WhatsApp Campaigns and Reminders That Wait for You

Maya can prepare a WhatsApp campaign, an appointment reminder or a list of customers to call, and none of it reaches a customer until you tap Approve, even if you've told her to make other changes on her own. For a campaign, you see who will get it and what it should cost before you tap. Campaigns need WhatsApp connected and a plan that includes WhatsApp marketing messages. A new message template also goes to Meta, which says its review can take up to 24 hours. Reminders are a good place to start: in a BMJ Open meta-analysis of 21 randomised studies, patients who got text reminders were 25% less likely to miss their appointment.

Why do campaigns, templates, reminders and call lists wait for your tap?

Maya has three ways of working: ask first (the default), show me the plan, and just do it (Approval, Plan and Bypass in the app). "Just do it" suits settings that can be tested on sample messages and undone. Outreach reaches people outside your account and can't be taken back, so these four always come as a card, whatever mode you picked (summary on the Maya page):

What Maya prepares	What the card shows	What your tap does
WhatsApp campaign	Message preview, exact audience size, estimated cost, send time	Sends to real customers
WhatsApp message template	The message as it will look on a phone	Submits it to Meta for review
Reminder or message automation	When it sends, which template it uses, and any audience filter	Starts sending on its own
Call list (Coordinator)	How many people will be called, and when	Queues real phone calls

If you're talking to Maya on WhatsApp, these come as a Review link that opens the card in the app, not a one-tap Approve.

What do you see before a WhatsApp campaign goes out?

An example (the numbers are made up):

You: Send our spring offer to ad leads from the last 30 days who never booked.

Maya: 238 contacts can get it on WhatsApp. I've left out 12 who opted out of messages. Your "spring_offer" template is approved by Meta, and the estimated cost is on the card. Send now, or schedule it for Saturday at 10?

Behind that answer, Maya checked that WhatsApp is connected, counted the audience from your filters (stage, tags, came from an ad, never booked), showed a small masked sample, and estimated the cost with your plan's per-message rate. Accounts on per-country billing see it priced by the countries your customers' numbers are in. Three rules always hold:

Send now needs an approved template. You can schedule on a template still in review, with a warning: it only goes out if Meta approves it before the send time.
No duplicates. If an identical campaign already exists, Maya tells you instead of making a second one.
One card per campaign. Approving one doesn't approve the next, or the same one with a changed audience.

Meta adds rules of its own. WhatsApp may limit how many marketing messages one person gets from businesses, and it does not currently deliver marketing templates to US phone numbers. Our earlier post on WhatsApp campaigns covers the campaign screen itself.

How does Maya write a WhatsApp template?

Outside a live chat, WhatsApp only lets businesses send templates, messages Meta has approved in advance. Maya builds one with you, one question at a time:

What it should say. Describe the idea in your own words and she drafts it, with spaces for details like the customer's first name.
Marketing or utility. Offers and win-backs are marketing; confirmations and reminders about an existing booking are utility.
Extras, if you want them: a header with text, an image, a video or a document; buttons; a footer; more languages.

The card shows the message as it will look on a phone. Approve it and it goes to Meta. Ask "Is my spring template approved yet?" any time and Maya checks.

How do appointment reminders work?

Say "Remind people the day before their appointment" and Maya prepares a card for the ready-made WhatsApp reminder. The default is 24 hours before; anything from 1 hour to 7 days works. Once you approve, the reminder message goes to Meta for review and the automation switches on.

You can also build your own: a message a set time before appointments, one after an event (a thank-you two hours after a finished appointment), or one on a schedule. Pausing any automation takes effect at once and needs no card, since pausing only stops messages. Reminders go only to customers whose number can receive WhatsApp.

The same BMJ Open review found reminded patients were 23% more likely to attend, with a 15% no-show rate against 21% for those who got no reminder, and more than one reminder lifted attendance further. Our post on reducing no-shows walks through the wider evidence.

How do call lists work with Coordinator?

If you use Coordinator for calls, Maya can write call scripts, change call settings and prepare a list of customers to call: named people, or a filter like "everyone tagged VIP we haven't heard from in 60 days". The card shows how many will be called and when. Nothing dials until you approve.

Business-initiated WhatsApp calling isn't available in the US, Canada, Egypt, Vietnam or Nigeria, so Maya suggests a regular phone line for customers there. And in the US, the FCC ruled in February 2024 that AI-generated voices count as "artificial" under the TCPA, where each unlawful call can cost $500, or up to three times that if the violation was willful or knowing. Our TCPA guide for AI calls explains the consent you need.

What about ads?

If Ads Co-Pilot is on for your account, Maya can change a daily budget or pause an ad straight away, inside safety limits; a bigger budget change becomes a proposal instead. She won't pause an ad that's still learning (under 7 days old and under 50 conversions), in line with Meta's guidance that ad sets usually leave the learning phase after about 50 results in the week after the last significant edit. New campaigns, ad sets and ads are always proposals. You approve them on the Ads Co-Pilot proposals page, unless you've turned on Autopilot in Ads Co-Pilot, which approves them for you. Either way, they arrive in Meta paused. More in using AI for Meta ads without burning budget.

What are the limits?

Maya never messages customers herself. Campaigns and reminders go out from your WhatsApp number as approved templates; calls go through Coordinator.
She can't speed up Meta. Review is Meta's call, and a rejected template has to be edited and sent again.
Call automations skip the card. A standing rule such as "call every no-show the next morning" is set up as soon as you ask. Lists of people to call always get a card, and you can pause an automation any time.
Consent is yours to hold. The audience preview leaves out people who opted out, but getting permission to message or call someone is your job.

Planning a campaign or reminders? Text Maya on WhatsApp and tell her who you want to reach.

FAQ

Can Maya send a WhatsApp campaign without my approval?

No. New campaigns, templates, reminder automations and call lists always wait for your tap, in every mode, including "just do it". Pausing or resuming an existing automation happens right away.

How long does Meta take to approve a template?

Meta says review can take up to 24 hours. You can schedule a campaign on a template still in review; it only sends if Meta approves it before the send time.

What does the cost estimate cover?

The estimated cost of delivering the campaign. The estimate uses your plan's per-message rate. Accounts on per-country billing see it priced by the countries your customers' numbers are in, and there, numbers without a known country can't be priced exactly.

Sources: Meta for Developers WhatsApp documentation (checked November 2026); Robotham et al., BMJ Open (2016); FCC, February 8, 2024; 47 U.S.C. § 227; Meta Business Help Center.

WhatsApp Campaigns, Reminders and Call Lists That Wait for Your OK