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Create a Broadcast

Select an audience, choose a WhatsApp template, and send or schedule a broadcast.

Broadcast Analytics

Review delivery, engagement, failures, retries, and retargeting for a broadcast.
Who can use this?
  • Gallabox users with broadcast management permissions.
  • Roles: Owners and Admins
  • Plans: All plans. Broadcast limits vary by plan (Basic: 10K/month, Essential: 500K/month, Advanced: 1M/month).

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Plan Availability

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What is Broadcast?

Broadcast is a one-to-many messaging tool — you send a single message (or set of messages) to a selected group of contacts simultaneously, on demand. Unlike Sequences (which are automated drip journeys triggered by contact behavior), Broadcasts are manually sent — you choose the audience, write the message, and click send. Everyone in the audience receives it at roughly the same time. Broadcast is designed for:
  • Promotional campaigns (sales, new products, seasonal offers)
  • Announcements (new features, company updates)
  • Event reminders (webinars, launches, appointments)
  • Re-engagement campaigns (win-back for inactive contacts)

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Broadcast vs Sequences — The Difference

Quick decision guide:
  • Is this a one-time message to a specific group right now? → Broadcast
  • Is this a multi-step journey triggered by a contact’s action? → Sequence
For the full comparison, see Sequences Overview.

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How Broadcast Works

1

Select Your Audience

Choose which contacts receive the broadcast. You can select:
  • One or more saved segments — pre-built contact segments (e.g., “Customers — Last 30 Days”, “Hot Leads”)
  • An Excel file — upload an .xlsx file of names and phone numbers, including people who aren’t in Gallabox yet
For the details of each option, see Create a Broadcast.
Keep Follow WhatsApp Business Policy turned on when creating a broadcast with a marketing template. It restricts delivery to contacts who have opted in to marketing messages. Sending to unconsented contacts violates WhatsApp’s business policy and can result in your account being flagged. See Marketing Opt-In for details.
2

Choose or Create a Template

All broadcast messages must use pre-approved template messages — choose an approved template from your library, or create a new one and wait for Meta approval. For template guidelines, categories, and approval timelines, see WhatsApp Templates Overview.
3

Schedule or Send Immediately

  • Send now — the broadcast goes out immediately to all eligible contacts
  • Schedule — set a specific date and time, up to 30 days ahead (useful for campaigns targeting a specific timezone or launch moment)
4

Monitor Results

After sending, track delivery in the Broadcast dashboard:

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Understanding Your Messaging Limits

WhatsApp caps how many unique customers you can start a conversation with in a rolling 24-hour period. The cap is shared across every WhatsApp number in your Meta business portfolio, so a large broadcast from one number eats into the allowance for all of them — see How your messaging limit grows. For large campaigns, split the audience into several segments or files and schedule a broadcast for each, spread across hours or days, to stay within limits.

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Example

Scenario: You run an e-commerce store and want to announce a 30%-off summer sale to all customers who made a purchase in the last 90 days. Here’s how you’d run this as a broadcast:
  1. Go to Broadcasts → New Broadcast.
  2. Audience: Select segment “Customers — Last 90 Days” (created in Contacts → Segments).
  3. Template: Either use an existing approved promotional template, or create a new one:
    “Hi {{contact.first_name}}! 🌞 Summer Sale is here — 30% off everything. Use code SUMMER30 at checkout. Valid until [date]. [Unsubscribe]”
  4. Submit for Meta approval (if new template).
  5. Once approved, Schedule for 10 AM on the sale launch day.
  6. The campaign goes out to all 5,000 customers simultaneously.
  7. Track delivery, opens, and failures in the Broadcast dashboard.
  8. Run a Retarget campaign for contacts who were delivered but didn’t reply — send a follow-up with a direct link.

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Repeat and Retarget

After a broadcast is sent, you can Retarget contacts based on what happened with the first message:
  • Sent / Delivered / Read — contacts the message reached
  • Delivered but not replied — contacts who got the message but didn’t respond
  • Replied — contacts who responded to the message
  • Clicked — contacts who clicked a link or button
  • Replied to a Flow — contacts who submitted a WhatsApp Flow from the message
  • Failed — contacts the message couldn’t reach (e.g., to retry later)
To send the same broadcast again, open the ⋮ menu next to it in the Broadcasts list and click Repeat Broadcast. This starts a copy with the same template and audience, which you can change before sending. It doesn’t set up a recurring schedule. Retargeting lets you send a follow-up broadcast specifically to the contacts who need another nudge — without disturbing contacts who already converted.
Pro tip: Always plan a retarget message before sending the initial broadcast. If someone opened but didn’t act, a well-timed follow-up with a stronger CTA can significantly improve conversion without feeling spammy to those who already converted.

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Best Practices

  • Segment before sending — don’t send promotional messages to contacts who aren’t relevant. A smaller, well-targeted audience converts better than a large, unqualified one.
  • Include an unsubscribe option — Meta requires this for marketing templates. It’s also required by law in most countries.
  • Time your broadcasts — consider your audience’s timezone and when they’re most likely to engage. For most businesses, mid-morning mid-week (Tuesday–Thursday, 10 AM–12 PM) performs best.
  • Check your quality rating — before a big campaign, go to WhatsApp Channel → Settings → Quality Rating. If your rating is Poor (red), your number may be restricted and messages may be blocked.

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FAQs

Open the broadcast and click the Failed card. Each failure reason starts with an error code — look it up in Message Error Codes. Common reasons include numbers that can’t receive WhatsApp messages, Meta holding back marketing messages, and template problems. See Failed reasons.If the broadcast itself shows Failed in the Broadcasts list, nothing was sent. Hover over the badge for the reason, and see When the whole broadcast fails.
Some contacts in your audience won’t receive this broadcast:
  • Contacts without marketing opt-in — with a marketing template and Follow WhatsApp Business Policy turned on, only contacts who have opted in to marketing messages are counted.
  • Rows Gallabox can’t use — in an uploaded Excel file, rows with a missing or invalid phone number are skipped.
To reach more contacts with a marketing template, collect their opt-in first. For an Excel file, fix the phone numbers and upload it again. See Create a Broadcast.
Three limits apply at the same time. A broadcast stops at whichever one you reach first.The channel broadcast limit is a safeguard. It keeps one large broadcast from using up the whole shared messaging limit. If a broadcast fails with a message that starts “Cannot send broadcast to more than”, this is the limit you’ve hit.For how Meta raises your messaging limit, see How your messaging limit grows.
Gallabox doesn’t raise your channel broadcast limit on its own when Meta raises your messaging limit. To use the higher limit:
  1. Go to WhatsApp Channel → [your number].
  2. Click the sync icon at the top of the page. This fetches your latest messaging limit from Meta.
  3. Under Message Limit, check that the Meta figure shows the new limit.
  4. Click the edit icon next to the Gallabox figure, choose the new limit, and click Apply.
You need permission to edit channels to change the limit.If the new limit isn’t offered, Meta hasn’t passed it on yet. Meta can take up to about six hours after an increase. Sync again later. If you see “Please upgrade your plan”, your plan doesn’t allow a higher limit. See Plan Availability.
Go to Contacts → [contact name] and check the Marketing Opt-In field.
Yes — Gallabox broadcasts work globally as long as you have a WhatsApp Business API connection. Note that per-message pricing varies by country. Check message credits for rates by country.