Creating a WhatsApp campaign in PeopleStage

Apteco integrates with WhatsApp using Meta's API.

This guide assumes that the setup and configuration of WhatsApp with Apteco have already been completed.

Create the campaign

To create your WhatsApp campaign:

  1. Open the area for your WhatsApp campaign.

  2. Drag and drop the campaign template for the contact level (normally People/Individual) from the library on the right-hand side.

    The new campaign opens automatically.

  3. Rename the campaign.

Create an audience

To create an audience:

  1. Select the audience to receive the WhatsApp.

    The audience is created as a selection in FastStats and is available in your PeopleStage library.

  2. Rename the audience if needed.

Note: For Apteco's Meta WhatsApp integration, only the E.164 international formatting (e.g., +449876543210) is accepted in the audience list for the recipients. This is to identify the users in a campaign journey. When creating the selection in FastStats, ensure that the selected records have mobile numbers in the system with this format. You can refer to the international standard of mobiles here: E.164 Wikipedia.

Create a message

To create a message:

  1. Drag the standard new message template onto the diagram, then connect the audience to the content step within the message. We suggest renaming the message, content, and delivery.

  2. Zoom in on the content. If the WhatsApp template contains media or variables, you need to set them up as content elements.

    For example, the WhatsApp template provided here requires an image and a variable. The image should be a URL and the {{1}} expects a string.

  3. In the content step, input the image URL into a row titled Image.

    You need to enter the Orbit version number (the string that WhatsApp expects) in a row and then match the WhatsApp body parameter in the delivery grid.

    Note: If there are multiple variables in a WhatsApp template, Meta assigns a number to each variable, and the content rows in PeopleStage must be assigned to the corresponding WhatsApp Body Parameter numbers. See below for more information.

  4. Zoom into the delivery step, drag and drop the WhatsApp channel on to the delivery.

    After a moment, the Meta WhatsApp template name becomes a drop down list.

    The list of templates comes directly from the WhatsApp accounts templates:

  5. Select the WhatsApp template to send.

  6. Assign the content variable as a WhatsApp parameter. This variable must match the parameter {{1}} that WhatsApp expects.

  7. On the delivery step, change the view to Output grid view.

    Right click on the content that has the variable to match the WhatsApp body parameter. In this example the content ‘Orbit Version’ matches to the WhatsApp templates {{1}} and needs to be WhatsApp body parameter 1.

    Note: If the WhatsApp Template was using a Header then the Content row that has the Header in it would also need to be assigned to WhatsApp Header Parameter.

Preview and test

Now you can preview and test the message that will be delivered through WhatsApp.

To preview and test a message:

  1. Change the view of the delivery step back to the main view.

  2. Clicking on Preview and Test opens the message preview and displays how the message would appear to the recipient.

  3. To send a test, you need to change the Source from Logged in user to Enter values manually.

    This then allows you to edit the URN (can be fictitious) and mobile number to your own number.

    Note: Remember to use the international format.

    Note: If making changes to Image URL or Variable then you must click Refresh Message Preview to update it.

  4. You can now click Send Test to receive the Meta WhatsApp Test Send confirmation.

    Within a few moments, the WhatsApp message comes through to the mobile number used for the Test Send.

Add a pool (optional)

If the records sent in the WhatsApp campaign are part of a longer journey, add them to a pool to keep them in the campaign. However, if this message is a one-time message and the recipients might receive it again the next time the campaign is scheduled to run, then no pool is necessary. They exit the campaign after it finishes.

Set the schedule

You have a variety of options for the scheduling in PeopleStage.

To set a schedule:

  1. On the audience, click the scheduler icon and set the schedule required.

    Here, we are using a single instance of Now.

  2. Click Create.

Publish the campaign

The campaign is now ready to published.

To publish the campaign:

  1. Click the pencil icon, then Live, then Publish.

  2. Enter credentials to confirm the publish.

The campaign runs when the scheduled time arrives.

The contacts in the audience then receive the WhatsApp message.

Responses

Responses to WhatsApp messages are gathered through a webhook that connects to Meta's API. The webhook can gather the following information:

  • Sent

  • Delivered

  • Read

  • Failed

  • Reacted (including the emoji used in the reaction)

  • Replied (including the reply that was sent)

The system administrator on the App Server should schedule the Response Gatherer to run at regular intervals. After the Response Gatherer has executed, it is possible to proceed with moving the person record based on their responses.

Continuing the journey

Once the responses have been gathered the journey can continue.

To continue the journey:

  1. In PeopleStage, use the WhatsApp Interaction Audience.

  2. Connect the previous pool to the WhatsApp interaction audience and choose the interaction that is to continue the journey with. In this example, the interaction Reacted has been selected.

  3. Select the time period for the interaction, the time period for the run of the delivery, and if there were multiple messages, then select the message for the interaction.

    There is also the option to select to only move records on after a set time period.

Below is an example of selecting a reaction within the last 1 Day from any sends within the last 1 week for the message step called message, but only they have been in the previous pool for at least 1 hour.

Note: It is possible to have multiple WhatsApp Interactions in one audience and to split them into different messages. Like all PeopleStage audiences, it deduplicates from left to right.

In the example below the user has reacted and now continue on the journey to be sent a follow up WhatsApp message acknowledging their reaction.

This time, including their surname, from the Apteco system variable and a new image.

The person then continues through the journey.