# Broadcasts

A broadcast sends one message to a stored [audience](/docs/guides/email/audiences): pick the audience and a published email template, and Bird resolves the audience's current members into a recipient list at send time, rather than you enumerating addresses yourself. Broadcasts are built and sent entirely in the dashboard, under **Email → Broadcasts**; there is no `/v1/email/broadcasts` endpoint, CLI command, or SDK method, so there's nothing to automate here today. If your recipient list isn't already a stored audience, [batch sending](/docs/guides/email/sending-bulk) or a loop over [single sends](/docs/guides/email/sending-email) covers a one-off list instead.

## Create a draft

Start a broadcast from the Broadcasts list. Filling in the composer and submitting only ever creates or saves a **draft**: the buttons read **Create draft** and **Save draft**. Sending is a separate step, covered below, and a draft can be edited and re-saved as many times as you like first.

The composer has three steps:

- **Recipients**: pick an existing audience, or create one on the spot. Set a From name and address; the address must be on a [verified sending domain](/docs/guides/email/sending-domains). Reply-To addresses are optional, up to 25.
- **Content**: choose one of the workspace's published email templates. A broadcast has no inline body editor: its subject and body always come from the template, so authoring happens in [Templates](https://bird.com/dashboard/w/email/templates), not here. Each recipient's [contact properties](/docs/guides/email/contacts#contact-properties) fill the template's merge variables at send time, so the same broadcast personalizes per recipient. A draft can be created before a template exists, but one must be chosen before you can send.
- **Review**: confirm the audience, from address, and template, then set the [category](/docs/guides/email/categories), the [open and click tracking](/docs/guides/email/open-click-tracking) switches, and up to 20 tags for filtering broadcasts later. The category defaults to `marketing`, which respects every suppression including unsubscribes; switch to `transactional` to still deliver through complaint and unsubscribe suppressions.

## Send or schedule

Sending is a separate, explicit action from the broadcast's row or detail page, labeled **Send or schedule**. Choose **Send now**, or schedule up to 365 days ahead with at least a minute of lead time. A scheduled broadcast stays editable and can be rescheduled right up until dispatch begins.

Two organization-wide limits are enforced at this step, independent of anything about this particular broadcast: a cap on how many broadcasts your organization can send in a billing period, and a cap on how many can be sending at the same time. Hitting the first means waiting for the next billing period or upgrading your plan; hitting the second means waiting for an in-progress broadcast to finish; a scheduled broadcast simply waits for a free slot rather than failing.

## Broadcast status

A broadcast is a `draft` until submitted, then `scheduled` once submitted with a future send time (still editable), then `accepted` once accepted for immediate send, then `sending` while delivery is in progress, and `sent` once every recipient has been dispatched to. Canceling a `scheduled`, `accepted`, or `sending` broadcast moves it through `canceling` to `canceled`.

## Cancel or delete

Cancel a `scheduled`, `accepted`, or `sending` broadcast from its detail page: recipients not yet sent to are skipped, but messages already delivered cannot be recalled. Delete only applies to a draft, and it's permanent: there's no recovering a deleted draft.

## Why a broadcast fails

A `failed` broadcast names one of these reasons on its detail page, in roughly the order you can act on them yourself:

- **Empty audience**: the audience resolved to zero deliverable recipients at send time, either because it's empty or every member is suppressed. Add members, or check your [suppressions](/docs/guides/email/suppressions).
- **Audience unavailable**: the audience no longer exists or couldn't be resolved. Point the broadcast at a different audience, or rebuild it.
- **Content invalid**: the template no longer renders as pinned, for example because a contact property it references was deleted after the broadcast was scheduled. Fix the template or the referenced property, then resend.
- **Quota exceeded**: the audience resolved to more recipients than your organization's email send limit allows; the failure explanation includes the recipient count and the limit. Narrow the audience, or raise your plan's limit.
- **Internal error**: the send failed on Bird's side. Retry, and contact support if it recurs.

## Track delivery

Once dispatch starts, the detail page shows recipients, sent, delivered, bounced, complained, opens, and clicks, plus the delivery and engagement rates computed from them. This is a per-broadcast view, distinct from the workspace-wide numbers on [email metrics](/docs/guides/email/tracking-and-metrics): a broadcast is one send among everything else your workspace sends. Two views go deeper: **View recipients** lists every recipient's status, delivered time, opens, and clicks, including the failure reason for anyone who didn't deliver; **View events** shows the same broadcast as a per-recipient timeline, the same event types documented in [events and webhooks](/docs/guides/email/events).

## Next steps

- [Audiences](/docs/guides/email/audiences): build and manage the recipient lists broadcasts target
- [Categories](/docs/guides/email/categories): `marketing` vs `transactional` and what each does to suppression policy
- [Email metrics](/docs/guides/email/tracking-and-metrics): the workspace-wide view broadcasts feed into
- [Events and webhooks](/docs/guides/email/events): the per-recipient event stream behind a broadcast's delivery numbers