The same mistake gets made with both: people assume they can "just message everyone". On Instagram that does not exist — Meta's rule is that a business may only DM someone who messaged them in the last 24 hours. So the real question is not how many people to send to. It is when.
Sequence: one person, three days
When somebody talks to you, a sequence runs a short path for them:
Each message only goes out while the window is open, and the sequence stops the moment they reply — because now you are the one talking, not the bot.
Broadcast: one segment, one message
A broadcast is for when there is genuinely something to announce — a new drop, a one-day offer, a batch about to close. Before sending, you can see how many people are reachable right now and how many are outside the window.
Rules you should keep yourself
- No more than one broadcast a week. Send two, and by the third people start blocking.
- Keep the segment small. Sending to "everyone" is the easiest and least effective option there is.
- One job per message. Two links means no link.
- Keep opt-out obvious and stop the moment somebody types STOP.
Build a segment once and it keeps updating itself — and the same segment works in Pipeline and in broadcasts.
Set it up in five minutes with the free auto DM tool that answers comments, story replies and DMs for you.
