Whatsapp Consent: What are the reasons behind an overly strict opt-in policy?

Marketing & Content Hub Lists, Lead Scoring & Workflows
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EDIT:
For those following, please upvote this Idea in the Idea forums: https://community.hubspot.com/t5/HubSpot-Ideas/Automated-subscription-to-WhatsApp/idc-p/788915
Hi Community, Hi Hubspot Team,

I want to bring your attention to an issue that we’ve recently encountered with Hubspot’s WhatsApp Integration.

Hubspot has recently released its own Whatsapp Integration. At first glance, it appeared to be a great feature, allowing us to interact with our leads and customers on WhatsApp via a Hubspot-backed integration.

We immediately started developing some custom solutions to overcome minor shortsights of the integration. For instance, allowing our Sales and Operations team to send Meta approved Whatsapp Templates starting from a Deal based Workflow. Everything seemed to be working fine during our testing phase.
However, when we finalized our production workflows, we discovered that Hubspot has subtley introduced an overly strict Opt-In policy: in order to send a business initiated conversation, the contact must send the magic keywords (START, SUBSCRIBE, UNSTOP) that Hubspot has chosen to trigger their Subscription activation on. It does not end here: these keywords must match exactly.
What’s even more concerning is that the very exact WhatsApp Business Policy that Hubspot cites on their help article states something different:

2. WhatsApp Business Solution (WhatsApp Business API) Specific Terms

 The below sections on "Opt-in" and "Acceptable Message Types" only apply to the WhatsApp Business Solution (WhatsApp Business API).
 Opt-in:
 In order to initiate a WhatsApp message to a person, you must first receive opt-in permission confirming that they wish to receive future messages from you on WhatsApp. The opt-in must (a) clearly state that the person is opting in to receive messages from you over WhatsApp and (b) clearly state your business’ name.

 You are solely responsible for determining the method of opt-in, that you have obtained opt-in in a manner that complies with laws applicable to your communications, and that you have otherwise provided notices and obtained permissions that are required under applicable law.

According to the policy, businesses are solely responsible for determining the method of opt-in that complies with applicable laws, and they can collect opt-in consent via other means, not limited to the magic keywords or a user-initiated WhatsApp conversation. The only requirements are to clearly state that, if the user opts-in, they will receive communication via WhatsApp and to clearly state the business’s name. That’s it.

Businesses should have the flexibility to determine the most appropriate method for collecting opt-in consent, as local laws and business needs may vary. Hubspot’s current policy limits this ability, and it is frustrating to have spent costly development time on a feature that was changed silently overnight. In fact, there were no such issues at the start of 2023, when we were running our tests.

Therefore, I would like to ask the Hubspot Community and the Hubspot Team:
- What are the reasons behind this overly strict opt-in policy?
- What do you think about this issue?
- Is there any viable workaround?

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Hello @Faslo, thank you for posting in our Community and providing all this information.

Contacts can grant explicit consent via specific keywords in a WhatsApp thread. WhatsApp allows you to initiate text conversations only by sending messages using pre-approved templates. A contact must grant explicit consent to communicate using business-initiated WhatsApp messages.

You can also manually opt-in as a contact to receive WhatsApp messages if they’ve given their express and verifiable consent.

Looks like this is a requirement from Whatsapp Bussiness where you must clearly inform anyone who sends a message to your WhatsApp Business account that they consent to receive messages from your business. The option “Subscribe a contact using opt-in keywords in a WhatsApp thread” is what is happening currently. This knowledge base here explains this option.

You can also use WhatsApp’s click-to-chat feature to create a link that’ll allow you to start a chat automatically when a user clicks the link. Learn more about the click-to-chat feature in WhatsApp’s Help Center.

I hope this information helps.

Pam

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Hi Pam,
Thanks for reaching out.
Though, I feel as if you have not really read my post.

@PamCotton wrote:

Contacts can grant explicit consent via specific keywords in a WhatsApp thread. WhatsApp allows you to initiate text conversations only by sending messages using pre-approved templates. A contact must grant explicit consent to communicate using business-initiated WhatsApp messages.

It is Hubspot that is deciding for my Business how this consent should be collected though. Nowhere on Whatsapp Business Policy it is written that in order to send pre-approved templates to customers, they have to first send some random magic keywords to my business phone number, or that consent can only be collected in this way.

@PamCotton wrote:

Looks like this is a requirement from Whatsapp Bussiness

No, it is not. And I literally quoted word for word the Whatsapp Business Policy. In fact, we should not be allowed to manually enroll contacts in a world where there’s only one unique way to collect consent.
Overall, as a feedback, I feel that this absurdly strict opt-in policy makes your Whatsapp integration pretty much useless.
Thanks again for your answer!

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Hi @Faslo , I have good news: in October HubSpot implemented the changes we all have waited for. Now you can update a contact’s WhatsApp subscription status and use the subscription status as a filter option in lists. I have tested it and it works as it should. I only wish we had it since the launch of the WhatsApp integration.

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Hi, unfortunately you did not answer why you defined strict measures that are not required by WhatsApp. Please do address the question asked and see if HubSpot requirments can align to WhatsApp requirments. Thank you!

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Hello @IMilo, thank you for posting in our Community. Could you please provide us more details on what specific you would like addressed about these requirements ? This way I can check more information about it.

In our knowledge base here, it mentions " This information is not the same as legal advice, where an attorney applies the law to your specific circumstances, so you should consult an attorney if you’d like advice on your interpretation of this information or its accuracy."

Kindly,

Pam

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Hi, your overly strict Opt-In policy: in order to send a business initiated conversation, the contact must send keywords (START, SUBSCRIBE, UNSTOP) that you chose - these keywords must match exactly. We work in Israel which is not a native speaking language and these words are difficult for our audience to understand and to write.
Your policey is even more questionable due to the fact that it is stricter than WhatsApp’s own policy, as stated in previous posts. Your policy has made it impossible for us to use WhatsApp - and for not reason, which makes it even more frustrating…
Businesses should have the flexibility to determine the most appropriate method for collecting opt-in consent, as local laws and business needs may vary. Hubspot’s current policy limits this ability.
Pleas help me to understand and see how I can use WhatsApp via HubSpot.
Thank you!

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Hi @IMilo, thank you for providing more information. On it and will get back here when I have an update from the team.

Kindly,

Pam

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Agreed with Faslo!

We have a form where we very explicitly collect consent before sending a pre-approved template via a workflow to prospects who decide they prefer using WhatsApp. It used to work perfectly… until Hubspot decided that we must manually opt in contacts…

Of course, there is no way to link the question in our form to the subscription status :confused:

I don’t understand why Hubspot changed their policy without informing us! And I don’t really see how we can use this integration anymore, as it was supposed to create a smoother experience for contacts who prefer using WhatsApp over email…

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When you have time, could you please upvote this Idea in the Idea forums? https://community.hubspot.com/t5/HubSpot-Ideas/Automated-subscription-to-WhatsApp/idc-p/788915

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Also struggling to understand this as well. We’ve just begun an integration with whatsapp - and have the template approved by meta. We have previously collected permission for our users to be communicated with by whatsapp and we want to be able to update these permissions via a workflow - but it seems we’re unable to. How are we supposed to send messages or collect consent from whatsapp if we cant do it in hubspot? It just seems illogical.

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Please upvote this Idea in the Idea forums: https://community.hubspot.com/t5/HubSpot-Ideas/Automated-subscription-to-WhatsApp/idc-p/788915

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Please, for those following, upvote this Idea in the Idea forums: https://community.hubspot.com/t5/HubSpot-Ideas/Automated-subscription-to-WhatsApp/idc-p/788915

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Hi Faslo,

this is indeed strange that HubSpot decided to apply such strict rules to WhatsApp communications which is nothing different from email communications, IMO. This calls into question the idea of marketing automation: yes, you can use WA messages in your workflows but you can’t automate the subscription process…

Thanks pointing out that it’s not a WA’s strict policy but a limitation on the HubSpot’s side. Also thanks for the shoutout! :slightly_smiling_face:

Best,

Oleg

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I am just setting up Whatsapp in Hubspot as a means to make our life easier by avoiding setting up an SMS system and I can’t believe it’s turning out to be even more complicated. For one Hubspot seems to avoid a great opportunity to help its users find out an actual way to collect this consent. It’s completely unclear how this should be done. If we can’t send a template asking people if they want to get updates via Whatsapp and confirm their consent that way, how the heck can we actually ask them beyond opting them in manually (which is a no go, what’s the point of paying for a 10k$ automation system if we have to do things manually in the end). And Click to Chat is very limited. This option only prepares a message to be sent by the person and doesn’t actually guarantee the person will finish opting in.