Schedule and send

Once a campaign is composed, three steps remain: resolve the audience, choose when it goes, and send it. Messages that go out cannot be taken back, so each step tells you exactly what will happen.

1. Resolve the audience

Nothing can be sent until the audience is turned into a fixed list of recipients.

1. Open the campaign from Campaigns › Broadcasts.
2. Under Who this sends to, click Resolve the audience.

The campaign moves to Ready to send, and the page shows The list this campaign sends to, with the recipient count, when it was fixed, and why it differs from the audience estimate. Contacts who opted out, are missing a personalisation value or would be reached twice are left out. See Audiences.

If nobody is left after these checks, the send is refused rather than completing instantly.

The list does not change by itself. To pick up contacts added or changed since, click Resolve again.

2. Choose when it sends

In the composer, under When, choose Send:

• As soon as it is sent: the campaign starts the moment you send it.
• At a time: pick a Date and Time in the future. Times are in the time zone your browser is set to, which the page names.

The menu also lists Inside each recipient's own business hours. This option is not available yet: a campaign saved with it is refused. Choose one of the other two.

Click Save changes after changing the schedule. Saving a change to a resolved campaign discards its list, so resolve the audience again afterwards.

3. Send

1. Click Send this campaign.
2. Check the summary: the number of recipients, when the list was fixed, the template and its language, and when it will send.
3. Click Send.

You see The campaign has been sent for delivery. A campaign set to send now moves to Sending. A campaign set for later moves to Scheduled and starts at its time.

The campaign is sent from a connected number on the WhatsApp account you chose.

If the list changed

If someone else resolved the audience again while you had the page open, you see This campaign was resolved again. Click Show me the new list, check it, then send.

Sending speed

Messages per minute (set under How fast) is the most the campaign sends per minute, from 1 to 6,000. WhatsApp also enforces its own limits on top of this. If WhatsApp asks us to slow down, the campaign slows down and keeps going: affected recipients show Slowed down, nothing is lost and no recipient fails because of it.

Each WhatsApp number also has a daily messaging limit set by Meta. See Quality and messaging limits.

Pause and resume

On a Sending or Scheduled campaign, click Pause. The campaign stops taking new recipients. Messages already handed to WhatsApp still go out, so the numbers keep moving for a moment.

On a Paused campaign, click Resume. The campaign continues from where it stopped. Nobody is messaged twice, and anyone who opted out during the pause is left out of the rest.

There is no button to cancel a campaign for good. Pause it instead.

Checks that can stop a send

Before a send, a test send or a resume, and while a campaign runs, IconEngage checks:

• Opt-outs. Opted-out contacts are left out when the list is fixed, checked again before each message, and dropped if they send a stop word mid-campaign. See Opt-outs and consent.
• WhatsApp credits. If your credits can't cover a template message, you see Not enough WhatsApp credits and nothing is sent. If credits run out while a campaign is sending, the campaign moves to Paused and your organisation is notified. Top up, then click Resume. See WhatsApp credits.
• Message allowance. If your organisation has used its plan's message allowance for the period, you see Your message allowance is used up. A running campaign pauses, and its unsent recipients wait. Resume once there is room again. See Usage.
• Template approval. The template is checked again when you resolve and test, because Meta can pause a template at any time.