Introducing automation and utility conversations in WhatsApp marketing

We’re excited to announce the addition of two new features to our WhatsApp integration: Automation and Utility conversations. These enhancements will allow you to streamline your marketing efforts and engage with your customers more effectively by automating messages and providing essential information seamlessly.

WhatsApp marketing has become a prominent player in many marketing strategies, having demonstrated a 44.5% uptick in customers engagement. You can enhance your customer journey using WhatsApp automations to deliver personalized messages at the perfect moments and generate meaningful engagement with your contacts.

Enhanced engagement through journeys

Zoho Marketing Automation's journey builder takes WhatsApp engagement a step further by enabling you to create automated workflows that initiate conversations based on specific customer actions and ensure you trigger various types of interactions throughout the customer journey. The result is a seamless, personalized experience that delivers the right message at the right time.

Benefits for marketers:

• Holistic customer engagement: Combine marketing efforts with essential service updates for a well-rounded customer experience.

• Improved customer satisfaction: Foster trust and loyalty by ensuring customers have the information they need, when they need it.

• Streamlined workflows: Automate routine tasks and free up valuable time for strategic marketing initiatives.

 

A quick walkthrough 

Trigger 

Similar to an email campaign trigger, if a contact from a WhatsApp campaign meets certain criteria, they will be added to a journey. Only actions can be added as criteria for journey enrollment, however. This restriction ensures that only specific customer behaviors—such as responding to messages or clicking links—qualify them as contacts worthy of inclusion. By focusing on these actions, we can enhance engagement and tailor our communications to those who show genuine interest.

Process 

Once a contact is added to a journey, you can define a Process > WhatsApp activity to categorize and send  based on user's activity. In this case, you can choose from multiple activities to associate with a WhatsApp message for greater flexibility and customization in your messaging strategy. 

You can use a single WhatsApp activity component to trigger specific actions based on user interactions. For example, if a user clicks on a specific link in a WhatsApp message, they may automatically move to a different lead stage. Alternatively, if a user responds with a specific keyword, you can automatically send a different WhatsApp message. These use cases highlight how you can engage with users effectively through WhatsApp activities.

 

Action 

You can use this action to send a WhatsApp message to all qualified contacts associated with the journey. By delivering personalized messages to contacts associated with a specific journey, you can achieve more targeted and relevant communication. Additionally, creating and sending purchase confirmation and transactional messages, collectively known as Utility Conversations, allows users to automate personalized marketing campaigns based on user behavior.

 

 

 

Utility Conversations

We've also added a new feature: utility conversations. Previously, Zoho Marketing Automation only supported promotional messages, offers, and updates. Now, with utility conversations, you can deliver essential, purchase-related information directly through WhatsApp.

This enables you to:

• Provide timely updates: Send order confirmations and other critical information directly to customers to ensure they stay informed throughout the journey.

• Streamline transactions: Use automated payment reminders and transactional messages to simplify the buying process and reduce friction.

• Gather valuable feedback: Easily collect customer feedback through surveys to foster continuous improvement and increase customer satisfaction.

  
  

Note: Utility conversations have a distinct pricing structure compared to marketing conversations. You can visit our pricing page to calculate these costs accurately. Additionally, utility conversations will be included only in Professional and Enterprise plans.

 

 

With this update, we expect our users to get more out of Zoho Marketing Automation and enhance their brands' reputations with timely campaigns. We're always here to help marketers at every step in their marketing endeavor with Zoho Marketing Automation. Please reach out to us at support@zohomarketingautomation.com. We'll be more than happy to provide assistance!

• Topic Participants

• Mohamed Ashraf J

  

• keith

• Jeshua Edward

  

• Sticky Posts

• Marketer’s Space - Automating CRM Actions with Journeys – Part 2

  Hello marketers! Welcome back to another post in Marketer’s Space. In our previous post, we explored how CRM actions in Journeys help marketing and sales teams work together by nurturing CRM leads and pushing only engaged prospects back to sales. If you

• Introducing automation and utility conversations in WhatsApp marketing

  We’re excited to announce the addition of two new features to our WhatsApp integration: Automation and Utility conversations. These enhancements will allow you to streamline your marketing efforts and engage with your customers more effectively by automating

• Tip of the week 02 - The art of 'seeing' your leads

  What's the last page that your lead visited before signing up for your brand? What was the page that first convinced your lead to explore more about you? Where are your leads coming in from? Well, these are some perennial questions today's marketers live upon. And, knowing the answers to these questions is crucial, considering the vitality of leads in every business. In the journey of finding lead opportunities, it's important to understand that every detail about a lead is useful. While the channels

• Zoho Marketing Automation Update: Topics, Contacts, and List Management

  At Zoho Marketing Automation, our highest priority is making it easier for you to use our product to accomplish your business goals. With that in mind, we are updating three of our pivotal features: Topic, Contacts, and List Management.   These existing

• Important: Zoho MarketingHub is now Zoho Marketing Automation

  Hello Everyone,   We hope you all are doing well. We'd like to notify you that we have rebranded Zoho MarketingHub to Zoho Marketing Automation. We'll discontinue using the term "MarketingHub" from May 26, 2021. However, there will be no changes in the

• Recent Topics

• How to overcome limitations in meetings

  As a company, one of our deliverables is a meeting between two other companies, where we act as facilitators. So, if we recorded this meeting  in Zoho CRM, it should be connected to 2 accounts, 2 contacts, and 1 campaign (a campaign, in our use, is the

• Different MRP / Pricing for same product but different batches

  We often face the following situations where MRP of a particular product changes on every purchase and hence we have to charge the customer accordingly. This can't be solved by Batch tracking as of now so far as I understand Zoho. How do you manage it as of now? 

• Add a 'Log a Call' link to three dot icon in Canvas

  Hi, There's a three dot element when creating a canvas called 'More'. I would like to modify this to add a link that says 'Log a Call' in order to quickly record the details of a cellphone call. I'd also like this to be a simple 'contact' selection and

• Syncing Zoho Forms with Bigin - Embedding issue?

  Hello everyone, I created a Zoho Form for a page on my GoDaddy website to collect leads, which then transfers the data to Bigin. However, I'm facing an issue where it doesn't seem to work properly. I've integrated Zoho Forms with Bigin and tried embedding

• Can not add fields to a Section

  I feel like I'm missing something obvious: I can add new Sections to my form but I can not add fields to the Sections. I've tried fields already on the form as well as dragging and dropping new fields into the Section but nothing will go into it. What

• Record Logged in User while using CRM lookup field

  Is it possible, while using the Zoho CRM lookup field, to automatically use the user account logged into Zoho CRM in a hidden field? I was hoping to add employee accounts to my current plan. But would like a record on the Form submission of who submitted

• Form Rules for Suburb Categories to alternate landing pages or Making a Fields Contents ALL CAPS

  I need to send differentform submissions to two to three different thank-you URLs (for Meta/Google pixels) depending on which suburb a user selects in a form. I have ~400 suburbs split into two categories (A and B, based on business value). Current challenges:

• Collaps Notes

  There are times when long/large notes are added to a record i.e. Accounts or Deals etc. Currently, the full note is displayed in the notes related list section. It would be great if by default only 5 to 10 rows of the note are displayed when the note

• Zoho Down

  I have a drop in my Zoho One services.

• Runing RPA Agents on Headless Windows 11 Machines

  Has anyone tried this? Anything to be aware of regarding screen resolution?

• Problem for EU users connecting Zoho CRM through Google Ads for Enhanced conversions

  Has anyone else experienced this problem when trying to connect Zoho CRM through Google Ads interface to setup enhanced conversions? Did you guys get it fixed somehow? The Problem: The current Google Ads integration is hardcoded to use Zoho's US authentication

• Why am I getting event Pop-up Notification for events that have been cancelled?

  Why is Calendar Notification still popping up for events that have been cancelled or changed? Each time events are cancelled or changed, I have observed that I am still getting notifications for them. Below is a sample pop-up notification for one of the

• Create a draft in reply to an email via Emails API

  Hi, I’d like to use the outgoing webhook to automatically create a draft reply to incoming mail. How can I use the Emails API to create a draft reply that is linked to an existing email thread? I couldn’t find the relevant method in the documentation.

• India Tech Support

  Is there no phone tech support number for India? And no chat facility either?

• Billing Management: #1 Billing a Universal Business Routine

  Hello, As the saying goes, "Do the hardest job first." We started with the complex subject of finance and revenue management, which is considered the backbone of any business. Now, let's shift our focus and take a deep dive into this Billing Management,

• What is a a valid JavaScript Domain URI when creating a client-based application using the Zoho API console?

  No idea what this is. Can't see what it is explained anywhere.

• 5名限定 課題解決型ワークショップイベント Zoho ワークアウト開催のお知らせ (9/25)

  ユーザーの皆さま、こんにちは。Zoho ユーザーコミュニティチームの藤澤です。 9月開催のZoho ワークアウトについてお知らせします。 今回はZoomにて、オンライン開催します。 諸事情につき、今月の開催回は中止となりました。 次回は10/31（金）14時からの開催を予定しています。 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Zoho ワークアウトとは？ Zoho ユーザー同士で交流しながら、サービスに関する疑問や不明点の解消を目的とした「Zoho ワークアウト」を開催します。 Zoho

• need a packing list feature

  In our business, goods listed on an invoice are packed in separate boxes and shipped off. for e.g. an invoice may have 10 items. each item could then be packed in different boxes depending on qty of each item. this packing list is as important as the invoice for purposes of shipping documents.  Request you to add this feature asap.

• Workdrive 5.0 / API Documentation Workflows

  Hi Zoho, When will the API documentation of the workflows be published? We are interested in using it to trigger manual workflows from an external application. Greetings, Justin

• Zoho Error: This Operation has been restricted. Please contact support-as@zohocorp.com for further details

  Hello There, l tried to verify my domain (florindagoreti.com.br) and its shows this error: This Operation has been restricted. Please contact support-as@zohocorp.com for further details. Screenshot Given Below -  please check what went wrong. Thanks

• How many ZOHO-Sites does the ZOHO-One Suite allow for?

  The free version of ZOHO-Sites allows for two sites, but it seems that the professional version (which is included in the ZOHO-One Suite) only allows for two websites. Is that correct? How many sites can I have within one ZOHO-One account?

• Webhook from Zobot to Zoho Flow fails

  I'm trying to connect from zobot to zoho flow. When testing in zflow, I am receiving all entered data from the connector correctly. The SalesIQ connector's "outputreaction" is {} (is this normal or is there a problem?). But as soon as I try my chat bot

• Transition from Sole Proprietorship to GmbH (Limited Liability Company) – Best Approach in Zoho Books / Zoho One

  Hello everyone, I am currently operating under a Zoho One plan with a sole proprietorship in Switzerland. As of January 1st, 2026, I will be incorporating a new legal entity – a GmbH (Swiss equivalent of a Limited Liability Company). While the business

• Issue Connecting My Domain to Zoho Sites Despite Purchasing It from Zoho

  Hello, I am facing an issue connecting my domain to my website on Zoho Sites. Details of the issue: I purchased the domain directly from Zoho. I am already using the same domain successfully with Zoho Mail. However, when I try to assign this domain to

• Insert auto number from main form into subform rows

  Hello. I'm trying to take from my main form "order number" which i have setup as an auto generated number into every line created in my subform. So when a row is created in my subform i want the "order number " from the main form to be inserted automatically.

• Dark Mode - Font Colors Don't Work

  When editing a document in Dark Mode and selecting font colors, they don't show up on screen.  Viewing/editing the same document in Light Mode shows them just fine.

• Integrate Bunq with ZOHO Bookes

  We are new users of ZOHO Books, and our bank (BUNQ, in the Netherlands) isn't listed on the bank integrations. Is there a way to handle this?

• Access Denied

  I am iOS Developer and updating our clients project and shifted ZohoDeskPortalCore SDKs from cocoapods to SPM and changed few lines of code but now i am get access denied, the help center app is unavailable. please contact administrator.

• Using Zoho Desk to support ISMS process

  Hi, I am evaluating using Zoho Desk for security incident management. This seems to be aligned with Zoho Desk purpose as its just another type of incident. However in security incident management, ideally I can link incidents (tickets) with a risk from

• Bin Locations

  Dear all, I am wondering if someone has the ability to develop the bin locations option for zoho inventory (integrated with zoho books) Regards, Ryan

• TaxJar vs Avalara

  Hi, I'm evaluating adoption of a sales-tax service for US based business. Anyone else have experience with TaxJar and Zoho Books? I am a Zoho One subscriber so anticipate needing to use Flow to make this work. It seems like Avalara are simply too expensive

• How to check Leads with no Task (open activity)

  Hi everyone, I was wondering if there’s a way to view leads that don’t have any tasks assigned or open activities linked to them.

• What can we do on our end to improve the Answer bot answers?

  Hi, I'm using the Answer bot card in the Codeless bot builder. I've input several questions and their answers in the FAQ section to feed the Answer bot. The text is all in French, as this is the language our customers communicate in. I've tried testing

• How to upload file to Connect using API?

  Hi there. I looked at the API documentation and nowhere did it mention how to use the API method to upload a file even though it is mentioned that it is possible to be done so. Please help.

• Group Tax in Service Line Items

  Hi FSM Team! I noticed that when you update a tax in the service line item the group tax is not showing up as an option. Let me know what can be done thank you!

• FSM Improvement Idea - Show an Import button when there is no data

  I am setting up FSM for a client and I noticed that there is no option to import data, see screenshot below. Even when you click Create Contact there is only an option to Import from Zoho Invoice. It is only after you add at lease 1 record that the Import

• OAUTH_SCOPE_MISMATCH Error for Marketing Automation APIs with CRM Plus Account

  I'm trying to integrate Marketing Automation journey triggering via API but getting OAUTH_SCOPE_MISMATCH errors. I need clarification on API access for CRM Plus users.

• Access token generate from the refresh token not working for API

  Dear Sir/Madam, When I use my refresh token to obtain new access_token, that token return INVALID_TOKEN when the same API is called. I made sure that my api site is correct and match the auth web site. However the original access_token work fine.

• Function #4: Schedule Customer Statements

  Regularly sending statements to customers is an imperative part of many business processes as it helps foster strong customer relationships and provides timely guidance on payments. While you can generate the statement of accounts and have it sent over

• Limiting search or dependencies with an asterisk "*".

  I have a form with several dependency fields with options still developing for each field. Since these options were developing and not yet ready to be a selection in the field, I placed a filter for the dropdown field. In this filter, I selected fields

• Next Page