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.
