Guide · Templates · For the owner whose customers keep asking for directions

Sending a map pin on WhatsApp: Meta's location templates for store openings, events and deliveries

A written address is the weakest part of most WhatsApp messages about a place. The customer copies it into a map, the map guesses, and the guess is wrong often enough that the next message is a phone call asking for directions. Meta's location templates put a map at the top of the message instead: the customer taps it and their own map app opens on the exact spot. Here is what Meta's two pages on them say, which messages may carry one, and the one limit that catches people out.

Published 4 October 2026

What a location template is

A map on top of the message: The template's header is a map showing one place. When the customer taps it, their default map app opens at those coordinates, ready for directions. Below the map sits the usual body text, an optional footer and optional buttons.
Marketing or utility, nothing else: Meta allows a location header only on templates in the marketing and utility categories. An authentication template, the kind that carries a login code, cannot have one.
The place is chosen when you send, not when you create: The template approved by Meta holds the wording, not the location. The coordinates, the place name and the address are supplied each time the message goes out. One approved template can therefore point every customer to a different branch, or every order to its own delivery point, without a new approval for each.
A fixed point, never a live one: Meta states plainly that real-time locations are not supported. The pin is where you put it when the message was sent; it does not follow a driver.

The other direction

A location template sends a place to the customer. Asking the customer where they are is a different message with its own button, described in the location request guide. A delivery business often needs both: one to learn where the customer is, one to tell them where to collect.

What Meta suggests each category is for

Marketing: Meta's marketing page lists store openings, event invitations, pop-up shops and other promotions tied to a place. These are promotions, so they follow every marketing rule: the customer's permission first, and Meta's limits on how many promotions one person receives.
Utility: Meta's utility page lists order tracking, delivery updates, pickup and drop-off points for rides, and helping a customer find a physical store. These answer something the customer is already waiting for, which is what keeps them in the utility category.

The category is decided by what the message does, not by the map on it. A grand-opening invitation with a map is marketing; the same branch's map sent to tell a customer where their order is waiting is utility. How Meta draws that line, and why a promotion dressed as an update is reclassified, is in the template categories guide; the permission rule is in the opt-in guide, and the limit on promotions per person in the per-person cap guide.

Using it well

One template per purpose, not per place. Because the location is filled in at send time, a business with several branches needs one approved "collect your order" template, not one per branch. The system picks the branch for each customer.
Send the name and address with the pin. Each send carries a place name and an address alongside the coordinates. Fill them in properly: the landmark the customer will recognise matters as much as the point on the map, especially where addresses are given by landmark rather than by street number.
Keep the words short. The body allows up to 1,024 characters and the footer up to 60, but the map is the message. A line saying what the place is and when to come is usually enough.
Do not promise tracking. A pin is fixed. For a driver on the way, send the current point again when it matters, or a link to a tracking page; never word the message as if the map will move.

Questions

Can the map show our driver moving towards the customer?

No. Meta's pages say real-time locations are not supported. The pin shows one fixed point, set when the message was sent.

Do we need a separate approved template for each branch?

No. The location is supplied each time the template is sent, so one approved template can point to any branch or address.

Can a one-time login code message carry a map?

No. Only marketing and utility templates may have a location header.

Is a map in a promotion still a promotion?

Yes. A store opening or event invitation with a map is a marketing message and follows the marketing rules on permission, limits and pricing.

Sources

Meta's developer documentation: Location templates (marketing), read 3 October 2026.
Meta's developer documentation: Location templates (utility), read 3 October 2026.

More plain-language notes like this one are on the guides page.

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