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As of 12:00am – 1 August 2019 Facebook has gone live with Subscription Messaging for bots on Facebook Messenger. Here is a refresher on what this means for your Messenger bots.
How Subscription Messaging works
With the new policy taking effect, Messenger Bots are able to send messages within 24 hours after respondents last interacted. One additional “non-promotional” message can be sent outside of the 24 hours.
To send messages outside of this window, a Facebook page needs to have “Subscription Messaging” approved. Subscription Messaging enables sending of non-promotional messages to respondents at any time.
The process to apply for Subscription Messaging involves:
- Choosing a category for your Messenger bot. The categories are – News, Personal tracking, Productivity.
- Providing some example messages that your bot will be sending to respondents when reaching out to them.
You can also provide a more detailed description on how this works to give Facebook a better understanding of how your bot works.
For more details on how to apply for Subscription Messaging, check out our help article here.
Why has Facebook made this change?
Facebook made this change to improve the experience users have in Messenger and to stop people from abusing Messenger, using bots to spam their audience with promotions or unwanted messages.
Businesses are a key part of Facebook’s strategy with Messenger so this does not mean Facebook is stopping businesses from using Messenger to engage with customers or their audience.
We see this as a step in the right direction and Messenger is going to be an even better channel for you to engage with your audience as the Messenger experience is only going to be better for users with this change.
To see how Surveybot handles Subscription Messaging for Facebook Messenger bots check out our help article here.
