24-Hour Messaging Window

On March 4, 2020, Facebook released the Facebook Messenger policy update. Businesses are only allowed to message subscribers within 24 hours from the last interaction with a Business’s Facebook page. This is now generally known as the “24-hour messaging window. As a Chatbot creator and marketing suite, we have to adapt and adhere to new policies.  So, in the rest of this article, you discover more about this Policy and what Clepher will do to help you stay compliant. 

What Was The 24 + 1 Rule?

• You were allowed to send another message, a follow-up if you will, for free outside these 24 hours. Just to help you re-engage with your subscribers again, and once they reply, they get “Active” again. 

• The +1 rule, this follow-up message was removed. But, taking a look at Clepher's data, this should not be a big issue. Because out of all the broadcasts sent on Clepher, only 4% used the Follow-Up tag in their messages. 

• You can still send outside the 24-hour messaging window using any of the Message Tags, though. However, these undergo some changes too. 

• There is a way to reach out beyond this 24-Hour window it's called One-Time Notification (OTN). With this, you’re able to send a single message to people who opted-in to receive it. The OTN will allow you to send messages beyond 24 hours. This should be used for use cases that don’t fall into the definition of the 4 Message Tags.

• For more information on how you may be able to send messages outside the 24-hour messaging window, see the Message Tags documentation, and Sponsored Messages.

Usage Guidelines

The following guidelines apply to the usage of the Send/Receive API for standard messaging:

• LiveChat on Clepher is also subject to these rules. We’ve got the tools in place to comply, and if you’re outside the 24-hour window, you’re able to send a message with the appropriate Messaging Tags. For more details, please see our documentation on Live Chat. 

• Promotional content is allowed for standard messaging. Note that promotional content is not allowed for subscription messaging.

• For you to send a message to a person on Messenger, the person must initiate contact first. Examples of how contact is initiated include the person tapping the “Get Started” button in the welcome screen, tapping a “Send to Messenger” plugin, sending a message, etc.

• People continue to have the option to block or mute a conversation with a business or developer at any time.

• Sending Promotional content is still allowed within the 24-hour messaging window. 

• Messages sent outside this 24-hour window must be tagged with one of four Message Tags. The tags are Confirmed Event Update, Post-Purchase Update, Account Update, or Human Agent. 

• One-Time Notifications (OTN): You’re able to send a single message to users who opted-in to receive it. The OTN will allow you to send messages beyond 24 hours. This should be used for use cases that don’t fall into the definition of the four Message Tags. Clepher pushed the OTN Request Card. You can find it in the Flow Composer.