This is a working list rather than a manifesto: habits that keep WhatsApp marketing useful to customers and safe for your number. None of them needs a big budget, and most of them are about restraint.
Read alongside this guide: WhatsApp marketing software and Waki plans and pricing.
Key takeaways
- Consent, verification and templates come before any campaign.
- One purpose per message, one button, the customer’s own details.
- Keep the promised frequency and staff the inbox when you send.
- Measure actions and compare with your own history.
Before you send anything
The groundwork decides everything that follows.
- Collect opt-in in plain words that say what you will send and how often.
- Complete Meta Business Verification early so your limits can grow.
- Write your first templates for messages you already send by hand.
- Import only contacts whose consent you can point to.
Writing messages
Write the way a good shop assistant speaks.
- One purpose per message, and a button that does it.
- Use the customer’s name and a specific detail: the order, the date, the item.
- Keep it short enough to read without scrolling.
- Tell marketing recipients how to stop, and make the stop work.
Timing and frequency
A good message at a bad hour is a bad message.
- Schedule for the hours your customers are free, in their time zone and routine.
- Keep the frequency you promised at opt-in; fewer, better messages beat more.
- Avoid the first and last hour of the day for anything promotional.
- Pause marketing to anyone with an open support conversation.
Replies and the inbox
Every broadcast is a promise to answer.
- Staff the inbox when a campaign goes out; replies arrive within minutes.
- Assign every conversation to a named person and agree a response time.
- Build quick replies for the questions you answer every day.
- Close the loop: confirm, thank, or hand over, but never leave a thread hanging.
Automation
Automate what is predictable and keep people for the rest.
- A welcome message right after opt-in that confirms what they signed up for.
- Reminders and status updates triggered by your systems.
- A short menu for the common questions, with an option that reaches a person.
- A handover step in every flow, and a review of unanswered questions each week.
Measuring
Judge each campaign by what people did.
- Track replies, clicks on tracked links and opt-outs, not only reads.
- Compare each campaign with your own previous ones.
- Change one thing at a time: the template, the segment or the hour.
- Record what you learned next to the campaign so the next person can see it.
Next steps
Conclusion
Good WhatsApp marketing looks like good manners: ask first, say something useful, keep it short, answer when spoken to and stop when asked. The tools make that scale; they do not replace it.