You want to tell your VIP customers about the Black Friday early access. Once, on Friday at 10:00, on WhatsApp. Someone who becomes a VIP next week shouldn't get a notice about an early access that's already over.
That's a campaign: one message per channel, to an audience, once. Here's how to set it up.
Before you start
- A channel ready: a connected WhatsApp number, a verified email domain, or both.
- A template per channel: a WhatsApp template approved by Meta or a published email template.
- A segment with the people you want to reach. If it doesn't exist yet, create it in Segments.
Step 1: name and message
- Go to Campaigns and create a new one.
- In Name, use something you'll recognize in the report, for example Black Friday early access · VIP.
- In Message, pick the channel and its template. If you want both, add another message: email goes out first, then WhatsApp.
- Fill every template variable and open Preview to see it the way a real person from your audience would get it.
Step 2: who and when
In Who and when:
- Pick the segment as the audience.
- Decide when it's read:
- Read at send time (the default): Boom reads the segment when the message goes out. Someone who already left it, say because they bought, doesn't get it.
- Read now: Boom reads it when you schedule the campaign, and those people get it even if they leave the segment before the send.
- Pick Send now or a date and time.
The campaign never enrolls people who join the segment later. If every new person should get it, that's an initiative, not a campaign.
Step 3: replies and review (optional)
- Replies go to the agent for 24 hours. With a WhatsApp message, whoever replies talks to the agent. Brief the agent lets you give it an objective, context, files or guiding questions. All optional.
- Review before sending, under Delivery: every message waits in Drafts until someone approves it. Use it the first time you send to a large audience.
Step 4: schedule
Click Schedule. Nothing goes out before the time you picked. If you're not ready yet, Save draft keeps everything without scheduling.
What happens next
- At the time you picked, each person gets the message once.
- Whoever replies on WhatsApp talks with the agent for 24 hours.
- When the last conversation ends, the campaign becomes completed and its report is generated.
While it's open you can add people: if you add them after the send time, they get the message right away. Each person gets it once, even if you add them again.
Three common mistakes
- Using a journey with a Segment entry for a one-time send. That journey keeps enrolling whoever enters the segment until you stop it. For a single send, use a campaign.
- Variables with no value. If a variable comes from a field half your audience doesn't have, half of them get "Hi ,". Preview shows you before you send.
- Sending all at once without reviewing. For your first campaign to thousands of people, turn on Review before sending and approve a sample.
The full reference is in our campaigns documentation.
