Campaigns let you send messages to your members at scale while still feeling personal and conversational. Use them to share updates, drive engagement, and track performance, all from within your Community dashboard.
Who this applies to. Everyone with a Community account.
What is a Campaign?
A campaign can contain text, links, images, GIFs, video up to 50MB, and dynamic fields that change per member.
The difference from email or a social post is directness. A campaign lands as a message on a phone rather than in a feed or an inbox someone checks later, so it gets seen quickly. That's the advantage and also the reason to be careful with it: the same properties that make a campaign effective make an unwanted one intrusive.
Why Use Campaigns?
Campaigns are for anything timely that a defined group of members would want to know, where you also want the option of a conversation afterwards.
| USE CASE | WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE |
|---|---|
| Events | Dates, reminders, ticket links, early access for a specific city |
| Product drops and sales | Launches and restocks, often to your most engaged members first |
| Calls to action | Sign-ups, donations, registrations, participation |
| Seasonal and holiday | Themed promotions and greetings |
| Behavioral follow-up | Messaging people who clicked, replied, or didn't engage last time |
| Re-engagement | Reconnecting with members who have gone quiet |
| Announcements | Releases, milestones, behind-the-scenes news |
Campaign Types
| TYPE | WHEN TO USE IT |
|---|---|
| Standard | The default and most flexible. Announcements, promotions, drops, or any update to your whole audience or a filtered segment. |
| Survey | Poll your members and get answers you can count. |
| Birthday | Sends automatically on a member's birthday. The send date differs per member; the message doesn't. See Scheduling and recurring sends. |
| API-Generated | Triggered programmatically from your own systems. Requires a plan with API access. |
| Test | A practice send to yourself or a few teammates, so you can see the message on a real phone before it goes wide. |
Campaign Status
Campaign Status shows the current state of your campaign throughout its lifecycle, whether it’s still being drafted, scheduled, actively sending, or completed. It gives you insight into what’s happening behind the scenes and what actions (if any) might be needed. Below is a breakdown of each status and what it means.
| STATUS | WHAT IT MEANS |
|---|---|
| Draft | The campaign has been created but is not ready to send. It has not been scheduled, submitted for approval, or sent. |
| Needs Approval | The campaign is pending approval from an Admin or someone with "View and Send Message" permissions. |
| In Review | If your campaign includes a WhatsApp message template, it's being reviewed by Meta. |
| Sending | Community is currently processing and sending the campaign to our delivery partners. |
| Active |
Your campaign has been handed off to our downstream delivery partners (carriers). Each carrier may take time to complete delivery. If the status shows Active but you have not yet received the message, it is most likely queued with a delivery partner and should arrive shortly. The 6-hour reply window is now open. Any member responses during this period will be attributed to the campaign. |
| Scheduled | The campaign is scheduled to send at a future date/time. If it's recurring, we show the next instance. |
| Complete | The 6-hour reply window has ended. The campaign is done. |
| Failed | Something went wrong and the campaign wasn't able to send. |
Status Progression Example
Here's how a typical campaign might flow:
Draft → Scheduled → Sending → Active → Complete
If approval is required, the path could look like:
Draft → Needs Approval → Sending → Active → Complete
If your campaign includes WhatsApp content:
Draft → In Review → Scheduled → Sending → Active → Complete
How To Use Campaigns Well
Lead with value
Every campaign should answer why a member would care. Exclusive access, a useful reminder, something genuinely fun. If you can't name the value, the message probably isn't ready.
Speak like a human
This channel sits between messages from friends and family. Copy that reads as normal marketing reads as an intrusion here. Write the way you'd text.
Target with intention
Filter by location, demographics, custom fields, or Subcommunity. Tightly targeted campaigns consistently outperform broad sends, and they cost you less audience patience. See Targeting your audience.
Make it visual where it earns its place
Images, GIFs, and video pull attention for drops, tour dates, and behind-the-scenes content. Media for its own sake just makes the message slower to load.
Test and learn
Vary message style, send time, and call to action, then use response and click data to decide what to keep. One deliberate change per send is enough to learn from.
Plan ahead and use the calendar
Scheduling in advance against your content calendar is the most reliable guard against accidentally over-messaging. The calendar view is where cadence gaps and pile-ups become visible.
Follow up based on behavior
A short follow-up to people who clicked, replied, or ignored the first message often outperforms the original. See Acting on campaign results.
Encourage two-way dialogue
Ask questions and invite replies. Two-way is the whole reason to be on this channel, and it produces first-party data that no other channel gives you.
What If It's Not Working
Status says Active but members haven't received the message
Normal. Active means it's with the carriers, and each one takes its own time. If it persists, contact support.
Fewer recipients than expected
Usually targeting: an exclusion, a channel opt-in mismatch, or a filter narrower than intended. See Targeting your audience.
Status is Failed
The campaign didn't send at all. Check the campaign for a specific error, then contact support if there isn't one.
It didn't send at its scheduled time
Check whether it was still in Needs Approval, and check quiet hours. See Scheduling and recurring sends.
Response rate looks lower than the replies I can see
STOP replies are excluded from response metrics, and replies outside the 6-hour window don't attribute. See How replies are attributed to campaigns.