Business Search

This page introduces WhatsApp Business Search, explaining how users can find verified businesses by name or category, and view the end-user experience through images.

At the moment this feature is available only for verified businesses in Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, Colombia and the UK.

Feature Overview

WhatsApp Business Search is a feature that allows people to discover businesses and start conversations with trusted API accounts on WhatsApp.

Users can search by typing the name of a verified business they want to contact. When they enter a term, they may see one or multiple matching business results. For example, typing “american” could display “American Express.”

In addition to direct search by name, users can also browse by category to find and connect with businesses that match their needs.

Businesses can configure their category (vertical) through the 360Dialog Client Hub or through the API.

See below images of the client (end-user) experience.

Users can Find + Connect with API Businesses

Tapping on a result opens a chat view where a user can send the first message.

Popular Business

The WhatsApp Business Search App has a " Popular " section at the top of the homepage, to enhance visibility for eligible businesses in Mexico, Indonesia, and Colombia.

The section displays the top 25 businesses that have engaged with the most overall user messages via WhatsApp Business Search in the last 7 days. (See image above)

Best Practices

Think strategically about your presence on Business Search

Tip 1: Consider how your brand shows up in search results

Make your business presence simpler and more attractive for consumers by highlighting a single account with a brand-focused display name. This can make it easier for people to recognize and contact your business.

Pros

• Stronger marketing and promotion potential

• Fewer templates to manage overall

Cons

• Broader use cases require additional preparation and management

• Less flexibility to tailor initial responses to specific expected use cases

Tip 2: Create unique account display names

To ensure a high quality, confusion-free experience for people, duplicated display names will not be displayed. Review your display names and ensure those that you wish to be visible are change to a unique name and switch their visibility to “on”.

Tip 3: Reflect the purpose of the account in the display name

Tip 4: Reflect the purpose of the account in the templated responses

See how to activate Business Search for your business in this documentation:

Activate Business Search

Do not turn ‘on’ visibility for accounts focused on marketing/promotions, but do turn ‘on’ visibility for the account(s) that support user-initiated messages.

1

Go to WhatsApp Manager > Phone Numbers.

2

Locate the Search Visibility toggle available for eligible businesses.

3

Activate Search Visibility.

4

Activate for all phone numbers (optional)

If available, you can also enable Search Visibility for all phone numbers at once: