Broadcasts: WhatsApp and Chat Widget Campaigns

Broadcasts let you send WhatsApp messages to a selected group of contacts from one of your connected WhatsApp Business accounts. Use broadcasts for announcements, promotions, reminders, follow-ups, form invitations, and other outbound campaigns.

Broadcast delivery supports WhatsApp and Chat Widget / PWA. Choose one delivery channel per campaign. Instagram delivery is not yet available.

Chat Widget / PWA Campaigns

1. Open Workspace → Marketing → Broadcasts → Create.
2. Select Chat Widget / PWA, then choose a widget owned by the selected company.
3. Choose All subscribed visitors or existing audiences. Only visitors who explicitly opted into that widget's marketing are eligible. Phone numbers, WhatsApp opt-in, and imported contacts do not establish web-channel consent or identity.
4. Enter the campaign text and, optionally, up to three buttons. A chat prompt button sends a user-selected message into the existing assistant workflow, such as “Book an appointment”. A link button opens an HTTPS page. This release does not directly embed forms into campaign drafts.
5. Save a scheduled campaign, or open its detail page and select Send now. Do not activate a campaign until its content and audience are ready.

Visitors opt in under the widget's Help → Receive updates and offers from this business checkbox, after starting a chat. It is off by default. Unchecking it stops future marketing without disabling support notifications. The existing bell controls browser notification permission and device registration separately.

Campaign messages are saved in the visitor's owned widget conversation. Devices with a valid push subscription also receive the existing private “new chat message” notification. Clicking it opens the appropriate owned conversation. Without push permission, the message remains available when the visitor returns to chat. No phone-number matching grants access to another visitor's history.

Widget delivery and reporting

• Sent: saved in chat, not proof of device delivery.
• Web Push accepted: at least one push provider accepted a device notification; this is not a delivery/read receipt.
• No subscription / expired / suppressed / failed: the chat message and notification have different delivery outcomes.
• Notification clicked: the authenticated visitor opened the campaign notification link.
• Widget chat opened: the conversation was marked as read; it does not prove the person read every word.

Widget campaigns use bounded batches and the default queue, with a campaign cap of 300 recipients/minute and a company-wide cap of 300/minute. The configured campaign rate can be lower. Consent, campaign cancellation, widget activity, and conversation ownership are checked again before delivery. Retries reuse the delivery/message identity. Widget delivery does not invoke the WhatsApp billing service or call the AI simply to insert a campaign message.

After dispatch begins, content and audience are immutable; create another campaign for changes or repeat sends. Cancel can stop remaining queued recipients even after the campaign is marked queued. Already stored messages cannot be recalled. The initial widget release supports manual and scheduled campaigns, not triggered/behavioral automation or phone-number test sends. Queue-level retries are bounded to seven days.

Before You Start with WhatsApp

Make sure these are ready before creating a broadcast:

• WhatsApp Business account — The account must be active and connected with a valid phone number ID and access token.
• WhatsApp Wallet balance — Production broadcast sends debit your WhatsApp Wallet before each message attempt.
• Recipients — Contacts need a valid phone number. Visitors must be marked as subscribed when using Audience or all-subscribed targeting.
• Approved templates — For proactive outbound messages, use an approved WhatsApp template whenever possible.

Accessing Broadcasts

1. Open your Workspace
2. Go to Marketing
3. Click Broadcasts

Broadcast Types

Scheduled Broadcasts

Scheduled broadcasts are sent at a specific date and time. They are best for planned campaigns such as sales announcements, product launches, event reminders, or newsletter-style updates.

The scheduler checks for due broadcasts every minute. Once a scheduled broadcast is processed, it is marked as sent.

Triggered Broadcasts

Triggered broadcasts send after a customer event, such as:

• Visitor sends a message
• Form is submitted
• Cart is abandoned
• Order is placed

You can add a delay in minutes. For example, a cart abandonment broadcast can wait 30 minutes before sending. The system prevents duplicate sends for the same visitor while a broadcast has already been queued or delivered.

Behavioral Broadcasts

Behavioral broadcasts use the same trigger configuration as triggered broadcasts, but are intended for behavior-based campaigns and follow-up strategies.

Creating a Broadcast

Click Create on the Broadcasts page and complete each section.

Broadcast Details

• Name — Use a clear internal campaign name, such as June Promo - Returning Customers.
• Type — Choose Scheduled, Triggered, or Behavioral.

Scheduling

For scheduled broadcasts:

• Select the date and time the broadcast should send.

For triggered or behavioral broadcasts:

• Choose the trigger event.
• Set the delay in minutes. Use 0 to send as soon as the trigger is received.

Audience

Choose who should receive the broadcast:

Manual phone numbers can be separated by commas, spaces, semicolons, or new lines.

For selected Audiences, the form shows a live readiness summary:

• Matched contacts
• Broadcast-ready contacts
• Contacts who opted out
• Contacts missing a phone number

Audience types can be mixed freely. Selected segments are combined as a union and each visitor is sent to at most once. Smart rules and current Automated or Custom memberships are evaluated again at send time. Missing, inactive, or cross-company targets block the send instead of silently broadening the recipient list.

WhatsApp Content

Select the WhatsApp Business account that should send the message. This controls the sender phone number, WABA, and API credentials used for delivery.

Then choose the content type:

For most proactive campaigns, use Use Template. WhatsApp may reject or limit plain-text outbound messages when the recipient has not recently messaged your business.

After selecting a template, map each variable to the visitor's name, email, phone number, or a constant. You can add a fallback value for contacts whose selected field is empty. Templates with media headers also require campaign media before the broadcast is ready to send. Nviti checks approval status, WABA ownership, variable mappings, and required media again at send time.

Advanced Settings

• Active — Disabled broadcasts will not send.
• Throttle Rate — Maximum number of messages sent per minute. The default is 50.

Use a lower throttle rate when sending to a large audience or when your WhatsApp account is new.

Testing a Broadcast

Use Test Send before sending to your audience.

1. Open the broadcast row action menu.
2. Click Test Send.
3. Enter up to 5 phone numbers.
4. Submit the test.

Test sends use the selected WhatsApp Business account and message content, but they do not create delivery analytics or debit the WhatsApp Wallet.

Wallet Billing

Production WhatsApp broadcast sends debit the WhatsApp Wallet before each recipient send attempt.

If Meta accepts the API request:

• The delivery is marked as sent.
• The Meta message ID is saved when available.
• The wallet debit remains in the transaction history.

If the API request fails:

• The delivery is marked as failed.
• The failure reason is saved.
• The wallet debit is refunded automatically.

If the wallet is inactive or has insufficient funds, the send is skipped and the delivery is marked failed.

Delivery Tracking

Each broadcast can record delivery rows with:

• Recipient identifier
• Channel
• Status: pending, sent, delivered, failed, or cancelled
• Sent time
• Delivered time when available
• Failure reason
• Meta message ID when available
• Retry count

Use this to see which recipients were reached and which ones need attention.

Retrying Failed Deliveries

From a broadcast detail page, use Retry All Failed to retry failed recipients that have retries remaining. Retry attempts use the same broadcast content, same WhatsApp Business account, and the current wallet balance.

Cancelling a Broadcast

Scheduled broadcasts can be cancelled before they are sent.

1. Open the broadcast row action menu.
2. Click Cancel.
3. Confirm the action.

Once a broadcast has been sent, it cannot be cancelled.

Common Problems

No Recipients Are Sent

Check that:

• Visitors have phone numbers.
• Visitors are subscribed to marketing.
• The selected Audiences actually contain or match visitors.
• Manual phone numbers are valid international WhatsApp numbers.

Broadcast Fails Immediately

Check that:

• The selected WhatsApp Business account is active.
• The account has a valid access token and phone number ID.
• The WhatsApp Wallet is active and funded.
• The selected template is approved.
• The selected flow has a synced WhatsApp Flow ID.

Template Does Not Appear in the Dropdown

Only templates with APPROVED status appear for broadcast template sends. Use Template Builder or WhatsApp Templates to submit and sync template status.

Wallet Balance Was Debited Then Credited Back

That means the system reserved funds before sending, but the WhatsApp API call failed. The refund transaction should include metadata linking it to the failed send.

Best Practices

• Use approved WhatsApp templates for proactive marketing.
• Send from the correct WhatsApp Business account for the brand or company running the campaign.
• Keep audiences focused; smaller relevant segments usually perform better than broad blasts.
• Review visitor subscription status before large sends.
• Test every campaign before sending.
• Keep wallet balance above the campaign estimate.
• Start with a conservative throttle rate for large campaigns.
• Include clear opt-out language in marketing templates where appropriate.

Related

• WhatsApp Wallet — Understand billing, top-ups, debits, and refunds
• WhatsApp Template Builder — Create and submit templates to Meta
• WhatsApp Templates — Manage template status and approved templates
• Visitors — Manage contact details and subscription status
• Audiences — Create target groups for campaigns
• Custom Audiences — Import or manually curate campaign lists

Keywords

broadcasts, WhatsApp broadcasts, WhatsApp campaigns, campaign targeting, WhatsApp wallet, audience targeting, custom audiences, Meta templates, WhatsApp marketing