WhatsApp

WhatsApp is where leads actually answer, and it is also where careless automation gets numbers banned. Nudge supports two kinds of WhatsApp connections and treats them very differently on purpose.

​

Adding a number

Settings → WhatsApp lists every number your workspace can send from. + Add number asks which of the two kinds you are connecting:

• Personal number pairs a handset by scanning a QR code, the same way WhatsApp Web does.
• Cloud API number registers a number you already hold in Meta Business Manager.

Hovering a row reveals Test, which sends a real message so you can confirm the connection before a campaign relies on it, and the control to remove the number.

​

Personal numbers

A rep’s own WhatsApp number, paired by QR. This is the warm lane: automated follow-ups and one-to-one conversations that look and feel like a person texting, because the number belongs to a person. To keep those numbers safe, Nudge paces them automatically. Admins set this once in Settings → WhatsApp and every automated send obeys it:

• Min gap between sends per number, so messages trickle out at human speed.
• Randomize up to, which jitters that gap so the rhythm is not machine-perfect.
• Max per hour and Max per day per number, on top of the gap.
• Working hours: automated messages hold until the owner’s business hours. A 3am follow-up closes no deals.
• Pause automation after a reply, in days. An inbound message cancels that contact’s queued automated sends.

One setting is worth knowing by name: Send manual messages instantly. With it on, a message a rep types by hand skips every gate above and goes straight out. That is why your own reply lands immediately while an automated one waits its turn. Live conversation should never sit in a queue. There is also Capture chats sent from your phone, which pulls messages a rep sends from the WhatsApp app on their own device into the contact’s timeline.

​

Cloud API numbers

For traffic that should not ride on a personal number, connect an official Meta number through the WhatsApp Cloud API. Meta enforces its own limits on this lane, so Nudge does not add pacing of its own. A Cloud API row carries two Meta identifiers, the phone-number ID and the business account ID that owns it. Both sit behind the arrow next to the number: you need them when you first wire an account up, and almost never afterwards. The business account ID is the one that decides where a template’s approval counts, so it is worth checking when a template works on one number and not another. Meta’s one hard rule on this lane: a free-form message only delivers within 24 hours of the contact’s last message to you. Anything outside that window, including all first-touch outreach, must be an approved template message. A Cloud API number can also answer on its own, or draft replies for you to send. See WhatsApp assistant.

​

Approved templates for cold outreach

Nudge handles the approval workflow from the template editor. Open a WhatsApp template and use the Meta template section:

1. Submit for approval. Nudge sends the template body to Meta for review. Review usually takes minutes to two days.
2. Watch the status. The section shows where things stand for each business account and language: in review, approved, or rejected with Meta’s reason. Approvals arrive automatically; Refresh status checks on demand.
3. Send as usual. Once approved, nothing else changes. Any send that uses this template from a Cloud API number just works: triggers, bulk sends, and a one-off message to a single contact with the template picked in the composer. Inside the 24-hour window Nudge sends your current text directly; outside it, Meta delivers the approved version.

A few things to know:

• A field variable needs a fallback before you can submit. If your message uses something from your field registry, like [course_type], it needs a default: the text that prints for a contact whose value is blank. Set them in the boxes under the message body. Meta refuses the whole message when a variable arrives empty, so without a fallback the send fails for every contact missing that field, one at a time and quietly. Nudge blocks the submission until each one has a fallback. The built-in variables are exempt — [firstname] and the rest come from the contact’s own name, so they can’t turn up empty.
• Approval freezes the wording. Editing the template after approval does not change what cold sends deliver. The editor shows a “body changed since approval” notice, and clicking Resubmit puts the new wording through review. Until it is approved, cold sends keep using the previously approved text.
• Approvals are per business account and per language. A template approved for one WhatsApp Business Account has to be submitted again to use it on a number belonging to another, and each language of a multi-language template is reviewed on its own.
• Picking a template in the composer sends that template. If you choose one and then edit the words in the box, your edits are not what goes out: the message is sent as the template, so the contact gets the template’s current wording (and, outside the 24-hour window, the approved wording). To send something you have typed yourself, clear the template picker first.

A cold send with no approved template is rejected by Meta and shows as failed on the contact’s timeline, so nothing is silently dropped. A template with an image or document attached can’t be submitted yet — remove the attachment first; free-form messages inside the 24-hour window still carry media as usual.

​

Header and buttons

An approved message can carry more than text. Under the message body (and per language, if the template has language tabs) you can add:

• A header — one bold line shown above the message, up to 60 characters.
• Up to three buttons — a link the contact can open (a form, a booking page) or a quick reply they can tap, which arrives back as an ordinary message.

Both go through Meta’s review with the template, so add them and submit (or resubmit) for approval. They appear whenever the approved message is delivered from a business number — including inside the 24-hour window, where Nudge deliberately sends the approved version rather than free text so the buttons aren’t lost. Messages from a personal number never carry them. Header and buttons are fixed text: variables like [firstname] work in the message body only, and a button’s link is the same for every contact.

​

Which number sends what

The sending number is chosen per action. A trigger’s WhatsApp action set to Each lead’s owner sends from the owner’s connected number, so the lead hears from the same person who will pick up the conversation. Bulk sends can override with one fixed sender.

​

Media

Templates can attach an image or a document (PDF, spreadsheet) from the shared asset library; the message body becomes the caption. See Templates. When a contact sends you something on an official WhatsApp number, it appears in the thread: pictures show inline, voice notes get a player you can hit play on, and everything else arrives as a file you can open. A caption they typed comes through as the message. The remaining attachment types — video and stickers — are noted in the thread as having arrived, but the file itself is not kept. Contacts writing to a QR-linked personal number send text only. If a contact reacts to one of your messages, the emoji appears on that message rather than as a new one in the thread, the same way it does in WhatsApp. Taking the reaction back removes it here too. A reaction counts as them getting in touch, so it pauses any automated follow-up on that contact exactly as a written reply would. A voice note occasionally shows as a file to download rather than a player. That is Safari: WhatsApp records in a format it does not always play in the browser. Downloading it plays fine, and Chrome, Firefox and Edge play it in the thread.