Help center / Marketing & communications
Send a test WhatsApp message
Send one message to your own phone before running it past hundreds.
Steps
- Open WhatsApp and go to Testing.
- Enter a phone number with its country code.
- Pick the template.
- Click Send test.
WhatsApp testing panel with the phone number field and send test button
What to check on the phone
Look at the message as a recipient, not as its author.
- The sending name and number. Is it recognisable as you? Recipients decide whether to read based on this alone.
- Placeholders filled correctly. They fill in order, and getting them out of sequence is the most common template mistake — a message addressed to the venue name reads badly.
- Length. Anything long gets truncated behind a "read more".
- Links work, and go where you meant.
- Arabic renders correctly, if you are sending Arabic.
Test every template, every language
An Arabic template is a separate template with its own approval and its own placeholder order. Test each one separately.
Test on a phone that is not yours as well, ideally someone not involved in the event. They will notice that the message is confusing without context, which is the thing you cannot see about your own writing.
When to test
- After a template is approved, before its first use.
- Before any campaign to a large audience.
- After changing anything about your connection or sending number.
What happens next
A test is a real WhatsApp message from your real number. It counts as a message, and it appears in your logs.
It does not affect campaign statistics.
Common problems
The test does not arrive. Check the country code, and that the number has WhatsApp. Then check the template is genuinely approved rather than pending.
Placeholders are in the wrong order. Fix the template. Because edits require re-approval, duplicate it, correct the copy, and submit the new version.
Arabic shows as boxes or reversed. The template language is set wrong, or the text was pasted with mixed direction. Retype it in the Arabic template.
It arrived from an unexpected number. Check the sending number — see Connect WhatsApp to your event.
No template in the picker. None approved yet.
more in marketing & communications
- Edit your email templatesChange the wording of the confirmations and notifications evenclo sends automatically.
- Personalise emails with merge tagsInsert each recipient's name, ticket and QR code into an email automatically.
- Create a custom email templateBuild your own reusable email for reminders, updates and thank-yous.
- Send an email campaignPick a template, filter who receives it, check the count, and send.