How do I send a message to many customers at once?

The Broadcast menu exists so you can send to hundreds of customers, each with a different name, amount, or date, without needing to understand a single technical term. You write the message and the system handles the rest.

Three ways to produce the message, pick whichever fits

• Write it directly. Follow step 1 below. Best for text, optionally with an image, using variables.
• Use a template that is already approved. At the top of the "New broadcast" page there is an option marked "Already have an approved template?". Templates from the Templates page, including ones with buttons, whether quick reply or open link, are ready to send with no further review. Deleting the broadcast card does not delete your template.
• ✨ Ask the AI to draft it. Need buttons, or stuck on the wording? Describe what you want in a sentence or two in the AI box, present on both the Broadcast and Templates pages, for example "end of month promotion, address the customer by name, button opening the catalogue at https://...". The AI drafts it into the designer for you to review, then you submit in one click.

Step 1: write the message

1. Open Broadcast, then New broadcast.
2. More than one number? A Send from number card appears at the top. Templates live per WhatsApp number, so the template list offered and this broadcast follow the number you pick. With a single number the card does not appear.
3. Write it the way you would write any WhatsApp message. For the parts that differ per person, use the + Name, + Amount, + Date buttons, or + another variable to invent your own such as Class or QueueNumber. The result reads like "Hi {Name}, your invoice of {Amount} is due on {Date}."
4. Choose the type: Notification (reminders and confirmations, cheaper) or Marketing (offers, more expensive). Be honest here. Marketing disguised as a notification gets rejected by WhatsApp.
5. Optional: upload an image (JPG or PNG, up to 5 MB), which appears above the message. Good for event posters and illustrated announcements.
6. Click Submit for approval.

Want buttons? They are built in the Templates menu, not the Blast box

The full walkthrough of that form is in creating a message template. In short:

The New broadcast box is deliberately simple: message, type and image. There are no buttons there. If your message needs buttons, build the template first under Templates → New template, then send it through Blast.

Where exactly: the Templates menu on the left → the "Message templates" page → the "Create a template" section. The button fields sit further down that form, after Message body and Footer. Keep scrolling until you see these three, all optional:

• Quick-reply buttons: one per line, up to 3, each ≤ 25 characters (for example Sick, On leave, On my way). The recipient taps, and the reply lands in the inbox with consistent wording.
• Link button: button text (≤ 25 characters) plus the address, e.g. See our catalogue pointing to https://yourshop.com/. The address is fixed and the same for every recipient. It can be combined with quick replies.
• WhatsApp form button: only appears once you have published a WhatsApp form.

The full order of work:

1. Templates menu → Create a template: write the message, pick the category, scroll down to fill in the buttons, then click Submit to Meta.
2. Wait for the status to become Approved, usually minutes to hours.
3. Blast → New broadcast, choose "Use this template →" on that template. Message fields map to contact columns as usual and the buttons ride along with no extra setup.

If you already know the term "WhatsApp template"

Some owners receive a template from a designer or agency as a full specification:

Template name: intro_message
Category: Marketing
Language: id
BODY:
{{2}} {{1}}, it seems {{4}} you ordered {{5}} …

Do not paste that specification into the message box. The box takes only the sentence your customer will read, no "Template name", "Category" or "BODY:" lines, and no hand-typed {{1}}. The numbering is WACO's job.

Three rules that get a message rejected by WhatsApp if broken:

• Write the column name in single braces such as {title}, or use the + Name / + other variable buttons so you cannot mistype it. Typing {{1}} yourself is accepted too, but pointless here: the numbering is WACO's job.
• A message cannot start or end with a variable. Keep ordinary words at both ends: "Hello {title}, … thank you 🙏" rather than "{title} {name}, …".
• Two variables cannot sit back to back. "{title} {name}" is rejected by Meta, put a word between them, or merge them into one column.
• Bold asterisks must come in pairs: *MYSHOP* is right, MYSHOP* makes Meta read the formatting as broken.
• Never skip a number. If you write a template yourself in the Templates menu, the order must be 1, 2, 3, 4 with no gaps. In this Blast box you do not have to think about it: numbering follows the order they appear, and the same column used twice keeps one number.

The specification above, rewritten correctly in the Blast message box:

Hello {title}, it seems back in {Year} you ordered {Product} from
us. Thank you so much for the trust you placed in us 😊🙏

The columns title, Year and Product come from your contacts spreadsheet: number and name are recognised automatically, and any other column becomes available as a message field. One broadcast can greet every person with their own title, year and product.

Step 2: wait for WhatsApp approval

Every bulk message has to be reviewed by WhatsApp. That is Meta policy, not ours, and it usually takes a few minutes to a few hours. Reload the Broadcast page to see the status. If it is rejected, the reason appears on the card. Fix the wording, see the most common causes, and submit it as a new broadcast.

Step 3: once approved, choose the recipients

When the status turns to "Approved, ready to send", click Send. There are two ways to fill in the recipients.

The fastest route: take them from Contacts

If your customers are already in the contact book, pick a group (a label), or all contacts, then match each part of the message to a contact column using the mapping dropdowns, for example {Name} from name, {Amount} from amount. The system guesses when the names are similar and you correct whatever it missed. Data is filled from the contact record, and anyone whose data is incomplete is reported rather than sent a message with a hole in it. No pasting at all.

Or: download the form, fill it in a spreadsheet, paste it back

1. Click Download spreadsheet form. The file already carries the correct columns for your message, for example number, name, amount, date, plus one filled example row showing the expected format.
2. Open it, replace the example row with your data. WhatsApp numbers go in the first column in international format. Local format is accepted and normalised, and invalid numbers are skipped and reported.
3. Select the data, copy it, paste it into the box on the send page, then click Check and preview. If the header row comes along with it, that is fine, the system recognises it.
4. Check the first three messages rendered with real values, so you can see the names and figures land where they should, along with the estimated cost, which is Meta's charge rather than a WACO one.
5. Click Send now. Delivery proceeds in the background and you can open the report at any time: delivered, queued, or failed, per number.

Reading the campaign report

Once a blast is running, open the campaign from the Blast menu, the report is live and refreshes itself while sending:

• Progress bar: how much of the queue has gone out.
• Sent: accepted by WhatsApp for delivery.
• Delivered: WhatsApp's official receipt that the message reached the recipient's phone.
• Read: the blue-tick receipt. Recipients who switch blue ticks off are not counted, so treat this as a floor, real readership is almost always higher.
• Replies: recipients who wrote back within 7 days, with the list of numbers and when. Every reply also lands in your inbox as a normal conversation, that is where the sales happen, so answer quickly.
• Failed: rejected numbers (inactive, not on WhatsApp, etc.) with the reason.

The percentages next to Delivered/Read/Replies are computed against Sent, a quick way to judge how alive your recipient list is and how compelling the message was.

Making the first broadcast go smoothly

• Test on yourself first. Paste a single row containing your own number, send it, look at it on your phone, and only then send to the real list.
• A new number is limited to around 250 new contacts per day by WhatsApp, and the system warns you when your list exceeds it. See how to raise the limit.
• Send less, and send it more precisely. Message only the customers who are actually overdue rather than everyone. Relevant messages do not get blocked, and your number rating stays healthy. See why that matters.

Campaigns larger than Meta's quota (e.g. 1,000 contacts vs 250)

Meta caps the number of unique recipients of business-initiated messages per rolling 24 hours, 250 for numbers whose business is not yet verified, then 1,000, 10,000 and up as volume and quality grow. You do not need to split the campaign: WACO sends up to the remaining quota, the rest stays Queued (= not yet sent; visible and downloadable from the broadcast report), then continues automatically once the window opens. The "Meta 24-hour quota" panel on the report shows the tier, used, remaining, and the estimated resume time. If Meta still refuses because of a limit, WACO pauses for an hour and retries by itself. Meta business verification unlocks higher tiers sooner.