Impact of Facebook Messenger Policy Changes on VWO Engage

Starting March 4th, 2020, Facebook made changes to its messaging policy for marketers. This Impacts the way VWO Engage sends out messages to its subscribers. To know more about the changes in Facebook messenger policy, refer to the Overview of New Platform Policy (Applies starting March 4th, 2020).

How Does This Policy Affect The Messenger Features of VWO Engage?

Let’s have a look at Messenger features of VWO Engage and how they are impacted.

NOTE: Until March 3rd, 2020, all the features mentioned below will remain in operation without any impact.

VWO Engage lets you send messages in the following two ways:

1. Broadcast
   Broadcasts are the messages that you can send to all the subscribers of your messenger list, at once. Using the Facebook Broadcast API, you could broadcast messages to all subscribers.
   
   NOTE: Subscribers here are total users that have messaged your page directly or have opted-in through Engage.
   
   Starting March 4th, 2020, the Facebook Broadcast API will be deprecated. As a result, the Promotional and Non Promotional broadcast feature of VWO Engage will no longer be available.
   
   However, you can still send the broadcast messages using the paid/sponsored messages service. Facebook Sponsored Messages are the ones you pay for and send out to your total subscriber’s list. The message would also be sent to the people who have unsubscribed but not to the people who have blocked your page.
   
   
2. Direct Send 
   Direct Send allows you to send messages only to those subscribers that were active (interacted with your bot) in the past 24 hours. Also, the messenger could send one additional message after the 24-hour time limit has expired. This is commonly referred to as the '24 + 1 policy'.
   
   Some user actions that open the 24 hour Standard Messaging window:
   
       > A user sends a message to the Page
       > User clicks a call-to-action button as Get Started within a Messenger conversation
       > User clicks on a Click-to-Messenger ad and then starts a conversation with the Page
       > The user starts a conversation with a Page via a plugin, such as Send to Messenger plugin or the Checkbox plugin
       > User clicks on an m.me link with a ref parameter on an existing thread
       > User posts or comments on a Page. See Private Replies
       > User reacts to a message. See Replies and Reactions
   
   Starting March 4th, 2020,  the +1 message that allowed businesses to send 1 additional message after the 24-hour window will no longer be available. 
   
   NOTE: You can still send promotional/non-promotional messages using the Direct Send in Engage to users who were active with your page in the last 24 hours. 
   To know how to send messages outside the 24-hour messaging window, refer to Message Tags, and Sponsored messages.