The two things that most often stop a Broadcast going out are a missing audience and a sending limit you did not know about. Both are covered below, along with the rest of the setup.
Before you start
You have created the Broadcast and it is open on screen. If you have not created it yet, see Create a broadcast.
You have an audience ready, or a profile filter that defines who should receive the message. A Broadcast without an audience will not send.
You know roughly how many guests it will reach, so you can check it against your sending limit.
If WhatsApp is one of the channels, allow time for approval. Every WhatsApp message has to be approved by WhatsApp before it can send, and that can take up to 72 hours, so a Broadcast with a fixed send date needs its WhatsApp content written well in advance. See WhatsApp message templates.
Setting up the Broadcast
A Broadcast has four steps: 1. Time, 2. Content, 3. Audience and 4. Review & Publish. Where a Journey campaign begins with a trigger, a Broadcast begins with a time.
Channel preferences
Click Channel Preferences under the campaign name and property, then set how you want messages delivered. You can change this after the Broadcast is created, so it does not have to be right first time.
1. Time
The step asks When should the message be sent? and offers two answers.
Send immediately. The Broadcast goes out as soon as you publish it.
Schedule for later. Choose a date, then a time in the At field. The step will tell you if the date is not valid, or if the moment you have chosen is already in the past.
The time shown is in the property's time zone, not yours. If you are working from a different country to the property, hover over the question mark icon to see the time difference and confirm you have the right moment.
Underneath, How often should this message repeat? turns a one-off send into a series. The default is Does not repeat, and the alternatives are Daily, a weekly option, a monthly option, an annual option, Every weekday (Monday to Friday) and Custom. Read the weekly, monthly and annual ones rather than assuming: each names the specific day it will use. See Schedule a recurring broadcast.
Whatever you choose, the step writes it back to you in a plain sentence, for example "Your message will be sent on Friday, December 1 at 9:18 AM. Does not repeat." Read that sentence before you move on. It is the one place the date, the time and the repeat rule appear together, and it catches most scheduling mistakes on its own.
3. Audience
You must add an audience. Without one the system shows an error and the Broadcast will not send.
The step also shows how contactable that audience is, in three panels beside the picker. See Selecting an audience before publishing a Broadcast.
2. Content
From here the process is the same as building a Journey campaign.
If WhatsApp is one of the channels, write that content first and submit it for approval. A WhatsApp message cannot send until WhatsApp has approved it, and approval can take up to 72 hours. That matters more on a Broadcast than on a Journey, because the send time is already fixed. See WhatsApp message templates.
4. Review & Publish
The last step gathers everything in one place, and it is where a Broadcast tells you what is still wrong. You will see sections for:
Time, repeating the plain-language sentence, and flagging a scheduled time that has passed.
Audiences, which says "Broadcasts need at least one audience" until you have added one.
Reach, which warns that "the broadcast will not reach any guests until you have selected at least one audience", and otherwise tells you how many guests are reachable.
Consent Required, if you want to limit the send to guests who have given a particular consent. See Broadcast advanced settings for the toggles that sit beside it.
Title & Categories, where you can still change the name and the categories. Categories are fixed once the Broadcast is published, so this is the last chance to set them.
Then two buttons:
Save As Draft keeps everything and sends nothing. The Broadcast stays a draft and no guest is affected.
Publish Broadcast commits it. If the Time step says Send immediately, this is the send.
Those two are not the same as a Journey's buttons. A Journey offers Publish As Inactive and Publish & Start Sending, so it can be published without being live. A Broadcast has no inactive state: it is a draft, or it is published and going out.
Sending limits
By default a Broadcast can reach up to 1,000 guests. If your audience is larger than that, the send will be capped.
To raise the limit, email support@bookboost.io and tell us the figure you need, for example 10,000 or 50,000. We update it for your property and it stays raised. You only need to contact us again if you want to go higher still. There is no unlimited option.
If you are planning a large campaign, ask at least 24 hours in advance so we have time to make the change before you need to send.
Consent
Consent is not mandatory for a Broadcast.
What to do next
Create a broadcast, if you need to set up another one from the start.
Broadcast advanced settings, for the toggles at the Review and Publish step.
Schedule a recurring broadcast, if this one should repeat.
Getting help
Open Talk to Us in the left menu of the platform, or email support@bookboost.io. Tell us the Broadcast name and the audience size.