A broadcast is a one-off message you send to many members at once: an announcement, an email blast, a newsletter, or a push notification. One broadcast can go out by in-app notification, email, and push together, to all members or a targeted audience.
Who can do this: Community owners and admins. · Where: Web, in the admin console. Members receive broadcasts in their notifications, by email, and as push notifications in the iOS and Android apps. · Plan: In-app and push broadcasts are available on every platform plan. The Email channel, and how many emails you can send each month, depend on your platform plan.
Create a broadcast
- Go to Admin → Marketing → Broadcasts and click New Broadcast.
- Under Channels, pick one or more: In-app, Email, and Push.
- Optionally pick a Template (optional) to fill in the channels and content.
- Enter a Title. It's the in-app and push title, and the email subject if you don't set one.
- Fill in each channel you picked:
- In-app: choose a Type (Announcement, Update, Alert, or Reminder) and write a short Message.
- Email: enter a Subject and write the Body. The body supports Markdown formatting and images.
- Push: write a short Message and, optionally, a Deep link (optional) to a page in your community.
- Choose who receives it (see the next section).
- Send it, schedule it, or save it as a draft (see below).
If you use email together with in-app or push, click Fill in-app / push from email content to reuse the email text as the shorter messages.
Choose a broadcast's audience
Open Target Audience on the right side of the composer:
- Send to: All members, Verified email only, or Active members. For active members, choose Active Within, from Last 7 days to Last year.
- Spaces (optional): limit the broadcast to members of the selected spaces.
- Access groups (optional): limit it to members in the selected access groups. This appears only if your community has access groups.
Estimated Audience shows how many recipients match.
Personalize broadcast emails
You can use these variables in an email broadcast:
- In the Subject:
{{member_name}}, the recipient's name. - In the Body:
{{member_name}},{{community_name}}, and{{unsubscribe_link}}.
Preview and test a broadcast before sending
- Click Preview to see how the broadcast looks in each channel. Nothing is sent.
- Click Send Test to send a test copy to yourself on the selected channels.
Send, schedule, or save a broadcast as a draft
- Send now: click Send Now. Mateflow shows the approximate number of recipients and the channels; confirm with Send Now. A sent broadcast can't be undone.
- Schedule: open Schedule (optional), pick a date and time (in your local time), and click Schedule. The Schedule button stays unavailable until you pick a time.
- Save for later: click Save Draft.
Your broadcasts are listed on the All Broadcasts tab, where you can search and filter them by channel and status (Draft, Scheduled, Sending, Sent, Partial, or Failed). What you can do depends on the status:
- Draft: Edit or Send now.
- Scheduled: Edit or Cancel schedule. A cancelled broadcast isn't sent.
- Any broadcast: View its results, or Duplicate it to start a new one with the same content and audience.
Broadcast sending limits and cooldown
- Email needs a plan that includes it. If your plan doesn't, the Email channel shows a lock. If a broadcast already uses email, choose Upgrade plan or Remove email channel to send the other channels.
- Monthly email sends depend on your plan. See Check plan usage and limits.
- There's a short cooldown after several sends. If you send or schedule several broadcasts in a short time, Send Now and Schedule pause and count down (Retry in a number of seconds). Wait for the countdown to finish, then try again. You can still save drafts during the cooldown.
Track broadcast delivery and engagement
- All Broadcasts shows each sent broadcast's Recipients and Engagement: email open rate, in-app read rate, and push click rate.
- Click View on a broadcast to see each channel's numbers: Sent and Read for in-app; Sent, Delivered, Opened, and Clicked for email; Sent, Delivered, and Clicked for push.
- The Analytics tab shows Email Analytics: total broadcasts and emails sent, average open and click rates, a trend chart, and recent email broadcasts. Open and click rates appear once recipients start opening and clicking.
- The Unsubscribes tab lists members who unsubscribed from your emails, whose emails bounced, or who reported spam.
Reuse broadcast content with templates
On the Templates tab, click New Template. Give it a Name, a Category (Welcome, Announcement, Newsletter, Promotional, or Custom), pick its Channels, fill in the content, and click Create. When you compose a broadcast, choose the template under Template (optional).
Things to know about broadcasts
- Broadcasts are one-off messages. For an automatic weekly summary of community activity, use the community digest instead. See Set up the community digest.
- An in-app broadcast appears in each recipient's notifications, with your title as the heading.
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