Marketing Cloud WhatsApp-First Business Messaging (Meta) Phone Number Acquisition & Migration

Bring Your Own WhatsApp Business Account Phone Number

Customers must acquire a WhatsApp Channel Phone Number before getting started with WhatsApp-First Business Messaging (Meta)

A valid phone number is required to set up brands’ WhatsApp Business Account (WABA) channels. The phone number should meet the criteria below:

1. Owned by the customer
2. Has a valid country code, area code - fixed line OR mobile (no SMS shortcodes)
3. Able to receive text messages and voice calls
4. Unique within WhatsApp Business Platform - Not previously used

Role of the Phone Number

• It only acts as an identifier for the Business’ Communication channel
• Registering the number with WhatsApp doesn’t change the number’s everyday usage behavior, i.e., it can be used for usual business purposes like calling or texting as before
• The exact number can be used to send to multiple countries. However, the best practice is to have separate numbers per country to avoid end-user confusion/fraud appearance.
• Before you purchase and plan for migration, please consider the following considerations.

Options to acquire a Channel phone number based on customers' context and sourcing policies:

1. Existing Phone Number - Use an existing and valid (see above criteria) business phone number (such as a regular 10-digit phone number already being used for marketing campaigns or enterprise communication, etc.) that is not activated/previously registered with WhatsApp
2. Source from Existing Telephony Provider - Connect with your PBX/Voice service provider for enterprise telephony needs.
   1. Customers can request a new number (fixed/mobile) from the existing onboarded vendor.
      1. Examples: AT&T, VZ, VDF, BT, NTT, DT, Tata, etc.
3. Source from 3rd Party Communication Platform as a Service (CPaaS) Provider - Acquire numbers from web-based CPaaS providers.
   1. The advantage is quick setup time and hassle-free commercial & legal experience via a full online self-service model.
      1. Examples: Sinch, Vonage, Bandwidth, Twilio, Plivo, etc.

Customers with Existing Phone Numbers through existing Sinch Service or 3rd Party Business Solution Provider (BSP)

You must contact your Account Representative to determine if you qualify for migration and make the necessary changes to your org's SKUs & Entitlements. Support is not able to assist with migrations, please refer to the WhatsApp-First Business Messaging (Meta) FAQ article for more information.

Regardless of which option you choose, upon migrating from Chat Messaging Setup (Sinch) to WhatsApp-First Business Messaging (Meta), it's recommended to delete or uninstall the Installed Package, Chat Messaging Setup, from your Marketing Cloud instance to avoid confusion when conducting WhatsApp Messaging activities.