Today we're excited to announce broadcasts. Broadcasts enable you to send one-time messages to your users across any channel in Knock.
Whether you're announcing a new feature, alerting users about system maintenance, or driving feature adoption, broadcasts let you create thoughtful cross-channel messaging sequences that reach users where they are.
One-time announcements through the channels our customers manage in Knock—in-product, email, Slack, push—has been one of our most popular requests since year one of Knock. We’re thrilled to finally be releasing it today.
Broadcasts are one-time scheduled workflows
Broadcasts enable you to run one-time messaging workflows for a specific set of recipients. Unlike traditional workflows that trigger based on events in your product, broadcasts are scheduled to run once for a defined audience.
Because broadcasts use our workflow engine under the hood, this means you can build sophisticated cross-channel one-time messaging.
Broadcasts is exactly what we needed. We explored other providers for texting our customers for announcements but struggled to find an easy way to send SMS in bulk—managing a Twilio webhook for responses was overly complicated. We already rely on Knock extensively for triggered SMS and email, and this new feature is a perfect addition.
Audience targeting: CSV upload, reverse ETL, or API
When you create a broadcast, you provide it with a list of recipients. This can be a list you upload via CSV, or an audience you’ve imported to Knock through reverse ETL tools or synced directly through our API.
With broadcasts, Knock made it simple to launch an organized, multi-channel product messaging service that is vital to our member retention. Their support team has been responsive, helpful, and just wonderful to work with.
Commercial preferences and 1-click unsubscribe
Today we’re also introducing a new concept to our preferences model: commercial preferences and 1-click unsubscribe.
To stay compliant with regulations like CAN -SPAM and CASL, you can set a broadcast (or a workflow) as commercial, which give users the ability to one-click opt-out of any future commercial messaging sent with Knock.
We now support 1-click unsubscribe behavior in your email layouts. When a commercial message is sent to your users, it will include this 1-click unsubscribe link.
Unsubscribed users will no longer receive commercial messages sent by Knock. Non-commercial messages will still follow your normal preferences.
Observability and analytics
The messages sent by broadcasts are just like any other messages in Knock. You get visibility into message logs, as well as the runs of each user in a broadcast audience.
All messages sent by Knock include our built-in engagement tracking, and you can see a summary of engagement metrics on the broadcast page.
All broadcast data is streamed into any downstream extensions you use with Knock such as analytics tools or data warehouses.
Getting started
Broadcasts are available to all Knock customers starting today. To learn more about how to use broadcasts, check out our documentation or reach out to us at [email protected].