Need to send a WhatsApp message to many customers at once? Interakt’s One-Time Campaign feature makes it easy to segment your audience, personalise the message for every customer, and send it to 1000s of customers all at once, via Official WhatsApp APIs.
This guide walks you through the essential steps to successfully set up a one-time WhatsApp campaign on Interakt.
How to Set Up a One-Time WhatsApp Notification Campaign on Interakt
• To create a one-time campaign, go to the Campaigns tab
• Click on the Create WhatsApp Campaign button
• You will see a pop-up on your screen with two options:
•Sample Ideas
•Active Templates
On the right-hand side, you’ll also see a live preview of how the message will appear to your customers on WhatsApp.
At this stage, you have two choices:
1️ Create from Scratch – Build your campaign entirely from the beginning by defining the audience, selecting the template, and configuring the settings manually.
2️ Use a Sample / Active Template – Select a sample or an already approved active template and click on “Use this Sample/ Use Template.” You can then proceed with the campaign setup.
If you choose to Create from Scratch, follow the steps below –
1. Set an appropriate name for your campaign. Or, if you leave this blank, we will auto-fill a name based on the template you choose.
2. And choose the campaign type as – One Time Campaign
3. The next step is to create the message that you want to send. Since WhatsApp allows you to send only pre-approved templates, you can pick from one of your previously approved templates.
4. Click on Choose template
5. A pop-up will appear displaying all your existing templates on the left-hand side and a preview of the selected template on the right.
If you haven’t created a template yet, you can do so directly from this pop-up by clicking on the “+ Create New Template” button.
If the template you wish to use has already been created and approved by Meta, simply select it from the list and click on “Choose Template” to proceed.
6. Your template may contain variables such as {{1}}, {{2}}, {{3}}, etc., whose values will differ for each customer to whom you send this campaign. As you can see in the above example, we have added one variable which should ideally contain the name of the customer receiving this message.
7. To ensure that, the variable {{1}} here should be mapped to the Contact Field “Name”. You also need to define a Fallback Value for the variable – this is the value that will be sent in case the field “Name” doesn’t have a value for a particular customer. So, instead of ‘Hey Rahul…’ the message will go as ‘Hey there…’ for them.
Note –
1. Variables can also take their values from Event Data (Event Attributes).
For example, suppose you are sending a one-time campaign to all customers who placed orders recently & you have a variable in the template for the name of the product that they last ordered. In this case, you’ll have to map the variable to ‘Event Data’ – you’ll have to select the event that was received upon order placement, and then select the product name attribute within that event. (Events can be passed via Interakt’s Event Track API. If your Shopify / Woocommerce store is connected to your Interakt account, order-related events will flow in for your contacts automatically, without the need for any API integration.)
2. You may also define a ‘Fixed Text’ for the variable. This should be done if you want the variable’s value to be the same for all recipients.
8. Next, you need to specify who should receive this campaign’s notifications.
To do this, select one of the four available options
– Upload a CSV file
Create a CSV file containing the numbers of all contacts to whom you want to send out the campaign. The following columns are mandatory in the CSV file:
– Separate Columns for Phone Number & Country Code (ie +91 and 7003705584 in separate columns)
– 1 column for Full Phone Number (ie 917003705584 in 1 column)
Apart from the above columns, you may include columns for other identifiers like Name, Email, WhatsApp Opted, etc. While uploading, you will get the option to map these columns to Contact Fields in your account.
Enter Manually
Enter the phone number manually. Enter phone numbers along with the country code, without spaces. For ex: +917003705584, 19129884149. To add more fields (like Name, Email, WhatsApp Opted, etc.) for every contact, try out CSV Upload instead.
Select Segment
You may create a Segment from your contacts by applying filters based on:
1. Tags
2. Contact Fields
3. Event Fields
For example:
1. You may select a tag as shown below & then select ‘is’ or ‘is not’. If you select ‘is’, all contacts containing the tag will be filtered & if you select ‘is not’, all contacts not containing the tag will be filtered.
2. You may filter contacts on the basis of Contact Fields as well. The screenshots show :
– How can you filter contacts whose ‘total_order_count’ is greater than 3?
– How can you filter contacts based on multiple fields (total_order_count AND city). Note that the joiner between the 2 fields could be AND / OR. In case AND is chosen, the filtered contacts will satisfy the conditions on both fields. If OR is chosen, the filtered list will even contain those contacts who satisfy both conditions.
– You may filter contacts based on Event Attributes as well. Suppose you want to send the campaign to all contacts who have abandoned checkouts of cart value > 100. The screenshots below show how you need to first select the ‘Abandoned checkout’ event and then apply a filter on the event field named ‘Total.’
Select from List
You also have the option to search and select users from your contact list. This is especially helpful when you need to send a message to only a handful of people.
Step 4: Schedule Campaign
If you want the campaign to start running right away:
Select Send Immediately
Or send at a custom date
Once configured, click Save.
Set Post Campaign Reply Flows
(What happens after the customer replies?)
You can automate follow-up actions based on how customers respond.
⚠ To configure reply-based actions, your template should ideally include a Quick Reply Button. This will make your customers send replies that you have pre-defined (like See Products / Return Policy / Know More / STOP, etc.).
A. WhatsApp Opt-Out
– You may set the trigger type for the ‘Opt-out flow’ as:
-Click on a button (this is applicable if your template contains a Quick Reply button, which your customer can click to opt out)
-Type out Reply (this is applicable if you are expecting the customer to type out something like STOP in case they want to opt out)
You may also configure an acknowledgment message after opt-out.
How the Opt Out Flow works:
If your customer clicks on the button / sends the expected reply, then, our system will automatically turn their ‘WhatsApp Opted’ field to False ie they will be opted out.
Imp Note – While sending out one-time campaigns, always add a filter for WhatsApp Opted is True.
B. Send your Products
You may add a button to your Template, which says something like ‘See Products’ / ‘See Catalog’. Clicking on that button, either of the two below will get sent:
• A full Product Collection List – To be able to send out the Product Collection List, you should have connected a Catalog & you should have also selected your top 10
collections. Catalog connection & collections selection can be done
• A specific Catalog Message – Here, you’ll need to select a particular Collection from your catalog. The first 30 products in that collection will be sent.
C. Send Interaktive List Messages
Send an interactive list message when a customer clicks on a Quick Reply Button in the template (like, Know More):
Note – An Interaktive List message contains a list with different FAQs. If your customer clicks on a particular FAQ, the auto-reply configured for that FAQ gets sent.
Interaktive List can be configured here
D. Send Custom Reply (FAQs)
A simple auto-reply can be configured to be sent when your customer clicks on a Quick Reply button in the Campaign message.
E. Send a Workflow
• You might have already created workflows (ie chatbot flows) that you might want to trigger when a particular Quick Reply Button is clicked on your message.
• For example, suppose your Campaign is for an upcoming event, and you have a button for ‘Book Ticket’ in the message. You could create a chatbot flow for ticket booking and you can ensure that this chatbot flow is triggered upon clicking on the ‘Book Ticket’ button.
Track Campaign Conversions
There are two ways to track campaign conversions –
1. Via UTM Parameters
2. Via Custom Fields
Set up Retries for Failed Messages
Read this article to understand how to set up automated re-trie for one-time campaigns.
1. Track Conversions via UTM Parameters
This method is useful when your campaign includes a link that directs users to your website or landing page.
Steps:
1. While setting up your campaign, go to the Track Campaign Conversions section.
2. Enable the checkbox “Via UTM Parameters.”
3. Click on the “here” link to configure the UTM parameters in your template.
4. Add standard UTM parameters such as:
utm_source
utm_medium
utm_campaign
5. Once configured, these UTMs will be automatically appended to the links in your WhatsApp template.
6. When customers click the link and complete an action (like making a purchase), the conversion can be tracked in tools such as Google Analytics or your website analytics platform.
This helps you understand how many conversions were driven by your WhatsApp campaign.
2. Track Conversions via Custom Events
This method allows you to track specific customer actions as conversions directly within Interakt.
Steps:
1. Enable the checkbox “Via Custom Events.”
2. Under Conversion Event – 1, select the event that should be considered a conversion.
You will see the following options:
• Places a prepaid order on Shopify / WooCommerce store
• Places a COD order on Shopify / WooCommerce store
• Sends a WhatsApp Cart
• Places order on WhatsApp
• Gets a particular custom event
3. Select the event that best represents a successful outcome for your campaign.
Example:
If you choose “Sends a WhatsApp Cart,” the conversion will be counted when a customer sends their cart through WhatsApp.
4. Set the Conversion Deadline (e.g., 24 hours).
This defines the time window within which the selected event must occur after the campaign message is sent for it to be counted as a conversion.
5. Click Save Conversion Event to confirm your settings
Once configured, Interakt will track how many users read the campaign message & for whom, and the Conversion event was also received, within the defined Conversion Deadline. These users will count as conversions for your campaign.
Set up Fallback Channels
If your campaign messages fail to be sent on WhatsApp, you may configure them to be sent on other channels like RCS and SMS.
This is especially important for campaigns with Marketing Templates. Meta limits the delivery of Marketing templates to control spam on WhatsApp, leading to average delivery rates of 50%-70% for Marketing templates. For the rest 30%-50% users, for whom the messages failed to get sent, you can ensure that the messages are sent on RCS or SMS.
To be able to set up fallbacks on RCS / SMS, make sure you fill out the forms below:
1.RCS
2.SMS
For campaigns using RCS as a fallback:
1.Since your RCS account is already connected, the system automatically populates the Assistant ID and billing category
2.Select the RCS template you want to use when WhatsApp messages fail
3.Fill out any dynamic values or personalization fields in the template
4.Review your configuration and click Save
You then move on to the last step, where you can choose to set your campaign live immediately or save it as a draft and continue later. A new campaign could take upto 30-60 seconds to start but post that notifications would be sent out in one go.
Track Campaign Analytics
After setting an onetime campaign live, you may see the Campaign’s performance statistics by clicking on the particular campaign in https://app.interakt.ai/notification.
It is advisable to wait for 1-2 hours before viewing the performance stats, as the stats could take some time to get populated.
Note:
1. “Attempted” denotes the count of notifications Interakt tried to send to WhatsApp.
2. “Sent” denotes the count of notifications successfully sent to the recipient’s phone, but it doesn’t guarantee receipt, as the phone could be off or in a poor network zone (equivalent to a single tick on WhatsApp).
3. “Failed” denotes the count of notifications that couldn’t be sent to the recipient’s phone.
4. “Delivered” denotes the count of notifications successfully received by the recipient (equivalent to a double tick on WhatsApp).
5. “Read” denotes the count of notifications read by the recipient (equivalent to a blue tick on WhatsApp).
6. “Replied” denotes the count of notifications which received a reply within 72 hours
7. If your campaign contains any CTA / Quick Reply buttons, the number of clicks on those buttons would also be displayed (in case you had kept click tracking enabled while creating the campaign).
8. If you defined any Conversion Event in your campaign, you will be able to see the count of conversions as well.
9. Sent, Delivered, Read, Replied, and Failed statuses will update as we receive information from Meta.
10. Delivered, Read, and Replied statuses may update indefinitely due to external factors like network strength and recipient actions.
11. Sent and Failed counts should equal the Attempted count, but slight data discrepancies may cause variations.
How to duplicate an existing one-time campaign on Interakt?
You can duplicate/clone a one-time campaign in just 1 click. If users are looking to edit an existing campaign, the effort gets reduced: they can simply click on “Duplicate Campaign,” clone it, then make the edits and set live a new campaign. Creating a duplicate one-time campaign similar to existing campaigns gets much simpler with Interakt.
One-time WhatsApp campaigns on Interakt give you complete control over who receives your message, what they see, and when they receive it. From advanced audience filtering and personalized template variables to flexible scheduling and quick duplication, you can launch highly targeted campaigns in just a few steps.
Whether you’re announcing a limited-time offer, re-engaging high-value customers, or sharing an important update, one-time campaigns help you communicate with precision and impact.
Once your campaign is live, you can track its performance directly from your dashboard and use those insights to optimize future campaigns.
For more advanced configurations and automation strategies, explore the complete Interakt Knowledge Base.
