Before sending WhatsApp campaigns, you need the following:

• A WhatsApp Business account.
• A Sinch account connected to your Emarsys account. For more information, see Setting up your Sinch connection with Emarsys.
• Create a WhatsApp template in Sinch before being able to customize your template in Emarsys.
• Your template needs to be approved by WhatsApp (Meta) before it can be customized in Emarsys.

Perform the following steps on Sinch's end:

1. Login to your Sinch Account.
2. If WhatsApp channel is still not enabled for your Sinch account, contact the Sinch account owner to enable it.
3. Go to WhatsApp > Message Templates.

4. Create your template based on Sinch's instructions:
   1. Select a campaign type.
   2. Fill out the required fields.
   3. Add personalization or image support in the template using the Sinch placeholder tokens.

6. Send your template to WhatsApp (Facebook) for approval.

Perform the following steps in Emarsys:

1. Go to Channels > Conversation.

2. Click Create Campaign.

3. Add your campaign and click Save and Continue.

4. In the Content Creation step, select a template from your Sinch account, then choose the language you would like to send the message in.

In the Message Preview screen, the selected template appears with the Sinch placeholder tokens you added to it. You can add personalization tokens or static links to each of the available placeholders under Message Mapping.

5. To personalize the tokens, you can either enter a static string, ESL or use the Emarsys personalization by clicking the Personalization icon.

6. After personalizing your campaign, the characters {{}} are replaced with the tokens or static values you inserted.

In the following example, the message header contains a personalization token and the message body contains a static link.

7. If you enabled image support in your template, the Header Image field replaces the Message Header one. In this case, you can insert an image into your message header.

In the following example, the header contains an image and the message body contains two different token types (a personalization token and a static link).

8. To test your message, click Test Message and enter an email address to which you would like to send the test message.

9. To schedule your campaign, follow the instructions in Scheduling your WhatsApp campaign.

Here is what you need to do to schedule your WhatsApp campaign:

1. Go to Automation > Automation Programs and click Create Program, then choose from the following options:

• To create an Interactions program, select Behavior-focused journeys (Interactions) and select a trigger.
• To create an Automation Center program, select Audience-focused journeys (Automation Center) and select an entry node.

2. Insert the WhatsApp node after the trigger or entry node.

3. Double-click the WhatsApp node and select your template message.

4. Add further nodes to your program according to your needs.
5. When you are ready, Save your program, then Activate it.

After launching your campaign, you can check the reporting on the Analytics > Campaign Analytics page by selecting the Conversational channel.

The following metrics are available on this screen:

• Sent
• Delivered
• Opened
• Clicked

• Brands must clearly state that a person is opting in to receive messages from the business via the conversational app (e.g. WhatsApp).

• To send test messages, the contact’s email address and a phone number associated with their email address is required.
• All campaigns have to start with an approved template (WhatsApp needs to approve your template). For more information, refer to the Meta documentation.
• Limited reporting is available on the Campaign Analytics screen.
• Currently, you can use:
  • Standard Emarsys personalization via the use of personalization tokens or ESL
  • Files uploaded in the supported format to the Media Database or hosted within your own image hosting service:
    - Documents: .docx, .pdf
    - Images: .jpeg, .png
    - Videos: .mp4
  • Any static links and values.
• There will be no migration path available between Sinch Engage and this product as Sinch Engage is not an Emarsys product.
• You can send batch campaigns via the Automation Center or Interactions by using a segment or contact list.
• In the case of sending failures due to missing configurations, you will receive notifications including the campaign and template name.

• You need a Sinch account to use the current WhatsApp functionality.
• Campaigns cannot be deleted after they are created.
• Broadcasting functionality is not available.
• Currently, only one-way-messaging is supported via template messages, which means that buttons will not work even if they are added during template creation in Sinch. Any templates containing buttons will not be visible in Emarsys.
• Languages available both within Sinch and Emarsys are supported. Each language needs to be personalized separately.
  • During the EA phase, the fallback language is English in Emarsys if you don’t have a preferred language specified in your contact record.
  • Emarsys does not support English (UK) as a preferred language for contact records, so Sinch templates that are created in English (UK) are not supported in Emarsys.
• Currently, WhatsApp (Meta) does not support GIFs. For this reason, they are not supported in Conversational messages in Emarsys.
• Subscription management fields are custom fields in the Emarsys contact data model. You need to obtain the explicit consent of your contacts to send WhatsApp messages to them and you need to update these fields respectively. If you are using your own subscription management, then you can leverage and update the Emarsys custom fields.
• No chat bot integrations are available at this time.