WhatsApp opt-in wording that passes in Arabic and English (with examples)
Consent has to say three things — who will message, about what, and how to stop — in a sentence a customer reads before ticking. Most Gulf checkouts say none of them, and the machine-translated Arabic on the ones that try is the version customers screenshot.
The Zanii platform team · · 6 min read
What a valid consent sentence contains
Under the UAE PDPL and the Saudi PDPL alike, consent for direct marketing must be specific and informed: the customer knows which business will message, on which channel, about what kind of thing, and that they can withdraw at any time. It must also be an affirmative act — a pre-ticked box is not consent in either law, and Meta's own opt-in policy says the same. A single unticked checkbox with one clear sentence next to it satisfies all three.
- Checkout, English: "Send me order updates and occasional offers from {Store} on WhatsApp. I can reply STOP at any time." — the order updates are utility and would arrive anyway; naming them tells the customer what the number is.
- Checkout, Arabic: "أوافق أن يرسل لي {المتجر} تحديثات طلبي وعروضه عبر واتساب، وأستطيع إيقافها في أي وقت بالرد بكلمة إيقاف." — written as an Arabic sentence, first person, with the stop word the customer will actually type.
- In-chat button, after a utility message: "Would you like offers from {Store} here too?" with Yes / No quick replies. The Yes is recorded as consent with the time and the message it answered; the No is recorded too, so nobody asks again next month.
- Paper or in-store: the same sentence on the form, with the customer's signature or the staff member's initials and the date. Photograph it into the contact record; a paper consent nobody can find is no consent.
Why the Arabic is written, not translated
Machine translation of "I agree to receive marketing communications" produces legalese no Gulf customer uses, in a register that reads as a terms-of-service page rather than a question. The customers who tick it did not read it, and the ones who read it screenshot it. Arabic consent works when it is a plain first-person sentence — أوافق، أستطيع، أريد — naming the store and the stop word. Dialect is not needed; clear Modern Standard Arabic is read across the Gulf and Egypt alike. What matters is that a person wrote it for a person.
What goes wrong
- "By continuing you agree to receive messages" under the Pay button.
- Not an affirmative act, not specific, and the first thing a regulator will point at. A separate, unticked box.
- STOP in the English template, no stop word in the Arabic one.
- Every marketing template carries an opt-out button in its own language, and the platform recognises إيقاف, توقف, الغاء and STOP as the same instruction.
- Recording consent as a boolean in the CRM.
- Record what they were shown, when, and what they did. A yes without the sentence they said yes to does not answer the regulator's question.
Common questions
- Does a customer replying to our message count as opting in?
- It opens a 24-hour window and it means they are willing to talk; it is not consent to campaigns. Ask the question inside that window with a button, and record the tap. The distinction is the whole difference between a conversation and a broadcast, and it is the one regulators draw.
- How long is consent valid?
- Neither the UAE nor the Saudi law sets an expiry; consent lasts until withdrawn. Meta's practice and the operators' complaint thresholds set a practical one: a customer who has not engaged in a year reports a message at a far higher rate. Re-ask, with a utility message and a button, before the first campaign after a long silence.