This guide covers the URLs to use in your campaigns to direct your customers to WhatsApp.
Whatsapp provides good documentation for helping you generate URLs. This documentation says that it is for iPhone only, but we've confirmed that it worked on several versions of Android. At worst, it will open up a WhatsApp web page to send the message (rather than the phone app), so there will be a working experience for your customer.
Below are a few examples of QR code URLs you might use in your campaigns:
Example 1: Contacting your Customer Services team
A QR code that opens up a WhatsApp message with your customer services team.
The URL ends with the international phone number without any leading zeros, spaces or symbols:
<https://wa.me/447890123456>
Example 2: Sharing content
A QR code that opens up WhatsApp and allows the user to choose a recipient for a pre-determined message.
The format of the URL is as follows:
<https://wa.me/?text=ENCODED_CONTENT>
For this approach, you need to “URL encode” the text content that you want to share. Here is a handy tool that will do exactly this for WhatsApp messages. Type in the message that you want to encode and it will generate the required version. Paste the output from the generator into the URL w=here you enter your QR code link in Penny Black.
e.g. If you want to share “check out this amazing product on https://mywebsite.com”
<https://wa.me/?text=check%20out%20this%20amazing%20product%20on%20https%3A%2F%2Fmywebsite.com>
Example 3: Sharing pre-filled content to a specific number
A combination of the above, which could be useful if you want to help direct a customer services request on a particular topic:
<https://wa.me/PHONE_NUMBER/?text=ENCODED_CONTENT>
e.g.
https://wa.me/447890123456/?text=Order%20enquery