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Viber Campaigns

Viber is a rich, high-engagement messaging channel - hugely popular in Greece, Central & Eastern Europe, and Israel. A Viber Business Message can carry up to 1,000 characters of text (emoji included), a square image, and a call-to-action button, so it sits between SMS (short, plain) and email (long, designed): perfect for promotions, back-in-stock alerts, and order updates that deserve more than 160 characters.

Prerequisites​

Viber sends go out through a Viber-capable provider account (Apifon) with a registered Viber sender - your brand name, registered with Viber through the provider (registration typically takes 1–4 working days). Sender registration and the provider account are set up for you by your Joryio administrator; if the campaign wizard tells you no Viber sender is configured, that setup hasn't finished yet.

Creating a Viber campaign​

Viber campaigns use the same wizard as every other channel - open Campaigns → New Campaign and pick Viber. See Creating Campaigns for the wizard itself; below is what's specific to Viber.

Message (Compose step)​

  • Message - text up to 1,000 characters, any language, emoji supported. Use + Personalize for personalization variables; links are shortened and click-tracked by default (same toggle as SMS).
  • Image - a JPEG in 1:1 ratio, at least 400×400 px, referenced by URL.
  • Button - a call-to-action caption (up to 20 characters) plus a destination URL.
  • Valid layouts - Viber accepts: text only, image only, text + button, or text + image + button.
  • Delivery window - how long (in seconds) Viber keeps trying to deliver before the message expires. Expired messages are reported as failed.
  • SMS fallback - optional, off by default: when the recipient can't receive Viber (no app, or the message wasn't delivered within the window), the fallback text is sent as a regular SMS instead. Each fallback that fires bills as an additional SMS.

Audience​

The audience preview counts reachable recipients for Viber: contacts must have a phone number and must not have opted out. Viber is a full consent channel - the default subscription preference only includes contacts with an explicit Viber opt-in (subscriptions.viber), which you can set via CSV import (map a consent column to the Viber channel), the users API, or the preference center. Viber marketing legally requires opt-in under GDPR.

Testing your message​

Use Send test message in the compose step to send the rendered first variant to your own phone. Test sends respect opt-outs - a number that opted out of Viber cannot receive tests either.

Delivery and analytics​

Delivery reports flow back automatically. On the campaign dashboard:

  • Sent - accepted by the provider.
  • Delivered - reached the recipient's Viber app.
  • Opened - Viber reports when a recipient has seen the message; Joryio records it as an open, so Viber campaigns get real read rates.
  • Clicked - clicks on shortened links in the body.
  • Failed - undeliverable, expired, or refused (the failure reason is recorded on the event).

Quiet hours, frequency caps, and send-rate limits apply to Viber exactly as to the other channels.

Transactional messages and templates​

Campaigns and journeys send promotional Viber messages, which are free-form - no approval needed beyond the one-time sender registration. Transactional messages (order updates, OTP codes) are different: since July 2026, Viber requires them to use a pre-approved template (text-only, no marketing content, approved by Viber within seconds to 24 hours) - otherwise they are billed at the higher promotional rate.

Joryio keeps a Viber template registry for this: create the template in the Apifon portal (Templates → Add → Viber Template), mirror it in the registry, and mark it approved once Viber approves it. Transactional sends through the API (POST /campaigns/transactional/send with channel: "viber" and viberTemplateId) require an approved registry template; its dynamic fields are filled per send via variables.

Compliance​

  • Opt-in only - target only contacts with a recorded Viber opt-in (the audience default enforces this).
  • Opt-outs follow the phone number - a Viber opt-out is recorded against the number itself, so duplicate contact records on the same number are suppressed too.
  • Unsubscribe link - include the managed {{ unsubscribe_url }} variable in the body to give recipients a one-tap preferences page; it is automatically shortened like other links.