Send a broadcast to customers

A broadcast in Wassla is a proactive outbound message sent to many WhatsApp customers at once — a restock alert, an appointment reminder, an order shipped notification. Because broadcasts go out outside an active conversation window, every WhatsApp broadcast must use a template that Meta has pre-approved, and every recipient must have opted in to receive messages from your business number. Once you have an approved template and an opted-in audience, sending a broadcast in Wassla is a four-step flow on the Broadcasts page: name the broadcast, pick the channel and audience, schedule the send, and review the delivery report.

Before you start

A few things must be in place before any broadcast will leave the platform.

  1. WhatsApp is connected. The Broadcasts page lets you create draft rows for any channel, but the only channel that supports outbound campaigns today is WhatsApp Business. See Connect WhatsApp Business if you have not done this yet.
  2. You are on the workspace as owner or admin. The Broadcasts table is readable by everyone on the workspace, but only owners and admins can create or schedule a new broadcast — this is enforced at the database row-level security layer, so the New broadcast button stays disabled for support and auditor roles.
  3. You have a Meta-approved message template. Templates live in Meta's WhatsApp Manager and must be submitted and approved by Meta before they can be sent. Approval typically takes a few minutes to a few hours, but can be slower for templates in new categories or new languages.
  4. The customers you want to reach have opted in. WhatsApp's Business Messaging Policy requires explicit opt-in for every recipient of a template message. Without opt-in evidence, Meta can suspend your WhatsApp Business Account.

Step 1 — Create and submit a Meta template

WhatsApp templates are managed inside Meta's WhatsApp Manager, not inside Wassla. Wassla picks up your approved templates automatically once they exist on the WhatsApp Business Account tied to your connected number.

Open WhatsApp Manager

Go to business.facebook.com, open the WhatsApp Manager for the Business Account that owns the number you connected to Wassla, and click Message templates. Click Create template.

Pick a category and language

Meta requires a category for every template: marketing (promotional content), utility (transactional updates like order status), or authentication (one-time codes). Pick the category that honestly describes the message — using utility for marketing content is a common reason for template rejection or account penalties. Pick the language the template body will be written in. If you need both Arabic and English, submit two separate templates with matching names but different language codes.

Write the body with placeholders

The body is plain text plus numbered placeholders like {{1}} and {{2}} that you fill in at send time (for example, the customer's first name or an order number). Keep the body short, factual, and aligned with the category — marketing templates can include offers, utility templates cannot.

Submit for approval

Click Submit. Meta reviews the template against its Business Messaging Policy. Most templates are reviewed within a few minutes, though new businesses or sensitive categories can take up to 24 hours. You will see the status flip from In review to Approved (or Rejected with a reason) in WhatsApp Manager. Wassla reads this status on the next broadcast send.

Step 2 — Open the Broadcasts page in Wassla

Sign into Wassla and click Broadcasts in the left sidebar. The page shows four headline stats at the top — Sent (30d), Reply rate, Opted out, and Scheduled — and a table of every broadcast on your workspace below them. If you have never sent a broadcast, you will see an empty state with a single New broadcast button.

Step 3 — Create a new broadcast

Click + New broadcast in the top right. A modal opens with three fields.

Name your broadcast

Give the broadcast a name that you will recognize in the campaigns table later — something like June restock alert or April 14 appointment reminders. The name is internal only and never reaches the customer.

Pick a channel

The channel dropdown lists WhatsApp, Instagram, SMS, and Telegram. Today only WhatsApp is wired end-to-end to a Meta template send pipeline; the other options create a draft row but will not dispatch. The Channels page shows which channels are connected on your workspace — see Connect WhatsApp Business for the supported channel.

Pick an audience segment

The audience dropdown offers four starter segments out of the box: All customers, Lapsed 90 days, High value, and Cart abandoners. These are computed from the customers table on your tenant — for example, Lapsed 90 days is every customer whose last inbound message is older than ninety days. Custom segments are coming soon; for now, pick the starter segment closest to the audience you want.

Step 4 — Schedule and send

Click Schedule in the modal footer. Wassla writes a row to the broadcasts table with status scheduled and a scheduled_at timestamp of now. The broadcast appears in the campaigns table with a blue Scheduled chip.

The deferred outbound processor picks up scheduled rows, resolves the audience to a concrete recipient list, pairs each recipient with the approved template, and dispatches through Meta's Cloud API. While the dispatch is running, the row status flips to sending (no dot, neutral chip). Once dispatch finishes, the row flips to sent with a green chip and a last_sent_at timestamp, or to failed with a red chip if Meta rejected the template or the account is rate-limited.

A success toast confirms the broadcast was queued — Wassla also tells you that every reply customers send back will land in your Inbox, where your assigned agent or your team can pick it up.

Step 5 — Review the delivery report

After the broadcast finishes sending, find its row in the campaigns table. The columns are Campaign (the name you gave it), Channel, Status, Sent (the count of recipients Meta acknowledged), Replies (count of customers who replied within the conversation window — coming soon), and When (the dispatch date).

Inbound replies are routed to your Inbox like any normal conversation, with the assigned AI agent answering first and escalating to a human if needed. See Use the Inbox for how replies are surfaced, and Hand off from AI to a human for how to route follow-ups to your team.

WhatsApp policy you must follow

Two WhatsApp policy rules trip up almost every team running their first broadcast. Both are enforced by Meta and Wassla cannot override them.

The 24-hour customer service window

When a customer messages you first, WhatsApp opens a 24-hour customer service window during which you can reply with any free-form message — text, media, anything. Once that window closes (24 hours after the customer's last inbound message), every outbound message must be a pre-approved template. Broadcasts are outbound and always go to recipients who are outside their service window, which is why the template requirement exists. Wassla's inbox uses free-form text only inside the open window; broadcasts always use templates.

Opt-in is required for every recipient

Meta requires explicit opt-in before any business sends a template to a phone number. The opt-in can come from a website checkbox, a checkout flow, an in-store signup, an SMS keyword reply, or any other channel — but it must be unambiguous, you must be able to produce evidence of it, and the customer must know what messages they will receive. Buying a phone list is a fast way to get your WhatsApp Business Account suspended. Wassla does not import recipients from external lists, only from customers who have messaged your connected channels or whose opt-in you imported through People import.