1. Principle

This feature allows you to send messages to your audience on WhatsApp on your own initiative, without your audience having initiated the conversation first. 

The messages are sent automatically, based on a message template you set up in the WhatsApp Business Manager. They can be personalized with customer data from your CRM. 

You can configure a message template to include one or more buttons (Call To Action), to prompt your audience to place an order or reschedule a delivery, for example. 

Your audience can also choose to reply to the message, which will then be treated by your respondents as any other WhatsApp conversation.

2. Benefits

This feature has many benefits:

• by allowing you to start the conversation with your customers, it gives you a new point of contact
• by using WhatsApp, the world's most popular messaging application, you get closer to your audience
• compared to a comparable channel such as SMS, WhatsApp is more reliable, with a message delivery rate close to 100%, and allows for more interaction thanks to the integrated buttons in the messages (CTA)
• by writing your own message templates, you can do all this in a way that is consistent with your tone and brand universe
• WhatsApp uses customer data (phone number, name, address, etc.) from your CRM to provide your audience with a personalized conversation experience

3. How it works

• during an interaction with your customers, they give you permission to contact them via WhatsApp
• this consent is collected and added to your customers' profile in your CRM 
• you set up message templates for future engagement campaigns in your brand's WhatsApp Business Manager
• when launching a campaign from the CRM, a signal is sent to iAdvize and transmits the data and phone numbers of the customers and the subject of the messages 
• iAdvize takes care of sending personalized messages (whose content has been previously configured via your WhatsApp Business Manager) to your customers to the transmitted phone numbers
• your customers receive a personalized message from your brand on WhatsApp. They are free to interact with this message by clicking on a button, or by replying to it (the message will then be treated like any other WhatsApp conversation on iAdvize). They can also choose not to be contacted by your brand on this channel if they wish.

4. Prerequisites

In order to run a proactive messaging project on WhatsApp, your brand must have:

• a WhatsApp Business live account,
• WhatsApp verified message template(s),
• an opt-in collection strategy,
• an identification token,
• an opt-in and opt-out management system in its customer journey (iAdvize only intervenes to
• redirect the visitor to the place where he can unsubscribe),
• a specific distribution strategy for proactive messages

5. Create a WhatsApp account in iAdvize

This step takes place on the iAdvize platform. There is an article in the knowledge base that tells you how to activate the channel.

6. Customize your message templates

This step takes place in WhatsApp Manager.

7. Gather consent from your visitors

Your visitors must actively give consent to receive a message on WhatsApp from your brand.
iAdvize does not record in its system either the opt-in or the opt-out of a visitor.
On the other hand, iAdvize helps you collect this information by directing your visitors to the right place to leave their opt-in or unsubscribe.

The information you collect as a brand must feed your customer databases, in order to keep track of visitors' choices. iAdvize intervenes before the consent and therefore will not verify that a visitor has actively given consent, or actively withdrawn consent.

7.1 Collect the opt-in

You have the option of including the opt-in collection:

• in the purchase funnel,
• in the customer area of the site
• via a dedicated landing page.

You must warn your visitors that they will receive messages. To do this:

• group the different categories of messages sent in your consent request (e.g., order updates, relevant offers, product recommendations, etc.) ;
• nevertheless make a distinct request for each specific category of message. This way they limit the risk of being blocked by users for receiving unsolicited messages.
• give clear instructions on:
  
  • how your visitors can opt-out of receiving specific categories of messages
  • the processes in place to give or withdraw consent
  • the interest of receiving this information in WhatsApp.

7.2 Collect the unsubscribe request

When a visitor asks to unsubscribe from proactive communications, the respondent (advisor or bot) must share an unsubscribe link with them. Some iAdvize features help your respondents in this process.

• If the responder is a bot: provide an intent that detects the visitor's willingness to unsubscribe and the appropriate bot response (which includes, for example, the unsubscribe landing page url). To do this, go to the Automation section of the iAdvize platform.
• If the respondent is an agent: write canned answers to send to the visitor to unsubscribe.

8. Set up the strategy in iAdvize

Create an Outbound strategy if you want to identify conversations from outbound messages in your reports, or route them differently from conversations started by visitors.

1. Go to Engagement > Engagement strategies and click Create a strategy.
2. Name the strategy and choose the Outbound type.

3. Choose the Whatsapp channel. The audience is not defined in iAdvize: your own tool (your CRM, for example) triggers the messages.

4. In Define your filtering rules, click Add.

5. Name the filtering rule, choose the routing rule for the conversations, then click Create. The rule appears in the list.

6. Select the WhatsApp account that sends the messages, then pick the initial brand message among the templates approved in WhatsApp Manager. The "Informations to share with your development team" block gives you the API call to copy.

7. Set the attribution period: during this period, replies to the message are attached to the strategy. After that, they are handled as inbound conversations.

8. Set the strategy objective, then click Publish.

9. What is expected in the API call?

In order for iAdvize to send a proactive message to a visitor, your brand must send us specific data via an API call to iAdvize. You need to know the expected data in order to prepare the call in your IS (and to perform tests).

iAdvize expects the following data:

• the authentication token of the user on the project;
• Campaign ID : campaign identifier in the campaign creation interface
• [template_name] : identifier of the template message, available in WhatsApp Manager;
• [senderId] Sender identifier (WA phone number of the brand)
• [bodyVariables (Key: "{{1}}", value: "john"), headerVariables(Key: "{{1}}", value: "john")] The values to take to fill the header and body variables
• [language] the language in which the message should be sent
• [recipientId] the phone number of the visitor to contact

Create your access token by following this dedicated documentation.
You will need to authenticate with an account with administrator rights on iAdvize on the project (sid) that carries the WhatsApp account.

Request

Answer

In order to associate visitor responses in iAdvize with a campaign, it is necessary to specify the correct campaign identifier. Each outbound campaign has a deadline, beyond which any visitor response to the brand's initial message will not be linked to the outbound campaign.

Ensure that API calls use the correct templateId and campaign ID.

10. Launch the project

Follow the steps below to start your project:

• Make sure the campaign is active.
• Make sure all rules are routed
• Make sure that the API calls use the right templateId and the right campaign-names
• Make sure that the messages reach the visitor (do a test)
• Ensure that visitor responses reach the operators
• Make sure conversations are attached to the right campaign
• Launch the opt-in collection campaign
• Launch API calls in production
• Follow the statistics