion. i-Connect records the new category, shows "Meta now treats this template as marketing" on the template, and tells the person who created it. From then on i-Connect uses Meta's current category for cost estimates and for the consent rules, so a template that became marketing goes only to people who opted in to marketing.