MessageBird WhatsApp: Why you should definitely not start with Messagebird WhatsApp

It's March 2023, and the waterdrop® CRM team is on a video call with us. This year, the flagship start-up from Austria is expected to post nine-figure eCommerce sales for the first time in the company's history. International, intercontinental, from Austria. Disrupting the drinks market.

"We have been using the MessageBird WhatsApp feature. We currently have a few thousand subscribers in the list. But it's basically just a Google Sheet. We have no data, no analytics, nothing. We have to put our campaigns in Google Sheets. We believe that this is how we communicate with the WhatsApp Business API via Zapier. But we don't know exactly either. Some campaigns are sent up to 4x. Automations sometimes don't trigger it at all."

• waterdrop® CRM Team, Q1 2023

MessageBird: the history

Communication software MessageBird was founded in 2011 as an SMS and telecommunication service by Robet Vis and Adriaan Mol in the Netherlands. Over the years, aggressive market acquisitions added other communication channels such as email and Instagram DM's to the portfolio. The company had a turnover of around €600 million in 2021 and employed up to 700 people in between. Of these, almost half were made redundant by the end of 2022.

Source: (MessageBird Wikipedia](https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/MessageBird)

MessageBird WhatsApp MVP

The fact that additional communication channels would be developed predominantly through M&A and acquisitions was MessageBird's undoing in 2022. There was still no "ready-to-buy" WhatsApp marketing provider. In order not to fall completely behind, MessageBird had to "code a crappy MVP" to be able to offer at least some WhatsApp product to its customers. Some customers - like the waterdrop® team described above - also made use of this. Nur, um kurz darauf auf erste Produktgrenzen und Frustrationen zu stoßen.

As of now, it cannot be assumed that MessageBird will focus the available development resources on its WhatsApp division, so the frustration of the clientele remains, as well as the search for an alternative solution like our WhatsApp marketing tool Chatarmin. So MessageBird WhatsApp should be taken with a grain of salt. It can only be assumed that there will be a functioning MessageBird WhatsApp tool as soon as one has been bought up and systemically integrated. However, as of now, not many WhatsApp marketing providers are available for this.

Book your 25-minute WhatsApp consulting to avoid having to use MessageBird WhatsApp:

Messagebird WhatsApp Business Account Migration

In order to be able to migrate a WhatsApp business account, the current business service provider (BSP) needs to be "approved". In the case of MessageBird, this has been a surprisingly difficult undertaking. Chatarmin has inherited customers from various BSP's in recent months, including hello-charles, CleverPush, whatsmojo or Messengerpeople. No one has crossed the line like MessageBird, which makes us wonder, because waterdrop® didn't have any alternative marketing channels or communication channels with MessageBird. So admittedly it was an isolated solution, and the cost of the MessageBird WhatsApp solution was - understandably given the MVP status - virtually zero.

So we warn against starting with MessageBird WhatsApp, as it could be a tricky business to get your WABA - complete with number, company profile, verification and quality status - off MessageBird again.

Warning about Messagebird WhatsApp

There are now a variety of WhatsApp marketing tools. At this point in time, it is absolutely no longer necessary to resort to immature WhatsApp marketing providers like Messagebird. The market is now too consolidated and competitive. If you do want to set up WhatsApp via Messagebird, please do so on a dummy account, with a dummy Facebook business account, so that you don't test with your "real" infrastructure. Otherwise you will lose valuable time and nerves at the latest when you want to migrate your WABA (WhatsApp Business Account) to another provider like Chatarmin.

Book your 25-minute WhatsApp coaching here and get to know Chatarmin: