Audience: Account Management, Customer Success, Solutions Engineering — for customers using sign-up units with coupon or welcome message flows.
The problem
Many businesses use a Sign-Up unit flow that works like this today:1
Phone number collected
The website Sign-Up unit collects the user’s phone number.
2
User redirected to WhatsApp
The user is redirected to WhatsApp via a
wa.me link and sends an inbound message to the business.3
Bot matches and replies
The bot or autoreply matches the inbound phone number against the number collected on the website and sends back the coupon code.
Recommended fix: send the coupon as an API campaign
The business already has the phone number — it was collected on the website in step 1. Instead of waiting for an inbound message and trying to match it, the business’s backend sends the coupon directly to that phone number as a business-initiated campaign via Connectly’s Campaign Send API. New flow:1
Phone number collected
Website Sign-Up unit collects the phone number — unchanged.
2
Backend sends the coupon directly
The business’s backend calls
POST /v1/businesses/{businessId}/send/campaigns with that phone number, triggering a pre-approved WhatsApp template that delivers the coupon code.3
wa.me redirect (optional)
The
wa.me redirect can stay if desired — but the coupon no longer depends on the inbound message arriving.One-time setup
Before the first send, the customer needs:- A campaign created in Connectly with an approved WhatsApp template containing the coupon message. Note its
campaignId. - The campaign must be published — the API rejects draft campaigns.
- A Connectly API key with
messaging.sendscope (passed as theX-API-Keyheader).
Example API request
By default, the API prevents sending the same campaign to the same phone number twice (
if_duplicate_check_unspecified: allow_one). This is usually the right behaviour for a sign-up coupon — a customer should only receive it once.Important: pricing impact
Alternative: request phone number sharing inside WhatsApp
If the cost increase is not acceptable, there is a cheaper option for phone-less users specifically. Meta added a nativeREQUEST_CONTACT_INFO message type that lets businesses ask the user to confirm sharing their phone number inside WhatsApp. The user taps one button, the shared phone number arrives on the webhook, and the existing phone-matching logic works again — all inside the free service window.
Sending this message type from the Connectly Flow Builder is not yet available. A dedicated node is planned. Until it ships, this option cannot be self-served through the platform. Contact your Connectly Account Manager for the latest status.
