The WhatsApp Business App calls this a broadcast too, and caps it at 256
contacts, reaches only people who saved your number, and gives you no
scheduling, no personalisation and no delivery reports. This is the same job
without any of that: no cap beyond Meta’s own messaging
tier, no requirement that anybody saved you, and you can see
what arrived.
It belongs to the workspace, not to an agent
A broadcast is sent from your WhatsApp number, using a template that belongs to your WhatsApp Business Account, to your workspace’s contacts. None of those is one agent’s, so neither is the list: every broadcast appears here, whichever agent answers it.Looking for calling campaigns? They are Voice Campaigns in the main
sidebar, listed the same way this page lists broadcasts. The difference is
what you choose when you build one: a call goes out from a particular agent’s
number and is opened in its own words, so the builder asks which agent does
the calling. See Calling campaigns.
Before you can send
In this order: WhatsApp connected, an approved template, and contacts who have consented. Each screen in the chain says what the next one needs, and the Send broadcast button says which one is missing before you start rather than after you have filled the form in.How marketing broadcasts are sent
A broadcast on a marketing template goes out through Meta’s Marketing Messages API, which Meta optimises for delivery. Meta reports up to 9% more marketing messages delivered in India than the standard API, for messages people engage with. There’s nothing to switch on: if your account isn’t eligible yet, Meta sends it the standard way instead. The price is the same. WhatsApp still limits how many marketing messages each person receives, on every platform. If some aren’t delivered, see When a message isn’t delivered.Writing one
New broadcast opens a page, not a dialog — five decisions with a live preview of what arrives between them:1
Name it
For you, not the customer. Nobody receiving it sees this.
2
Choose who it goes to
See below — the lists overlap, and the page says which one it settles on.
3
Pick an approved template
Only approved ones appear. Meta refuses anything else at the moment of
sending, so an unapproved template is not an option you can pick and regret.
4
Fill the blanks
Each one takes a contact field or a fixed value. The preview updates as you
type, so you read the message a real recipient gets rather than a row of
braces.
5
Say when
Now, or a time. Scheduling needs nothing left open — see Sending below.
Who answers the replies
A broadcast produces conversations — people reply to it. Who answers the replies on the send form picks the agent that handles them, and defaults to the one your number already answers on. It is a real choice rather than a formality: you may want a different agent on a sale than on a delivery notice. Replies land in your inbox whichever you pick, so nothing is lost if you change your mind afterwards — only who drafts the first answer.Choosing an audience
Three lists, each showing its count before you commit:
You can tick more than one. The lists overlap — everybody who opted in on
WhatsApp is also in Everyone who opted in — so ticking two sends to Everyone
who opted in, and the page says so and shows that count as soon as you pick a
second list.
Getting people opted in
Consent is collected out in the world — on your website, a form, at your counter, in a shop, over the phone — as long as what they agreed to names your business and says you will message them on WhatsApp. What the console does is record it. There are four ways, and they all write the same thing: the answer, the date, and where it came from.Recording it for people already in your contacts
An admin can record consent for everyone nobody has asked yet, in one go. You confirm that they agreed and say how — in writing, in person or by phone, or on your website — and that answer is stored beside each contact with today’s date. It is what you would show WhatsApp if they ever ask, so it is worth being accurate about. It never touches anybody who opted out. Somebody who replied STOP stays opted out, and no bulk action can undo that.Contacts with no phone number are left alone too — a WhatsApp consent needs a
WhatsApp number to apply to — and so are the people your agent spoke to, who
live on Leads and arrived by a different promise.
The do-not-contact list
Separate from consent, and it applies to broadcasts as well as calls. Consent is about a customer you already have: they replied STOP, or they never opted in. The do-not-contact list is a list of numbers — the file you get from a regulator, a complaint, a lawyer’s letter, or the CRM you used before. Most of those numbers are not in your contacts at all, so there is nothing to set a consent flag on. Add them on the Contacts page, with the Do not contact button at the top — paste them or upload a file. Nothing on that list is ever messaged or called again, on any channel. Finding the numbers to add. Filter your contacts by what happened to their last WhatsApp message (for example Failed or Not delivered), then choose Export CSV. You get exactly the people that filter shows, every page of them, with a Do not contact column saying who is on the list already. The file opens in Excel and Google Sheets, including names written in Telugu, Hindi or any other script. Only owners and admins can export.It is checked at the moment each message is sent, not when the audience was
built. So a list you upload at eleven stops a broadcast that is already part
way through. It also survives an import: bringing in a spreadsheet that happens
to contain one of those numbers updates the contact, but it does not take the
number off the list. Only removing it does that, and that needs an admin.
Narrowing by tag or group
Tags filter within the list you chose — they never reach past it. Picking two tags means either, not both. Groups work the same way, under Narrow it by group: pick one or more of the groups you made on Contacts and the broadcast goes only to people in them who are also on the list you chose. Tags and groups together mean either: anyone carrying one of the tags or in one of the groups. The exact number after tagging is worked out when the broadcast sends, against consent as it stands then, so the summary shows the list’s own size and says the tags will narrow it. That is deliberate: somebody who withdraws consent between your writing it and its going out is not messaged.Variables
Each blank binds to a contact field or one fixed string. A template with a placeholder cannot go out with it empty.You cannot edit the message here, and that is not an omission. Meta
approved a specific wording; changing it means submitting a new template and
waiting for review. What is yours per-send is what goes in the blanks, which
is what this asks for.
Retargeting and split tests
Both optional, both at the foot of the form.broadcast + outcome
Sends only to people who did something — or nothing — with a broadcast that
has already gone out. Did not reply is the usual one and usually the one
worth sending.Both halves or neither: an earlier broadcast and what those people did.
Half-filled, it would quietly mean everybody, so the page refuses it.
template
Splits the audience in half by a hash of the contact, so the two sides never
overlap and nobody gets both. It makes two broadcasts, named (A) and (B),
which you compare on the list.Press Send broadcast and both go out. Press Save as draft and you get
two drafts to start when you are ready.