The Main Menu in Manychat is your ultimate tool for providing a seamless and engaging experience to your audience on Facebook and Instagram.
Whether you're looking to guide customers to your products, share valuable resources, or enable quick access to essential services, the Main Menu is designed to enhance user interaction and boost engagement. The best part? You can design it to fit your unique business needs and goals.
In this article, we’ll walk you through everything you need to know about setting up and optimizing the Main Menu in Manychat.
- What is the Main Menu and why does it matter
- How to set up the Main Menu for Instagram DMs
- How to set up the Main Menu for Messenger
- Limitations and troubleshooting
What is the Main Menu and why does it matter
The Main Menu, known as the persistent menu on both Facebook and Instagram, is a feature that allows you to provide easy access to important information for your subscribers. It makes business communication more intuitive and interactive, allowing users to find what they need with minimal effort.
On Facebook Messenger, the Main Menu appears when a user clicks the hamburger icon (the three horizontal lines) in the bottom right corner of the chat.
Similarly, on Instagram DMs, users can access it by tapping the same hamburger icon in the top right corner, ensuring consistency across platforms.
How to set up the Main Menu for Instagram DMs
To set up the Main Menu for Instagram, navigate to Settings → Instagram → Main Menu in your Manychat account.
Once in the Main Menu section, you can start adding menu items by clicking on + Menu Item.
For each item, you’ll need to enter a title, which is the text that will appear to your users. You can also link each menu item to an existing automation or create a new one to trigger a specific workflow when users select that option.
⚠️ Note: For Pro accounts, you can add up to 20 menu items, while Free accounts are limited to 3 menu items.
As you add menu items and link them to their corresponding automations, a preview of the menu will appear on the right-hand side of the screen. This allows you to review how everything will look to users before you make it live.
Once you’re satisfied with the setup, click the Update Menu button in the upper-right corner to finalize and make your changes live. Don’t forget to activate the toggle to enable the Main Menu on Instagram.
Additionally, you can configure the Main Menu for Instagram in Automations → Basic if you prefer to manage it from there.
This process ensures that your Main Menu is ready to guide Instagram users with quick and easy access to essential features and automations.
How to set up the Main Menu for Messenger
The process for setting up the Main Menu for Facebook Messenger is identical to Instagram. Navigate to Settings → Messenger → Main Menu to begin.
You can follow the same steps outlined in the previous section to add menu items, link automations, preview the setup, and publish your changes.
One difference of Messenger Main Menu items is that they allow you to directly open a website when a menu item is selected, and you can configure this for each item individually, as shown below.
Just like Instagram, you can also configure the Main Menu for Facebook Messenger in the Automations → Basic section.
What sets Facebook Messenger apart is the Dynamic Menu—a powerful feature, also known as Meta's user level menu, that enables you to create and apply customized menus for specific contacts based on their actions or the data you gathered about them.
Unlike the Default Menu, which is static for all users, the Dynamic Menu offers flexibility to tailor the experience for individual contacts. It allows you to:
- Customize menus based on user behavior: For instance, if you offer a 20% discount for first-time purchases, you can show this menu item only until a user completes their first purchase. Afterward, you can dynamically replace it with a menu tailored to repeat customers.
- Switch menus automatically in automations: By using the Change Menu action in an Action Block, you can dynamically update the menu for specific users within an automation. For example, once a purchase is made or a tag is applied, you can seamlessly switch to a new menu.
- Create unique menus for different scenarios: While the Default Menu serves as the baseline, you can design entirely separate menu sets with custom items for various user groups or interactions.
To better understand how to create and utilize Dynamic Menus, let’s walk through the process of setting one up and integrating it into a simple automation.
To create a Dynamic Menu for Messenger, click on the + New Menu option.
In the popup window, enter a unique and descriptive name for your menu, such as "First-Time Offers", and click Create.
Once the menu is created, click on it to start editing.
From here, you can design your menu by adding menu items just like you would for a standard menu as described previously. You can either choose to reply with a message and trigger an automation, or directly open a website—both options are available.
When your Dynamic Menu is ready, the next step is to integrate it into an automation so it can appear to the right users at the right time. Open the automation where you want to dynamically change the menu for your users. Inside the automation, add an Action Block to the right place.
Within the Action Block, select the Change Menu action, and choose the Dynamic Menu you’ve just created from the list of available menus.
When users interact with your automation and reach the step immediately before the Action Block, their persistent menu will dynamically update to show the menu you’ve selected. This allows you to tailor the experience for specific user segments, ensuring that the menu options they see are relevant to their journey or actions.
Dynamic Menus can also be applied outside of automations by using Rules. For example, you can set a Rule to apply a specific menu when a tag is added or a Custom User Field value changes.
This feature empowers you to provide a highly personalized experience, ensuring users only see menu options relevant to them. By leveraging the Dynamic Menu, you can enhance customer satisfaction, and streamline navigation for your contacts.
With this information on hand, you'll be well-equipped to set up and optimize the Main Menu for Messenger, improving user engagement and interaction within your business
Limitations and troubleshooting
In this section, we'll cover some common issues you may encounter when setting up the Main Menu, along with troubleshooting tips to help you resolve any problems and ensure everything runs smoothly.
Limitations
For Pro accounts, you can add up to 20 menu items, while Free accounts are limited to 3 menu items.
Troubleshooting
1. If you cannot publish the Main Menu
First, refresh permissions of your Manychat account through the Help button as outlined in this article.
⚠️ Note: Ensure these actions are performed by a team member who is either the Owner or an Admin with full control over the Facebook business page connected to the Manychat account.
2. If the Main Menu doesn't appear or its items aren't working
First, ensure that the Main Menu has been successfully published and enabled, as outlined earlier in this article.
If it’s already published and enabled, try making a small change, such as adding a space to one of the menu item titles. Save the update, then delete the space and update again. This can help to refresh the menu settings and resolve potential issues.
Next, confirm that automations linked to the menu items are successfully published, and not deleted. Look for a small yellow dot next to the automation title, which indicates there are unpublished changes that need to be addressed.
Lastly, refresh permissions, as outlined earlier, and ensure you follow the steps and requirements mentioned above when completing this.
3. If switching from the Default Menu to a Dynamic Menu in Messenger isn't working
Please be aware that the Messenger Profile API has a rate limit of 10 API calls per 10-minute interval, applied per business page.
Similarly, calls to the user level menu (Dynamic Menu in Manychat) are restricted to 10 API calls per user within the same 10-minute interval, also enforced per page. For more detailed information on these API limitations, refer to here.
If you are encountering any issues with the Main Menu feature, please contact our Support Team.