Last update: 19th March, 2024
In the world of instant messaging, WhatsApp has become the go-to platform for businesses to connect with their customers. With the introduction of WhatsApp API, businesses can now scale their conversations on WhatsApp and do much more like never before. In this article, we’re going to find out how.
But before moving ahead, let’s take a step back and quickly review the evolution of WhatsApp and understand why they decided to build the APIs in the first place.
Table of Contents
WhatsApp, WhatsApp Business and the API
WhatsApp has more than 2 Billion users worldwide. More than 90% of chat app users prefer WhatsApp in more than 10 nations. In India alone, 487 million individuals use WhatsApp each month which accounts for nearly 25% of the app’s global user base. The average open rate is 98% and the click-through rate is between 40% and 45%.
That’s huge!
With these statistics, you can imagine how beneficial it would be for businesses to use WhatsApp to reach out to their customer. So, in 2009 WhatsApp launched their WhatsApp Business app which instantly gave businesses a medium to directly interact with their customers. Since then WhatsApp Business has skyrocketed in popularity with over 50 million users globally.
However, WhatsApp Business app had its own limitations. You could use it for basic communication with your customers, but it fell short when you had to do more. For example, you could only broadcast to up to 256 customers, no integration was possible with your website/app/CRM and you could not automate your conversations with your customers.
This is where WhatsApp API came into picture.
In August 2018, Facebook launched WhatsApp Business API, to help large businesses with more complex needs that could not be fulfilled with the WhatsApp Business mobile app. Facebook licensed third-party Business Solution Providers (aka BSPs), who then sold the API to large companies as resellers.
Large companies benefited from this immensely and you might have seen WhatsApp messages from these companies on your own WhatsApp through these years.
But during all this the small businesses struggled with high prices, complicated tools, indirect API access, and billing from BSPs. Facebook came to its rescue around May 2022 and introduced WhatsApp Cloud API which led to a transformation in WhatsApp marketing landscape.
Now any business, regardless of its size and resources, could directly access the API without going through a BSP.
In a nutshell, the WhatsApp Cloud API opens up a world of opportunities for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). Now even SMBs can take advantage of the vast reach of WhatsApp and engage with customers in a more efficient way.
They can use it as a powerful tool for growth and take their marketing and customer service strategies to new heights.
What is WhatsApp API?
WhatsApp API is a cloud-hosted API, officially provided by WhatsApp, that you can use to send and receive WhatsApp messages programatically. Now businesses and developers can access the API directly and build their own tools to send bulk marketing or transactional messages or use a tool like WANotifier to do that.
Before May, 2022, the only way to access WhatsApp API was through BSPs. But after the launch of WhatsApp Cloud API, anyone can consume and use the API without going through a BSP and paying them the exorbitant prices and extra markup on default WhatsApp API pricing that they used to charge.
Challenges with Business Solution Providers
When SMBs had to work with BSPs like WATI, Interakt, AiSensy or others to use the WhatsApp Business API, they had to face many challenges:
- High Pricing: Traditional BSPs mainly targeted large companies, which resulted in pricing models that were not feasible for SMBs. Smaller businesses struggled to benefit from WhatsApp marketing due to the exorbitant costs.
- Extra Markup: In addition to the standard per-conversation fees charged by WhatsApp, the BSPs imposed an additional premium of 15-20%. The businesses were burdened due to this added expense.
- Pre-Purchase of Credits: BSPs had a mandate that the companies must purchase message credits in advance. This requirement put a financial strain on companies, as they had to allocate funds beforehand, regardless of their immediate messaging requirements.
- Cluttered Tools: BSPs often bundle multiple functionalities, such as marketing, customer support, and sales, into a single tool. This approach creates complexity, making it difficult for businesses to understand and use these tools effectively.
- Indirect API Access and Billing: BSPs acted as intermediaries, so you had less control our the API setup and billing and businesses were not able to access the API directly.
Because of these reasons WhatsApp Cloud API came to the market as savior for the SMBs.
Why WhatsApp API?
With the help of WhatsApp Cloud API, small and medium businesses can connect to a their customers in much better way than the WhatsApp Business mobile app. Every business can now use the API for its growth and success and benefit from:
- Enhanced Customer Engagement: Sending personalized messages to customers helps businesses develop stronger relationships and cultivate greater customer loyalty.
- Improved Response Times: Businesses can save time and ensure customers receive quick responses to their inquiries by automating message responses. This feature greatly improves the overall customer experience.
- Increased Efficiency: The API enables seamless integration of WhatsApp with existing business systems, streamlining operations and reducing manual work. This integration eliminates the need to switch between platforms. This in turn improves overall efficiency and productivity.
- Cost-Effective Communication: The WhatsApp Cloud API works on a pay-per-conversation pricing model, which ensures businesses only pay for the messages they send. If your company has different communication needs, this can prove to be a cost-effective approach
The emergence of the WhatsApp Cloud API has revolutionized customer engagement in WhatsApp marketing. Your business can cultivate stronger relationships and loyalty and improved response time will enhance the overall customer experience.
WhatsApp Business API offers immense benefits for a wide range of businesses, making it an invaluable tool for organizations of all sizes and industries.
Who Can Benefit from the WhatsApp API?
The WhatsApp API is a versatile solution and it suits businesses of all sizes, from small start-ups to large enterprises. It doesn’t matter what type of industry you are in, whether you are retail, healthcare, financial, or any other company, you can harness the power of the WhatsApp API to streamline your communication processes and improve customer engagement.
You can integrate the WhatsApp API into your marketing strategies, and you can enjoy numerous benefits to contribute to your success.
Here are a few use cases of WhatsApp Cloud API:
- Broadcasting bulk promotional messages
- Sending personalized marketing campaigns
- Setting up automated notifications and updates for timely communication
- Reducing abandoned carts on e-commerce stores by sending timely reminders
- Automating reminders for filling out applications, such as for financial services or online courses
- Collecting real-time customer feedback for valuable insights
- Incentivizing customers choosing cash on delivery (COD) as a payment method
- Upselling and cross-selling
- Enhancing user engagement with interactive messages and CTAs
- And more more
As you can see, WhatsApp Cloud API offers a wide range of benefits for businesses and developers alike, enabling seamless integration and enhanced communication capabilities. Now, let’s discuss how to implement it in your business.
How to get started with WhatsApp API?
As the API is programmatic API, to get started you need to use some kind of tool or system to send bulk messages, schedule notifications, setup integration with your website/app, access incoming messages in some kind of Inbox, setup automations and report and do other things.
You have 3 options to get started:
Option 1 – Build an in-house tool
You can hire developers to integrate the API with your website or CRM tool through custom coding or create your own interface to facilitate uploading or contacts and sending them bulk messages.
This would mean that the developer would need to build everything from scratch, which can be both costly and time-consuming affair for most business. An easier way would be to use a pre-built tool to use the API.
Option 2 – Sign up with a Business Solutions Provider (BSP)
You can sign up with one of the dozens of BSPs in the market, who are the official partners of WhatsApp for providing API. You can use their tool to send and receive WhatsApp messages so you don’t have to build your own tool.
A big downside of working with BSPs is that they act as intermediaries and charge high monthly fees in addition to 10-15% of WhatsApp’s standard per-conversation pricing as we saw earlier.
Option 3 – Sign up with WANotifier!
Unlike BSPs, WANotifier is official Meta Tech Partner. We offer a simple tool that is built on top of WhatsApp API that you can use with your own API credentials!
You have full control over the setup, usage, and billing, with the advantage of lower costs compared to BSPs. We charge a small fee for using our tool while providing all the features offered by a BSP.
But the biggest benefit of all is we do not charge extra markup on top of WhatsApp’s standard pricing.
WANotifier is a comprehensive WhatsApp marketing tool that seamlessly integrates with the WhatsApp API. Thus, providing your business with an efficient and effective communication platform. Our all-in-one solution offers a range of key features and functionality, including bulk messaging, transactional notifications, and an intuitive dashboard.
Why WANotifier?
WhatsApp API has revolutionized the approach to WhatsApp marketing, especially for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and WANotifier brings to you all that WhatsApp API has to offer that’s not currently offered by any other provider in the market.
- No Coding Knowledge Required: With WhatsApp API and WANotifier, you can generate API keys, put them in the tool and you’re ready to go without requiring any coding expertise or hiring a developer to build your own system.
- Direct API Access: You can now bypass expensive Business Solutions Providers (BSPs), and consume the API directly via our tool. Imagine how much this will reduce your WhatsApp marketing costs!
- No Extra Markup: Unlike BSPs, WANotifier do not impose additional markup on top of the default WhatsApp API price. This ensures profitability for your company and allows you to maximize your marketing budget.
- No Pre-Purchase of Credits Required: With WANotifier and WhatsApp API, your business can avoid the financial burden of purchasing credits in advance. Instead, you can adopt a pay-as-you-go model, allowing for greater flexibility and control over your messaging expenses.
- Direct API Billing: You can manage your API billing directly through WhatsApp. This process streamlines the payment process and provides transparency in billing-related activities.
Key Features of WANotifier
WANotifier offers a wide range of powerful features designed to enhance your WhatsApp marketing campaigns. Here are some of them:
- Bulk Marketing Send bulk marketing notifications to your contacts using message templates. You can send messages right away or schedule them for later; WANotifier provides the options you need for effective mass messaging.
- Transactional Notifications: Automate transactional notifications triggered by specific actions or events, such as new orders on your website, form submissions and more. This feature enables timely and relevant communication with your customers. Checkout out free WordPress plugin to see the different kind of triggers you can use to send transactional notifications.
- Effortless Template Management: Manage your message templates easily within the WANotifier dashboard. Create, edit, and submit them for approval and get status updates without leaving WANotifier portal, streamlining the template management process.
- Simplified Contact Management: WANotifier offers an intuitive dashboard to add, import, and manage your contacts efficiently. Maintain organized contact lists to facilitate targeted messaging and audience segmentation.
- Detailed Delivery Report & Analytics: Get detailed delivery reports for all marketing and transactional notifications you send to track sent, delivered and read messages. Also view analytics for your daily API usage cost.
- Powerful Automations: Send automated greeting messages and delay in response messages. Send auto-reply messages that get triggered for specific keywords defined by you. Unsubscribe and re-subscribe feature to allow contacts to automatically opt-out from future communications to reduce spam reporting. Create complex automations using chatbots.
- WhatsApp Inbox: Full-fledged WhatsApp inbox for 2-way communication to send and receive WhatsApp messages.
- Webhooks and Integrations: Enhance your WhatsApp marketing efforts by integrating WANotifier with other third-party tools and applications using webhooks. This integration capability enables seamless data synchronization and unlocks additional functionality to optimize your marketing campaigns.
How to Get Started with WANotifier?
To get started with WANotifier, create your free forever account with us. We offer a free forever plan in which you can upload upto 500 contacts to fully test the platform without paying us anything for the tool (note that WhatsApp Cloud charges would still apply).
It’s essential here to note that WhatsApp has made it mandatory to have the following 4 requirements to use the official API:
- Phone Number: A unique phone number that will be associated with the API and shown to message recipients. Note that this number cannot be used with the WhatsApp mobile app simultaneously.
- Registered Business: A legally registered business with government-issued documentation, such as incorporation documents or a GST certificate. If you’re from India, GST registration is mandatory.
- Website: A live business website with a privacy policy page
- Payment Method: A credit or debit card for WhatsApp Manager portal API billing.
Now these requirements are a bit strict, but WhatsApp has enforced these to avoid misuse of their API for SPAM.
Revolutionizing WhatsApp Marketing with WANotifier
In conclusion, the emergence of the WhatsApp Cloud API has revolutionized the way companies approach WhatsApp marketing. WANotifier, as an all-in-one WhatsApp marketing tool, seamlessly integrates with the WhatsApp Cloud API and offers businesses a comprehensive solution to send bulk marketing and transactional messages.
You can leverage the power of the WhatsApp Cloud API and WANotifier to streamline your business communication processes, deliver targeted messages, and ultimately achieve more sales and greater customer satisfaction. Don’t miss the opportunity to harness the potential of WhatsApp Cloud API and WANotifier to take your business communication to new heights!
