A greeting is the first message, or set of messages, a user sees in a conversation with your agent. A good greeting does three things:
- Introduces the agent and welcomes the user
- Informs the user about what the agent can help them with
- Invites the user to take the next step and offers a clear path forward
There are two types of greetings:
- Default greeting (required)
- Greeting for Google Ads (Google Ads entry point only)
Default greeting
Every agent needs to have a default greeting. If your brand has locations, each location can have its own default greeting, which overrides the agent's default greeting. See Agent- and location-level settings for more information.
The default greeting displays automatically when a user starts a conversation during your agent's available hours. The greeting consists of a welcome message (a text message with up to 1000 characters) and optional conversation starters (up to five). You can set a unique default greeting for each locale you support.
Greetings for Google Ads
If you work with advertisers who run Search ads using message assets, you can create a rich, custom greeting for each message asset. These custom greetings are called "greetings for Google Ads." Each greeting for Google Ads consists of welcome messages (up to three messages, which may include rich features like rich text and carousels) and optional conversation starters (up to five).
You must set a default greeting for your agent before you can set a greeting for Google Ads for the same locale. When you link the greeting for Google Ads to a message asset, this greeting overrides the default greeting on the Google Ads entry point. See Agent- and location-level settings for more information.