In the article Explicit consent: how to use it to preserve the quality of your WhatsApp sender we explained why it matters to manage opt-in and opt-out specifically for the WhatsApp channel, to keep the risk of users reporting your sender as spam as low as possible.
But what happens if users report your sender anyway, despite all precautions?
When a user reports a sender as spam, Meta does not pass this information on to magnews.
In some paradoxical situations, a mass communication might get a high number of opens and, at the same time, a high rate of spam reports from the same users who opened the message.
Automatic sender blocking
Even without details on the users who reported the sender as spam, if many reports pile up in a short time, Meta stops delivering the messages and notifies that the spam rate limit has been exceeded.
In magnews, messages rejected for this reason are classified as Soft Block Bounce, and the sender is blocked automatically right away.
In App Center > WhatsApp Business > Settings, the blocked sender shows the Blocked status and can no longer send WhatsApp messages.
Any further sending attempt is rejected and the messages are set to Not sent. You also cannot launch new mass communications: magnews shows the message Messages from this sender via the WhatsApp channel are blocked due to exceeding the spam rate limit. You must manually remove the block from the sender's profile to proceed.
Manual unblocking
At this point, take a moment to think about what caused the spam reports and adjust your approach: is the content relevant to the contact? Was the opt-in collected knowingly and correctly? Is the opt-out easy to reach?
Only after a careful assessment should you unblock the sender manually, by clicking Unlock in the sender card, and resume sending.
What happens if you unblock the sender without making any changes?
If you unblock the sender manually and start sending messages again without changing anything, the automatic block may kick in again right away, because Meta may keep rejecting the messages for exceeding the spam rate limit.
Moreover, if the sender keeps sending messages, its quality rating may drop, and repeated drops can lead Meta to block the WhatsApp sender permanently.
For more details, read the article WhatsApp quality rating: what it is and how best to manage it.
For mass communications on WhatsApp, we recommend using wave sending, which spreads the sending over a longer period of time, so you can react quickly and limit any damage.