You have a few hundred customer numbers: from invoices, booking forms, delivery slips and the register by the till. It seems obvious to send them your festival offer on WhatsApp. They are your customers, after all.
The trouble is that most of those people gave you their number for one reason, such as a delivery or a receipt, and never said yes to promotions. WhatsApp opt-in is the step that turns a number into permission. This post covers what a proper opt-in says, how to collect one on your website, at checkout and in person, how to keep a record, and what to do with the numbers you already hold. It is general guidance, not legal advice.
Why permission comes before the first offer
Meta’s rules for business messaging expect a business to have the person’s agreement before sending them messages on WhatsApp, and to respect requests to stop. Providers on the WhatsApp Business Platform usually ask you to confirm you have it. Data protection laws, including India’s DPDP Act and the GDPR in the EU, also expect consent to be clear, specific and easy to withdraw.
There is a practical reason too. People who did not ask for your messages are the ones who block and report you, and those reactions count against your number. People who asked are the ones who read, reply and buy. A smaller list of willing contacts does more work than a large list of surprised ones.
What a WhatsApp opt-in should say
Whatever form it takes, a good opt-in makes four things clear at the moment the person agrees:
- The channel. That messages will come on WhatsApp, not only by SMS or email.
- The business. Who will be sending them.
- The kind of messages. Offers, new arrivals, appointment reminders, class schedules. Be honest about promotions if you plan to send them.
- How to stop. For example, “Reply STOP at any time.”
A line like this covers all four: “Yes, send me offers and new arrivals from Kavya Fabrics on WhatsApp. I can reply STOP at any time.”
What does not count: a checkbox already ticked for the customer, a line hidden in the terms and conditions, or a sentence that only mentions “updates” when you mean sales messages. Bundling consent with something else, such as making it a condition of placing an order, is also a weak basis.
Collecting consent on website forms
Contact, enquiry and booking forms are the easiest place to start, because the customer is already typing their number.
- Add a separate checkbox, unticked by default, with the opt-in wording beside it. The form should still send if the box is left empty.
- Label the phone field clearly if you want a WhatsApp number specifically. Some people use a different number for WhatsApp.
- Save the checkbox value with the entry, along with the date and the page it came from.
- Mention WhatsApp in your privacy policy, saying what you send and how people can stop it.
On a WordPress site, most form plugins support an extra checkbox field and store it with each submission. If you send form entries to a spreadsheet or CRM, make sure the consent field travels with them. Our post on consent on website forms under India’s data law covers the wording and record side in more depth.
A dedicated signup block also works for people who are not ready to buy: “Get new batch dates on WhatsApp”, with a number field and the same consent line.
Opt-in at checkout in an online store
Checkout is the moment you get the most numbers, and the moment you should be most careful. Order updates, such as confirmation and shipping, are part of serving the order. Promotions are not.
Keep them apart:
- One optional checkbox for marketing on WhatsApp, unticked, near the phone field.
- Order updates explained separately, if you send them on WhatsApp, so the customer knows to expect them.
- The consent saved on the order or customer record, so your messaging tool can tell who agreed to what.
This separation matters later. Abandoned cart reminders and offers count as marketing, so they need the marketing opt-in, not the order-update one.
At the counter: QR codes and staff asking
Many small businesses see more customers in person than online. Two methods work well there.
Customer-started chats
Put a QR code at the till, on the menu card or on the bill, with a short line such as “Scan to get our offers on WhatsApp”. The code opens a chat with a pre-filled message like “Please add me to offers”. When the customer sends it, they have started the conversation and asked for updates in their own words. That chat is your record. Our guide to WhatsApp QR codes and links shows how to set the pre-filled text.
Staff asking
Staff can ask at billing: “Would you like our offers on WhatsApp?” If the answer is yes, note it in the billing software or on a simple sheet with the date. Train staff to ask, not to add every number by default. A tick next to every number on a busy day is not consent.
Keeping a record you can find later
If a customer ever asks why you messaged them, or a provider asks you to show how contacts opted in, you need an answer. A record does not have to be elaborate. For each person, keep:
- The number.
- Where they opted in: website form, checkout, QR code, in store.
- When.
- What they agreed to: offers, reminders, both.
- Whether and when they asked to stop.
Form plugins and stores keep the first four automatically if you set them up to. For in-store consent, a shared spreadsheet works. Sending form entries straight to a sheet, as described in sending website forms to Google Sheets, keeps everything in one place. Label chats in the Business app too, such as “opted in” or “offers”, so staff can see status at a glance.
Making it easy to stop
Opting out must be as easy as opting in. Mention it in your marketing messages, accept any reasonable wording (“stop”, “no more”, “remove me”), and act on it promptly. Remove the person from broadcast lists and mark them in your records so nobody adds them back by mistake.
Reply once to confirm, politely, and then stop. “Done, you will not get offers from us on WhatsApp. You can still message us any time.” On the Business Platform, providers often handle a stop keyword automatically. Check that it works before you rely on it.
The numbers you already have
Old numbers from invoices and registers are the hard part. The cautious approach is to treat them as numbers without marketing permission, and to collect permission going forward instead of messaging them all at once.
Ways to reach them without pushing promotions:
- Ask in person when they next visit.
- Use channels where you have permission, such as an email newsletter they signed up for, to invite them to opt in on WhatsApp.
- Show the QR code and opt-in line on bills and packaging, so returning customers choose for themselves.
For how permission fits into the rest of your WhatsApp work, from broadcasts to templates, read our WhatsApp marketing for small business guide. For the bigger picture across channels, see our digital marketing hub.
Frequently asked questions
Does a customer messaging me first count as opt-in for offers?
It lets you reply to their question, but it is not clear agreement to future promotions. If they asked about a product, answer it, and then ask whether they would like updates on WhatsApp. A yes in the chat, kept in the conversation and noted on your records, is a much stronger basis than assuming.
Do I need fresh opt-in when I move from the app to the API?
Not necessarily, if your existing records show people agreed to messages from your business on WhatsApp. What changes is that a provider may ask you to confirm how contacts were collected. If your records are thin, the move is a good moment to ask again and tidy up the list.
Can one checkbox cover email, SMS and WhatsApp together?
It is clearer to offer each channel separately, because people often want one and not the others. Separate checkboxes also make your records simpler: when someone stops WhatsApp messages, you know whether they still want email. If you do combine them, name every channel plainly in the wording.
How long does WhatsApp consent last?
There is no fixed expiry in WhatsApp’s own tools, but consent from someone who has not bought or replied in a long time is weak in practice. If a contact has ignored your messages for many months, ask whether they still want them, and remove those who do not answer.
Setting up opt-in on forms, checkout and in store is one of the first jobs in our WhatsApp marketing service, because every later message relies on it. If you have done the steps above yourself, your list is already in better shape than most.
Next in this series: WhatsApp Message Templates: Categories and Approval
