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This guide walks through every step of creating and sending a WhatsApp broadcast in Gallabox — from picking a template to sending the broadcast or scheduling it for later.
Before sending a large broadcast, confirm that the audience has marketing opt-in, the selected template is approved, and Smart Retry is turned on. These checks reduce policy violations and delivery failures.

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Plan Availability

Note: For monthly broadcast limits per plan, see the Broadcasts overview.

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Before You Start

Make sure you have the following before beginning:
  • Owner or Admin role in Gallabox (or a role with broadcast management permissions) — only users with broadcast management permissions can create broadcasts.
  • At least one approved WhatsApp template. Broadcasts cannot use free-form text. If you don’t have an approved template, pick a type and submit one.
  • A WhatsApp channel connected — you’ll need at least one active WABA number in Gallabox. Go to Channels to confirm.
  • Your audience — either a saved contact segment, or an Excel (.xlsx) file with your contacts’ names and phone numbers. If you are sending a marketing message, your audience must be opted in (see warning below).
Marketing Opt-In is mandatory for marketing templates. Sending to contacts who have not opted in to marketing messages violates WhatsApp’s policies and can get your number quality-rated or restricted. Keep Follow WhatsApp Business Policy turned on in Step 3 so the broadcast only goes to opted-in contacts.

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Steps

Creating a broadcast takes three screens: Select Template, Select Audience, and Schedule Broadcast. The progress bar at the top shows which one you’re on.

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Step 1: Select a template

  1. Click Broadcasts in the left navigation.
  2. Click New Broadcast.
  3. In the channel dropdown at the top, select the WhatsApp number you want to send from. Only that number’s templates are listed.
  4. Browse or search your templates. Only templates with Approved status appear here.
  5. Click a template to select it. To create one first, click New Template.

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Step 2: Select your audience

Choose who receives this broadcast. You can either upload an Excel file or pick saved segments.

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Pick from segments

  1. Under Pick from Segments, select one or more segments. You can also create a new segment, or edit one, from this screen.
  2. Click Continue.
If you select more than one segment, a contact who is in several of them still receives the message only once.

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Upload contacts from Excel

Use this to send to contacts who are listed in a spreadsheet, including people who aren’t in Gallabox yet.
  1. Under Upload Contacts from Excel, click Upload Contacts.
  2. Download the sample file. It already has a column for each variable in your template.
  3. Fill in the file:
    • The first column is the contact’s Name. If it’s blank, the contact is saved as “guest”.
    • The second column is the Phone number, and it’s required. Include the country code (for example, +91).
    • Each column after that holds a value you can use for a template variable.
    • If your template has an image, video, or document header, the sample file includes a mediaUrl column.
  4. Upload the file. Only .xlsx files are accepted.
  5. Under Marketing Opt-In, choose Yes or No. This only applies to contacts the upload creates. It doesn’t change the opt-in of contacts already in Gallabox.
  6. Under Phone Number Format, choose whether your file has country codes. If you choose without, Gallabox adds your account’s country code.
  7. Click Continue.
Rows without a phone number, or with a phone number Gallabox can’t read, are skipped. When that happens, the audience shows “Only N out of M contacts are eligible.”

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Map template variables

If your template has variables, the Map Template variables window opens after you choose your audience. For each variable, choose what to fill in: If everyone should see their own name, map the variable to the contact field or column. Don’t type a fixed value. If your template has a media header, the Media tab lets you replace the sample file you uploaded with the template. If you don’t change it, the sample file is used. Click Confirm when every variable is mapped.

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Step 3: Schedule the broadcast

The Schedule Broadcast screen holds the remaining settings and a summary of your audience.

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Name and send time

  1. In Broadcast name, enter an internal name. Contacts don’t see it. Use something descriptive for your team, such as “June Sale — Opted-In Customers”.
  2. Under Send broadcast, choose:
    • Send immediately — the broadcast starts as soon as you send it.
    • Schedule later — pick a date and time. The time is in your computer’s local time. You can schedule from 15 minutes ahead up to 30 days ahead.

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Configure Smart Retry

Under Retry Mode, Enable Retry is turned on by default. Retry sends a message again when Meta held it back to protect healthy engagement (error 131049, shown as Frequency Limit) or because of a rate limit. Other failures, such as numbers that aren’t on WhatsApp, aren’t retried. Each message is retried up to 3 times. Choose a Retry type:
Keep retry turned on. If you turn it off, messages Meta held back are never sent again. Retrying improves delivery on large marketing broadcasts without any extra effort on your part.

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Send only to opted-in contacts

If your template is a marketing template, the audience summary shows Follow WhatsApp Business Policy. Keep it turned on to message only contacts who have opted in to marketing messages. When it’s on, the summary shows how many of your contacts are eligible. If you turn it off, a warning reminds you that messaging contacts who haven’t opted in affects your channel’s quality rating.

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Choose who gets replies

Broadcast reply settings is optional. It decides who handles the conversation when a contact replies.
  1. Under Assign conversations to, choose Teams, Users, or Agents.
  2. Select the team, user, or AI agent.
  3. To apply this even when the contact’s conversation is already assigned to someone, select Use the above configuration, though the conversation is currently assigned to some assignee.
These settings only apply when the contact clicks a button, swipes right to reply, or sends a text reply to your message.

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Send a test, then send

  1. Click Test Broadcast, enter up to 10 phone numbers, and click Send now. The test fills variables and links from the first contact in your segment or file, so you can check they look right. Test messages are charged.
  2. Review the summary, then click Send Broadcast Now, or Schedule Broadcast if you chose a later time.
If your Message Credits balance doesn’t cover the broadcast, a warning shows your balance and the approximate cost, with a Recharge Now button. See Message Credits. Your broadcast now appears in the Broadcasts list. A scheduled broadcast shows Pending until its send time. For what each status means, see Broadcast statuses.

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How to Confirm It’s Working

After sending:
  • Go to Broadcasts in the left navigation. Your broadcast should appear in the list with status Active while it’s sending, then Completed.
  • Completed means every message has been handed to WhatsApp. It doesn’t mean every message was delivered.
  • Click the broadcast name to open the analytics view. You should see contacts moving through states: Sent → Delivered → Read.
  • If the broadcast shows Failed for a large share of contacts, open the Failed card and check the failure reasons. See Broadcast Analytics for how to read them.

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Common Setup Errors

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When the whole broadcast fails

When a broadcast can’t start, its status is Failed. Hover over the Failed badge in the Broadcasts list to see the reason. For other reasons, contact support with the broadcast’s name and the reason shown.
For messages that failed for individual contacts, see Broadcast Analytics for a full breakdown of message states and failure reasons.

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FAQs

Contacts are filtered at send time. Common reasons for the count dropping: some contacts hadn’t opted in to marketing messages and Follow WhatsApp Business Policy was on, some rows in an uploaded file had invalid numbers, or some contacts were held back by Meta. Open the analytics view and check the Not in WhatsApp, Unsubscribed, and Frequency Limit states for those contacts.
No. Once a broadcast is created, the message content, audience, and template can’t be changed — including for a scheduled broadcast that hasn’t sent yet. To change a scheduled broadcast, open the ⋮ menu next to it in the Broadcasts list, click Cancel Broadcast, then click Repeat Broadcast to start a copy you can change.
Retry only sends a message again when Meta held it back to protect healthy engagement (131049, shown as Frequency Limit) or because of a rate limit. Other failures, such as invalid numbers or rejected templates, can’t be fixed by sending the same message again, so they aren’t retried. Check the failure reason in the analytics view. For retried messages, the retry log shows each attempt within the window you set.
A scheduled broadcast shows Pending until it starts. The time you picked was in your computer’s local time when you scheduled it, so first check the Scheduled For time on the broadcast. If that time has passed and it still shows Pending, contact support with the broadcast’s name and scheduled time.
Yes. On the Select Audience screen, select every segment you want to include. A contact who is in more than one of them receives the message only once.
Yes, using segments. Tag your contacts by location, then build one segment per location in Contacts → Segments and pick that segment in Step 2. See Contact Segments. If your contacts are in a spreadsheet instead, upload a separate Excel file for each location.
The variable was filled with fixed text instead of being mapped to a contact field or column. In Map Template variables, map the name variable to Contact.Name for a segment, or to the name column for an Excel upload. Before sending, check the message preview on the Schedule Broadcast screen.
Google Sheets isn’t an audience option in Broadcasts. Broadcasts from Google Sheets run from the Gallabox add-on inside the sheet, and they can’t be scheduled from Gallabox. See Google Sheets. To schedule a broadcast to the same contacts, download the sheet as an .xlsx file and upload it in Step 2.
If your Message Credits balance was insufficient at send time, the broadcast is not sent and shows a Failed status rather than sending partially. Top up and resend. For other reasons, see When the whole broadcast fails.

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Next Steps