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Outbound templates

A template is a saved message body you write once and reuse in campaigns, one-off sends, and drip sequences. Instead of re-typing the same confirmation or promo for every send, you author it in Outbound → Templates, let it clear any channel approval it needs, and pick it from the message step of the campaign-create wizard. Templates live side by side with campaigns under the Outbound hub (an entry point under Messages → Templates reaches the same library — same rows, either door).

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What a template is

A template record carries a channel, a name, a language, and the message content — the body text (or, for rich channels, a body plus optional media). Two placeholder systems personalize that content at send time:

• Variables — merge tokens written in the body as double-curly placeholders, for example {{first_name}} or {{order_id}}. At send time the campaign (or the single-message composer) substitutes per-recipient data from the contact record or the send payload.
• Conditional blocks — depending on the channel, richer structures such as WhatsApp’s header/footer/buttons or RCS rich cards are built in a dedicated editor, but the body itself stays a single text block (plus media for MMS-style messages).

For most channels the library is flat: each row is one channel’s variant, authored directly. A second tab, Content Templates, offers a cross-channel author layer: one logical content id grouping per-channel variants with a fallback order (Twilio Content API parity). Use it when the same copy must serve several channels under one definition.

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Channel-specific rules

What you can author, and what happens after you save it, depends on the channel:

• WhatsApp — templates must clear Meta’s model approval. Until the approved status is in, the template can’t be used from a campaign or a test send. Author the copy, pick a category (marketing, utility, or authentication — a WhatsApp-only taxonomy), submit it, and wait for Meta’s review. A rejection reason (if any) is visible in the template row.
• RCS — rich cards and carousels are reviewed per carrier; editing a template re-enters the pending state and old sends keep using the prior approved version.
• SMS / email / Viber / Telegram / LINE / Messenger / Instagram / push / fax / Apple Messages — no carrier approval queue; a saved template becomes active immediately and is sendable. Email bodies fit MJML-style HTML in the content body if you paste rendered HTML, but plain text works too (the composer handles raw bodies).
• SMS unresolved variables — SMS has no server-side merge on the composer send path: if a template body still contains {{name}} tokens when you open the composer, the UI flags the unresolved variables so you replace them before sending, instead of shipping literal {{...}} to the customer.

Two WhatsApp-specific helpers live in the hub toolbar: WhatsApp Starter Library (pre-built, policy-compliant Meta templates you can clone in) and Sync from Meta (pull template status/category/quality from your connected WABA to repair drifted rows).

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Create a template

1. Open Outbound → Templates.
2. Click Create template and pick the channel.
3. For WhatsApp: pick the WABA (the picker appears only when your tenant has more than one connected) and choose a category.
4. Fill the body with your copy; insert {{variable}} placeholders where personalization is needed.
5. Save. Approval-required channels (WhatsApp, RCS) move to pending; platform-only channels land directly at active.

Template management — creating, editing, archiving, and deleting — is restricted to the owner, admin, and developer roles.

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Manage versions and lifecycle

Opening the library shows a row per template with status, category (WhatsApp only), language, and a two-line body preview.

• Edit — patch the body/name/category/language. Editing a WhatsApp or RCS template re-submits for review; an old approved version stays usable while the new one is pending.
• Clone — duplicates the row with a _copy name as a new variant. This is the canonical A/B mechanism, because per-template metrics live on the template id — two clones are two measurable variants.
• Localize — the Languages action opens a per-locale tracker listing every language variant and its approval status, and can auto-translate into more locales.
• Archive — soft-delete; the row leaves compose pickers and test-send lists, and stays restorable from the archive view.
• Delete — permanent, after a confirmation dialog.
• Test send — fire one to yourself (WhatsApp only after approval; SMS opens the in-place composer; other channels deep-link to the channel’s compose dialog with the template pre-selected, and the recipient is marked as a test contact so one-off test sessions do not pollute your contacts list).

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Use a template in a campaign

1. Open Outbound → Campaigns → Create.
2. In the message step, pick Use a template and select the template from your library. The wizard pre-fills the body for you to review and adjust (for WhatsApp, only approved templates show; for SMS/email/etc., any active template shows).
3. Drip sequences treat the campaign’s message_template as the step-0 welcome message; every step can carry its own template or inline body.
4. A/B testing across template versions: create two clones (as above), then run both variants against the same audience — each variant accumulates its own metrics.

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Read template analytics

After a campaign sends, Outbound → Templates → row Analytics action opens the cross-campaign rollup: sent → delivered → opened → clicked, consolidated across every campaign that reused that template. See Template analytics for the rollup’s exact semantics — the terminal-as-denominator convention, the degraded flag on transient fallbacks, and the per-channel breakdown.

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Governance: naming and edit roles

Keep the library trustworthy with two conventions:

• Naming: adopt a <purpose>_<variant>_<locale> convention (e.g. order_confirm_v2_en, promo_blast_a_es) so the body preview plus the name together identify what a row is without opening it.
• Who can edit: restrict template create/edit/delete/archive to the owner/admin/developer roles (enforced by the hub’s role guard). A larger team can view and pick templates in campaigns without being able to mutate the library.