Why your WhatsApp template keeps getting rejected
Six reasons, in the order you should check them. Most rejections are one of the first three, and none of them require talking to support.
A rejected template does not tell you much. You get a status and a category, and the category is usually broad enough to cover four different mistakes. Here are the reasons in the order they are worth checking, because the first three account for most of it.
1. It is marketing wearing a utility badge
The most common rejection by a distance. You submitted something promotional under a transactional category, because transactional conversations are cheaper.
The test is not tone, it is trigger. A utility message follows something the customer did — an order, a booking, a payment. If your message would make sense to somebody who has not done anything recently, it is marketing. Re-submit it as marketing and it usually passes.
2. A variable is doing something it cannot
Variables have rules that are easy to trip:
- Not at the very start or very end of the body.
- Not two in a row with nothing between them.
- Numbered in sequence, with no gaps.
- Sample values supplied, and realistic — a sample of {{1}} or xxx gets rejected on sight.
A message that is mostly variable also fails, because the reviewer cannot tell what it actually says. If your template is "Hi {{1}}, {{2}}", it will not pass and it should not.
3. It reads like a link with a greeting attached
Templates whose entire purpose is to get a tap, with no context, get refused. So do URL shorteners that hide the destination. Use your own domain, and give the message a reason to exist beyond the link.
4. Wrong language code
English body submitted under a Hindi locale, or vice versa. Trivial, invisible, and it produces a rejection with no useful explanation. Check this before you rewrite anything — you will feel silly, but less silly than after a rewrite.
5. Formatting the reviewer cannot parse
Emoji clusters, ALL CAPS lines, a wall of asterisks, or line breaks used as layout. Keep it to plain sentences with at most light formatting. If it looks like a poster, it will be treated as one.
6. It makes a claim the reviewer will not underwrite
Guaranteed returns, medical outcomes, anything that reads like a financial promise. This is a small category but a firm one, and no amount of rewording gets it through.
If it passes on the second submission with no changes, it was reviewer variance. If it fails twice identically, it is one of the six above — usually the first.
Reducing how much this costs you
Rejection is annoying. Rejection you find out about three days later, after a campaign has been quietly failing, is expensive. Two habits fix most of it:
- Submit the variants together, ahead of the campaign, not the morning it goes out. Approval is not instant and is not promised.
- Route the status somewhere a person reads. Template approved and template rejected should be notifications in the same stream as a chat assignment or a channel disconnecting — with an owner. In Convarza they are, and they are hidden from agents, who cannot act on them anyway.
Keep a template that always works
Have one plain, boring, approved utility template that says a person will be in touch. When something urgent is rejected, you still have a way to reach people while you fix it. It is the messaging equivalent of a spare key, and the day you need it you will be very glad it is approved.
How templates, flows and canned messages sit on the WhatsApp channel.