Both Broadcasts and Journeys send messages to guests, but they decide when in completely different ways. A Broadcast sends on a schedule you set yourself, either once or repeating on a cadence, to whoever matches your audience at that point. A Journey keeps running, and sends every time a reservation meets the trigger you set. Picking the wrong one usually shows up as guests who never got the message.
The real difference: a calendar against an event
It is tempting to think of this as one-off against recurring, because a Broadcast is usually a single send. That is not the distinction, because a Broadcast can repeat too.
The distinction is what makes the message go out:
A Broadcast fires on a date. Wednesday at 10am, or every Wednesday at 10am. It does not care what is happening to any particular reservation.
A Journey fires on something happening to a reservation. A booking being made, a guest checking out. It has no date of its own, so each guest gets it at a different moment.
Ask which of those two describes your message and the choice usually makes itself. "Our monthly offer goes out on the first of the month" is a calendar. "Every guest gets check-in instructions the day before they arrive" is an event.
A Broadcast can repeat
On the Time step, underneath the send time, How often should this message repeat? turns a single send into a series: Daily, weekly, monthly, annually, Every weekday (Monday to Friday), or a Custom cadence. The default is Does not repeat.
Each occurrence works out its audience afresh. A recurring Broadcast is not one list sent over and over: every time it fires, it looks at who matches your audience at that moment. So a weekly Broadcast does pick up bookings made since last week.
One thing to know before you rely on it: a series has a start and a cadence but no end condition. It runs until somebody stops the Broadcast. See Schedule a recurring broadcast.
A single Broadcast's audience is a snapshot
When a Broadcast is published to send once, Bookboost works out who matches your audience at that moment and sends to that list. Reservations created afterwards are not included, because the list was already fixed when the Broadcast went out.
A Journey does the opposite. It keeps listening, and sends to every reservation that matches the trigger and audience from then on. That is why a Journey reaches bookings that did not exist yet when you set it up.
Which one to use
Use a Broadcast for:
One-time promotions and seasonal offers.
Announcements to a specific guest segment.
Anything on a calendar cadence, such as a weekly newsletter or a monthly offer.
Any send where you want to control the exact date and time yourself.
Use a Journey for:
Pre-arrival messages, for example three days before check-in.
Post-stay follow-ups after every checkout.
Any message that should go out each time a reservation meets a condition, at that guest's own moment rather than on a fixed date.
Need both? If you want to reach guests who have already booked and everyone who books later, for example everyone staying on the night of an event, run a Broadcast for the current bookings and a Journey for the new ones. See Reach current and new bookings for a one-off event.
Scheduling a Broadcast
Go to Campaigns > Broadcasts and create or open a Broadcast.
On the Time step, choose Send immediately or Schedule for later, then set the date and time.
Decide whether it repeats, under How often should this message repeat?
Check the scheduled time. It is shown in the property's time zone, not yours. If the two differ, hover over the ? icon to see the difference and confirm the send time is what you meant.
Read the summary sentence the step writes back to you. It states the date, the time and the repeat rule together, which is the quickest way to catch a scheduling mistake.
See Set up a Broadcast for the rest of the steps.
Broadcast sending limits
Every property has a limit on how many guests one Broadcast can reach. Before you publish, Bookboost shows roughly how many people the campaign will reach and how many of them are reachable by email and by phone.
If your audience is larger than your current limit, contact support before sending, and allow at least 24 hours so we have time to raise it.
Scheduling a Journey
Go to Campaigns > Journeys and create or open a Journey.
Set the Trigger. This is the "when" of the Journey, for example a reservation being made or a guest checking out.
Set the delay, if the message should go out a number of days before or after the trigger rather than immediately.
Activate the Journey. From then on it sends automatically to every reservation that matches the trigger and audience.
What this does not do
A single Broadcast will not pick up later bookings. Rescheduling it closer to the date captures more people, but it is still a snapshot taken at send time. A repeating Broadcast is the exception: each occurrence takes its own snapshot.
A repeating Broadcast has no end. There is no end date and no occurrence count. It runs until someone stops it.
A Journey does not send to the past. Whether it reaches reservations that already exist depends on the trigger you choose. See Does a Journey apply to reservations that already exist?
Times are the property's, not yours. A scheduled Broadcast uses the property's time zone, so check it if you work from a different one.
What to do next
If the message goes out on a date, build a Broadcast, and check the time zone before you publish. If it should go out when something happens to a reservation, build a Journey. To cover both, see Reach current and new bookings for a one-off event.
Getting help
Open Talk to Us in the left menu of the platform, or email support@bookboost.io.