WhatsApp Broadcast

A WhatsApp broadcast is a single message sent to many customers at once through the WhatsApp Business API, using a template Meta has pre-approved, rather than through the personal broadcast list feature in the consumer app.

The template requirement is the part people underestimate: unlike the free app, a business can’t just type a promotional message and send it to a list — the message format has to be submitted to Meta and approved before it can be sent to anyone outside their active 24-hour window. That review exists to keep WhatsApp from turning into an SMS-spam channel, and it’s also why broadcast campaigns need lead time to set up, not just a list and a send button.

A reply to a broadcast lands as an ordinary conversation — which is the part worth planning for, since a campaign that generates replies nobody is watching for is a missed-call problem in a different channel.

Where broadcast sits as a feature, on the WhatsApp campaigns page.