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WhatsApp: Get Started

How it works

We send WhatsApp messages through Twilio, using a process similar to our SMS setup. But, unlike SMS, you can’t just send a free-form message. Rather, WhatsApp messages are based on templates that you’ll setup in Twilio and have approved by WhatsApp (Meta). That means that, as a part of this setup process, you’ll:

1. Set up SMS support with Customer.io.
2. Work with Twilio and Customer.io to set up WhatsApp support. We’ll enable WhatsApp support in Customer.io for you after we verify that you’ve got valid sender addresses for WhatsApp and approved templates.

1. Set up Twilio SMS in Customer.io

WhatsApp support is tied to our SMS functionality. Before you can send WhatsApp messages, you need to set up SMS in Customer.io.

To send SMS and MMS messages in Customer.io, you’ll need to have a Twilio account and the Sender phone number. This might be a regular phone number, short code, or an alphanumeric ID.

Twilio can lease these numbers to you. Or, if you have a paid Twilio account with Alphanumeric Sending enabled, you can send messages from an Alphanumeric ID instead of a Twilio phone number.

1. Set up a Twilio account if you don’t already have one. We recommend using a trial account to get started.

2. Set up a Twilio-specific Sender if you don’t already have one. You can’t use your own phone number to send SMS; you need to purchase a number from Twilio. If you already set up your sender number, select it when you compose messages.

3. In your Customer.io workspace, go to > Workspace Settings > SMS and add your Twilio Account SID and Auth Token. You’ll find these values in your Twilio dashboard. We only support credentials associated with the US Twilio region.

   

   

Now the SMS option is available in your workflows. You’ll use this option to send WhatsApp messages in your campaign and broadcast workflows.

2. Set up WhatsApp support in Customer.io

1. If you haven’t already, set up SMS in Customer.io.
2. Complete the WhatsApp approval process. You must have an approved WhatsApp Business Account to send WhatsApp messages. Twilio facilitates the approval process and provides instructions to help you enable WhatsApp messaging.
3. In Twilio, create the content templates you want to use to send messages.
4. Contact win@customer.io to enable WhatsApp in your Customer.io account. After we enable WhatsApp support in your account, you’ll see an option in the SMS editor to send a message to your WhatsApp audience.

   

   

Link shortening

When you enable SMS to support WhatsApp, we automatically shorten links in your messages by default. We use https://a.cust.io/abcde12345 (or https://e.cust.io/abcde12345 if you’re in our EU data center) as our format. Even shortened links can be up to 38 characters if you send a significant number of links. Learn more about link shortening.

You don’t need to do anything for us to shorten links, but you do need to use the {% cio_link url:"https://example.url" %} tag to track links in your messages.

Link shortening prevents your links from taking up significant space in your messages. We track shortened links the same as we would any other link in your message; link shortening has no impact on link tracking.