Messenger Launches One-Time Notification API to Enable Businesses to Send Important Follow-up Messages

Today, we are introducing the One-Time Notification API (Beta) - a new API that allows businesses to send important follow-ups in Messenger. In December, we announced our plans to introduce this API to support valuable use cases like price drop alerts, back in stock alerts, and other important follow-ups that people have requested notifications for. Developers and businesses can start building on this API right away.

The way the API works is simple: Businesses can send a message to the user asking if they want to be notified on a topic. If the user asks to be notified, the business receives a token and can use this token to send out the notification with the information the user requested at a later time. Here’s an example:

A person is shopping for a shirt but it’s out of stock. The business asks if they want to be notified when the shirt is back in stock. The user asks to receive a notification and the business gets a token in exchange. When the item is back in stock, the business uses this token to respond back to the person letting them know of the item’s availability.

We remain committed to investing in platform updates and policy changes that support an engaging, high quality user experience, with integrity baked into them. That’s why we are limiting the number of one-time notification requests that a business can send to a user as well as limiting the follow up to be a single notification.

Thank You to Our Community

As always, thank you to our developer ecosystem and business community for continuing to surface feedback on the platform and helping us support valuable use cases that make Messenger a great experience for everyone.