In this article, we show you how to collect and manage explicit consent from contacts before initiating conversations on WhatsApp, avoiding spam alerts and preserving the quality of the sender thanks to the dedicated ‘WhatsApp opt-in’ field.
The importance of consent
Before opening a conversation with a contact, it is necessary to obtain explicit consent, using the most appropriate method. This serves to ensure that people receive information of interest to them from the companies they have chosen, going beyond mere compliance with data protection legislation.
If contacts do not expect to be reached on WhatsApp by your brand, they may flag you as spam and block the sender (see the article Preventive automatic sender blocking: when, how, why) and this can cause problems, such as WhatsApp's quality rating dropping (see the article Whatsapp's quality rating: what it is and how best to manage it).
The new 'WhatsApp opt-in' contact field
In order to collect consent specifically for the WhatsApp channel, we have introduced a special contact field, WhatsApp opt-in, which can be found in the Settings tab of the contact's home page: if the field is set to ‘Yes’, the message will be sent, otherwise magnews will block the message from being sent (the message will be marked as Not Sent).
There are several ways to collect consent: for example, you can do this via a magnews landing page or collect it manually at a trade fair and then import it via contact import. It is important to note that this field is not set automatically by magnews (except in one case, as we will see below).
Take advantage of conversations initiated by the contact
As explained in the article Setting up a WhatsApp conversation with contacts, conversations can be initiated by the sender, or they can be initiated by the contact.
The second option, where the contact initiates the conversation, is the best to ensure that they have consciously expressed a desire to interact with your brand. To facilitate this approach, you can use a Click to chat button on your site or place a WhatsApp button on your Facebook pages or ads.
When the conversation is initiated by the user, magnews allows you to automatically set the 'WhatsApp opt-in’ field.
From Connect, enter WhatsApp Business and click on the Settings button in the sender card.
If you select the Auto Opt-in for new conversations option in the Consent section, when the contact writes to you for the first time, the ‘WhatsApp opt-in’ field will be set to Yes for the first contact with whom the conversation has been associated, according to the rules you have defined in the Database Priority section.
This also applies to new contacts, those entered in the database specified in New contacts database, i.e. if the mobile number of the message received by the brand, is not found in any database.
How to manage Opt-out
It is advisable to offer contacts an option to unsubscribe from the WhatsApp channel in every message you send.
For example, you can place an unsubscribe link at the bottom of the message text, using the [link:unsubscribe] placeholder, to ensure that the contact no longer receives communication on any channel and their status is changed from Subscribed to Unsubscribed.
If you only want to unsubscribe from WhatsApp, then you only need to update the WhatsApp opt-in field to No and leave the contact's status unchanged.
You can do this with a landing page with a button action that updates the contact or via automated flow. For example, you could include a statement such as ‘Write STOP to unsubscribe’ in the message and manage the update of the opt-in to No via the Update contact node.
What happens if I send to a contact without Opt-in and Opt-out?
As explained above, if you try to send a WhatsApp message to a contact that has the WhatsApp Opt-in field unchecked or set to No, the contact will not receive the message and magnews will put the message in an Unsent status, so there will be no consequences.
If you force the field to Yes, overriding the will of the contact, magnews will send the message, but it is very likely that the contact will mark you as spam. Especially if you have not included the possibility to opt out easily in your message.
Remember that the first message is particularly critical because WhatsApp's built-in Signal and Block sender buttons are very prominent, so it is important that the opt-out is as simple and smooth as possible.
If your sender is flagged too many times as spam, this will lead to a preventive automatic block implemented by magnews, which, if repeated, can cause reputation problems and serious consequences for your sender, even leading to an irreversible block of the sender by Meta. For more details, read the article: Whatsapp's Quality Rating: what it is and how best to manage it.