Broadcasting in WhatsApp

Broadcasting is a valuable Manychat tool that sends mass messages to your existing Contact base while growing your business when you need it. Engage all your contacts or work with a targeted audience based on significant criteria for your business.

Here are some examples of use cases for broadcasting content in WhatsApp:

• Send transactional updates;
• Send promotional messages such as relevant offers; Your business must be from one of the approved countries which Facebook will check according to the country setting in your Business Manager.
  As of June 2021, approved countries include Indonesia, Mexico, Singapore, Malaysia, South Africa, United Arab Emirates, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Israel, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Germany, Nigeria, Egypt, Brazil, Colombia, Jamaica, and the USA.
• Learn and segment your audience with tags depending on their replies;
• Re-engage communication with your clients to promote your services.

⚠️ NOTE! All WhatsApp conversations are measured in fixed 24-hour sessions. Here you can find more information about the WhatsApp Conversation-based pricing model.

According to the 24-hour session rule, all of your contacts are divided into two groups:

1. Those with who the 24-hour session is already opened. The 24-hour sessions start whenever the first message is delivered by a business. That could either be in response to a customer or if a business initiated the message.
2. Those with who the 24-hour session is expired.

As a business you have two types of messages:

1. Regular message — Send unlimited regular messages during an open 24-hour session.
2. Message Template — Start new or re-open 24-hour session, send free Templated messages within 24-hour session if needed.

You can start your Broadcast either with a regular message or a Templated one. If you start with a regular message, your Broadcast will be delivered only to the clients from the 1st group previously mentioned. If you start Broadcast with a Message Template, it’ll be delivered to everyone despite an open or expired 24-hour session.

⚠️ NOTE! You can send Broadcasts only to those clients who opted-in. This condition will automatically apply in Broadcast Settings.

Make sure you use the Message Template when you start your flow. If some of the targeted sessions are already opened, those Broadcasts will be free of charge. In case you start a new session with this first message you will be charged for the Business-Initiated Conversation. The final price of such a Conversation depends on the contact’s country code. The list of country-specific price rates can be found here.

How to create a broadcast in WhatsApp?

There are two ways of creating a Broadcast:

1. Broadcast from an existing flow: go to your Manychat account > Broadcasting > Broadcast From Flow and pick a flow from the list. Note: you can make changes to the broadcast flow these changes will not affect the original flow because you'll be editing an automatically created copy.

2. Create a new Broadcast from scratch.

To create a new WhatsApp broadcast, go to your Manychat account > Broadcasting > New Broadcast.

After clicking the button, a window appears showing various channels that may be connected to your business. Select WhatsApp to proceed.

Similar to the Flow Builder, create a step or a flow that you would like to send out to your WhatsApp contacts.

By default, the type of message is set to the Message Template to re-open the 24-hour messaging window.

⚠️ NOTE! To send our Message Templates in your Broadcast you need to follow these three conditions:

1. Your business account is fully verified by Facebook.
2. You must have an active PRO subscription since sending Message Templates is a paid feature.
3. You maintain a sufficient balance in your Wallet.

If the 24-hour messaging window is still open, you can switch message type to Regular.

No charges will be applied if you send a Message Template to your contact within the 24-hour messaging window.

Broadcast Settings

Next, click the Go next button to go to the Settings tab and set up Targeting conditions. You might want to use a specific tag or segment for this broadcast. You can schedule to send it right away or later.

After you apply your tags, you’ll see the contacts that match these conditions. 

When you’re done choosing Settings, click Send Now.