A campaign sends one approved template to many contacts at once, paced to what your number and Meta allow. You'll find them under Campaigns. Managers, admins and owners can create and launch campaigns, on any paid plan. Nothing is sent until you launch on the last step.
The four steps
Audience
Choose who should get it: saved segments, tags (matching any or all), individual contacts, or a CSV list you upload. Add segments or tags to exclude. Someone in two sources still gets one message.
Message
Choose the sending number and an approved Marketing or Utility template, then fill each variable with fixed text or a contact field, with a fallback for contacts who don't have it.
Schedule
Send now or pick a date and time in your time zone. Quiet hours keep messages out of the night.
Review
Check the recipient count, who is left out and why, Meta's estimated cost and whether today's messaging limit is enough. Send a test to your own phone, then launch.
Who gets left out, and why
Before you launch, the review step shows how many people will actually receive the campaign and why the others won't. Each person is counted once, under the first reason that applies:
| Reason | Means |
|---|---|
| Invalid or erased numbers | Numbers that can't receive WhatsApp, or contacts erased on request. |
| Blocked | Contacts your team blocked. |
| Opted out of marketing | They asked not to get promotions, for example by replying STOP. |
| No marketing consent | There's no record that they agreed to promotions. Unknown isn't consent. |
| Resting after Meta's limit | Meta capped marketing to them in the last 24 hours (error 131049). |
| In Meta's holdout group | Meta held back marketing to them (error 130472) until they message you. |
| Counted twice | In more than one of your sources, or repeated in your uploaded list. |
Segments are evaluated when you launch, so a contact who joins the segment after you created the campaign is included. Anyone who opts out while the campaign is sending is skipped.
Uploading a list
Upload a CSV of up to 100,000 rows (5 MB) with a phone column. Numbers without a country code are read as Indian. Numbers you don't have yet become contacts without marketing consent, so a marketing campaign skips them until consent is recorded. For a lasting audience, import contacts with their consent instead.
Filling in variables
- Fixed text is the same for everyone, for example a sale end date.
- Contact field uses each contact's name, first name, phone, email or any custom attribute, such as
cityorcourse. - Add a fallback ("there", "Customer") for contacts without that field. A contact with an empty field and no fallback is skipped and listed as Missing a variable.
- Values are filled in at the moment each message is sent, so recent edits to a contact are used.
- If the template has an image, video or document header, give the file to send.
Link tracking: turn it on to replace a website link you put in a variable with a short tracked link. The report then shows clicks per campaign. Links written into the approved template text itself can't be changed, so they aren't tracked.
Scheduling and quiet hours
- Times are in your workspace's time zone unless you choose another one.
- Quiet hours are 9 PM to 9 AM by default. A scheduled time inside quiet hours moves to when they end, and a campaign that is still sending at 9 PM waits until 9 AM to continue. You can change or turn off quiet hours per campaign.
- A scheduled time must be at least five minutes away.
- If a scheduled campaign can't start within six hours of its time, it is marked failed instead of sending at an odd hour.
The estimate
The review step shows the expected Meta cost by category and by the recipients' countries, at Meta's published rates. It is an estimate: Meta's actual charge arrives with each delivered message, and only that appears in billing and analytics. Failed messages are not charged.
It also checks your messaging limit, the number of different people your business can message in a rolling 24 hours. If the audience is bigger, the first part goes now and the rest follows as the limit frees up; the estimate says how many days that takes. Read more about messaging limits.
Campaigns of more than 10,000 recipients ask you to type the recipient count to confirm, so a large send is never one stray click.
While it's sending
| Status | Means |
|---|---|
| Scheduled | Waiting for its time. You can unschedule it to edit it again. |
| Preparing | Fixing the final audience. Takes seconds. |
| Sending | Going out, paced to your number's speed. It may show it is waiting for quiet hours or for the messaging limit. |
| Paused | Stopped by you, or automatically, for example when Meta paused the template or the number was disconnected. Resume to continue. |
| Sent | Every recipient has been handed to WhatsApp. Delivery and read counts keep updating. |
| Cancelled | Stopped for good. Messages not yet picked up for sending were not sent. |
| Failed | It couldn't start, for example because its scheduled time passed by more than six hours. |
Pause stops new messages at once; a small batch already handed to WhatsApp may still go out. Each recipient gets the campaign at most once, however many times you pause and resume.
Reading the report
| Number | Counts |
|---|---|
| Sent | Accepted by WhatsApp. |
| Delivered | Reached the customer's phone. |
| Read | Opened, if the customer has read receipts on (many don't, so read rates are a lower bound). |
| Replied | Wrote back within 24 hours. |
| Clicked | Tapped a tracked link (when link tracking is on). |
| Skipped | Left out at send time, with the reason. |
| Failed | Refused by WhatsApp, grouped by error. See Troubleshooting. |
| Cost | Meta's actual charges for the campaign's delivered messages. |
The report keeps updating for 72 hours after the campaign finishes, as late deliveries and reads arrive. Compare campaigns in Analytics → Campaigns.
Common questions
- How fast does a campaign send?
- As fast as your number allows, usually around 60 messages a second, with your replies and bot messages always going first. Large audiences may also wait for your daily messaging limit.
- Can I send a test first?
- Yes. On the review step, send the campaign to one phone number. A test of a marketing template needs that number to have marketing consent, like any other recipient. Tests don't count in the report.
- Can I edit a campaign after launching?
- No. You can pause, resume or cancel it. Drafts and scheduled campaigns (after unscheduling) can be edited.