Send broadcasts to a segment

A broadcast is a one-off message sent to every contact in a segment — a promotion, an announcement, a re-engagement nudge. Broadcasts go out on any channel your inbox supports and land in each contact's existing conversation thread, so replies come straight back to your support team with full context.

Manage them under Automation → Broadcasts (Owners and Admins).

Creating a broadcast

1. Pick the audience — any segment (the member count is shown next to each).
2. Pick the inbox and channel — the channel list shows each active channel by name, so when an inbox has several of one type (two email addresses, two WhatsApp numbers) you choose exactly which one sends the broadcast.
3. Compose — the message, subject line and From name all support variables like {{contact.name}}, {{contact.attributes.currency}} and {{sender.name}} (the team owner), personalised per recipient at send time. Email broadcasts get a rich-text editor, a subject line, an optional From name that overrides the channel's for this broadcast only, plus optional CC, BCC and Reply-To. By default the message threads into each contact's existing conversation on the inbox (keeping their existing subject); tick "Start a new email thread for each recipient" to send every recipient a fresh conversation carrying this broadcast's subject instead — good for promos, at the cost of contacts having more than one conversation on the inbox. Those also support variables (e.g. CC {{contact.attributes.account_manager_email}}) — addresses are validated per recipient after the variables resolve, and anything that isn't a valid email is quietly dropped rather than breaking the send. The variables panel in the composer lists exactly what resolves in broadcasts: contact fields/attributes and the sender — there's no conversation, entity or event context here.
4. Choose the conversation status after sending — by default each recipient's conversation is left closed (and read), so a 10,000-contact broadcast doesn't flood your inbox with open unread threads. When a contact replies, their conversation reopens as active automatically. Pick Pending or Active instead if your team should follow up on every recipient.
5. Send now, schedule, or save as draft. Scheduled broadcasts go out automatically at the chosen time. Drafts and scheduled broadcasts can be edited from their page until they're sent.

WhatsApp broadcasts

WhatsApp only allows free-form messages within 24 hours of the customer's last inbound message. Since broadcast recipients are usually outside that window, you must select a pre-approved WhatsApp template when broadcasting on WhatsApp. The template picker shows the approved templates configured on your WhatsApp channel.

Selecting a template reveals its variable slots ({{1}}, {{2}}, …). Fill each with fixed text or a contact variable — {{contact.name}}, {{contact.attributes.order_id}} — and the values are personalised per recipient at send time. A slot left blank falls back to the template's default.

Conversion goals

Like workflows, a broadcast can carry an optional conversion goal: a conversion event (e.g. place_order), an optional value property (e.g. order_total), and an attribution window. A recipient converts when they perform the event within the window of being sent the broadcast — no send, no credit. Each recipient converts at most once, and the broadcast page shows conversions, conversion rate, and total conversion value alongside the send stats.

What happens when you send

• The audience is snapshotted at send time — contacts who join the segment mid-send don't receive the broadcast, and contacts who leave still do. What you saw is what sends.
• Messages go out in batches on a dedicated queue, so a large broadcast never slows down your live support replies.
• Every delivery records a broadcast_sent event on the contact (with the broadcast's name and id), visible in their profile's Activity tab — so you can build segments like "received a broadcast in the last 7 days" for frequency capping, or trigger workflows off broadcast sends.
• Each recipient's row shows a live status — queued → sent / skipped / failed / converted — where failed includes deliveries that failed after sending (so the top-line Failed count matches what actually reached inboxes), and converted marks recipients who performed the conversion goal. Filter the list by status and click any contact through to their profile.
• Contacts are automatically skipped (with a recorded reason) when they can't or shouldn't receive the message:
  • RECIPIENT_UNSUBSCRIBED — they're marked as unsubscribed from marketing
  • NO_EMAIL_ADDRESS / NO_PHONE_NUMBER — missing the address for the chosen channel
  • WHATSAPP_TEMPLATE_REQUIRED — outside the 24h window with no template selected
  • CANCELLED — you cancelled the broadcast while it was sending

Tracking results

The broadcast page shows live counts — recipients, sent, skipped, failed — and a per-recipient table with each contact's delivery status (sent, delivered, read, failed) pulled from the channel provider. Click any recipient to open their contact profile and conversation.

You can cancel a scheduled or in-flight broadcast at any time; contacts not yet messaged are skipped, and messages already sent are unaffected.

Broadcasts vs workflows

Use a broadcast for a one-time send to a known audience. If you want messages triggered per-contact — when they do something, with waits and conditions — use a workflow instead.