Overview

Batch messages can be sent immediately, scheduled for a future date, and throttled according to audience size or maximum number of batches. You can use these options to make sure you reach the right contacts at the right time.

Send a batch message immediately

Messages are set to send immediately by default.

1. To create a new message, log in to Cordial and navigate to Messages > Create New Message.

2. When all the required content is provided in your message, you'll see the option to Send Message. 

Schedule for a future date

1. If you would like to schedule a batch message to be sent on a future date, click the Edit button in the Schedule Sending pane and choose Schedule for future date.

2. Choose the date and time you would like the message to be sent and click Save.

3. If all required content is provided, the Schedule Message button will become available on the left side of your message creation page.

Edit a scheduled message

Scheduled messages can be located by navigating to Messages > Scheduled. Hover over the arrow next to the scheduled message name to reveal available options including Edit, Copy as Draft, Remove, and Unschedule.

When attempting to edit a scheduled message, you will be notified that the message status will change from scheduled to draft. Click Yes, Continue Editing to proceed. Your message can now be edited and rescheduled.

You can view the details of a scheduled throttle from the Scheduled Messages page by hovering over the Send Time stamp. Similarly, you can view the status details of sent or sending throttled batch messages by navigating to Messages > Email Sent and hovering over the Send Time stamp.

Schedule send according to contact's time zone

When scheduling a message for a future date, you can set the scheduled send time according to a contact's time zone. In order for this option to become available, you need to designate a contact attribute as the contact's primary time zone.

When scheduling your message, choose Contact's time zone in the Schedule time menu.

We suggest scheduling the message with the contact's timezone at least 24 hours from the first scheduled send.

If a time zone value is not present in the primary time zone attribute, the message will send according to the account's default time zone setting.

Throttle a batch message

Message sending can be throttled to control your sending volumes over time for any given batch message. This is useful if:

• There's a need to spread out sending volumes because your domain has issues handling large volumes of inbound traffic.
• You are warming an IP or sending to a list of newly acquired contacts and there's a deliverability concern with a particular volume.
• Your analysis of message open rates suggests that the number of messages per batch should be distributed unevenly. For example, front-loading the first batch and gradually tapering the volume.

Message throttling may not be compatible with inbox placement tests and experiments.

Set up message throttling on a batch message

1. Click Edit in the Schedule Sending pane and select Throttled batch sending.

2. Select either Audience size per batch or Max number of batches.

Audience size per batch

• Auto: Specify the audience size per batch and the number of batches will be calculated automatically.

• Custom: Specify the number of batches and assign a percentage of the total audience to each batch.

Audience counts are recalculated for each batch of a throttled send. Therefore, it's possible for the audience count to fluctuate during the throttling time period.

• Max number of batches: Specify the maximum number of batches and the audience size per batch will be calculated automatically.

Batch intervals

Choose whether you want your Batch interval to be Daily or Hourly.

• Daily: Send a batch once per day on specific days.
• Hourly: Send a batch on specific hours of specific days.
• Allowed days: Days of the week you would like the message to send.
• Allowed hours: Hours of the day you would like the message to send.
• Select minutes: Minutes within the hours of each day. For example, 10AM and 30 minutes will send at 10:30AM.
• Start batch sending: The date when the batch sending intervals will start.
• Start time: The time when the batch sending intervals will start.

The messages will start sending at the first interval after the start date and time. Be sure to select all days and times you would like the messages to send.

Use case

You could send each batch of messages every hour between the hours of 9 am and 7 pm on weekdays until all messages have been sent.

In the next article, you can learn about message performance.