Use case
Plan WhatsApp festive campaigns for Diwali, Navratri, Eid and the wedding season
A working calendar for festive WhatsApp campaigns: when to submit templates, how to pace big sends within your messaging limit, and how to avoid blocks in peak season.
By Broadchat teamPublished 6 min read
How the flow works
Six weeks out: plan and clean the list
List the festivals that matter to your customers and region, decide one offer per festival, and clean the opted-in segment: remove stop-offers tags, bounced numbers and contacts without marketing consent.
Four weeks out: submit templates
Submit every festive template with sample values. Review can take up to 24 hours and some come back rejected or recategorised, so leave time for a second round. Approve image headers in the same pass.
Two weeks out: check limits and wallet
Compare your segment size with your number's messaging limit, recharge the channel wallet for the full send, and send a small early batch to your most engaged customers to confirm quality holds.
Festival week: schedule, pace, staff the inbox
Schedule sends for sensible hours, let pacing spread them within the limit, and have agents ready for the replies that follow, because a campaign creates a support load.
After: thank, review, cool off
Send order updates to buyers, compare results by segment, and give the whole list a quiet period before the next festival.
Business: (Image: personalised Diwali card with the name Meera) Happy Diwali from Shree Balaji Jewellers, Meera! Our Dhanteras collection of light-weight gold earrings is in store from 18 Oct, with free gift wrapping. Would you like to see the designs? [Show designs] [Book a visit] [Stop offers]
Customer: Show designs
Business: Here are 8 designs between 4 and 8 grams. Prices change with the daily gold rate, so we confirm the final amount at the store. Tap one to ask about it.
Customer: The second one. Is it available in 22 carat?
Business: Yes, it is 22 carat and hallmarked. Would you like us to keep it aside for a visit? [Book a visit] [Ask a question]
Customer: Book a visit
Business: Our team member Lata will confirm a time with you here in a few minutes. Wishing you and your family a bright Diwali.
The short answer
WhatsApp festive campaigns work when they are planned like stock: decided six weeks ahead, templates approved four weeks ahead, limits and wallet checked two weeks ahead, and sent at a pace your number and your team can handle. The businesses that struggle at Diwali usually start the week before, submit templates on Dhanteras eve, and send everything to everyone on the same morning.
This page is for any business with an opted-in customer list, from a jeweller to a sweet shop or a D2C brand. If you have no marketing consent from your contacts yet, start with opt-in; festive messages to people who never agreed are a fast route to blocks.
A festive calendar to plan around
Dates move each year with the lunar calendar, so confirm them before you plan.
| Season | Festivals | Typical WhatsApp angle |
|---|---|---|
| Aug-Sep | Raksha Bandhan, Onam, Ganesh Chaturthi | Gift hampers, delivery cut-off dates, regional sweets |
| Sep-Oct | Navratri, Durga Puja, Dussehra | Ethnic wear, new launches, store events |
| Oct-Nov | Dhanteras, Diwali, Bhai Dooj | Gold and silver, electronics, vehicles, corporate gifting |
| Nov-Feb | Wedding season, Christmas, New Year | Jewellery, salons, travel, party bookings |
| Jan | Makar Sankranti, Pongal, Lohri | Regional offers, kitchenware, sweets |
| Varies | Eid al-Fitr, Eid al-Adha | Clothing, food orders, greetings to opted-in customers |
Templates to get approved
Festive offers, greetings with a call to action and launch announcements are all Marketing. Delivery cut-off notices sent to customers with open orders can be Utility only if they contain no promotion. Each message template needs sample values to pass review; see the template writing guide.
| Template name | Category | Sample (with values) |
|---|---|---|
diwali_collection_launch | Marketing | Happy Diwali, {{1}}! Our {{2}} is in store from {{3}}. Would you like to see the designs? (Meera, Dhanteras collection, 18 Oct) |
navratri_offer | Marketing | Hi {{1}}, celebrate Navratri with {{2}} on all {{3}} until 12 Oct. Reply SHOW to browse. (Priya, flat 15% off, chaniya cholis) |
rakhi_delivery_cutoff | Utility | Hi {{1}}, your order {{2}} will be delivered by {{3}}. Please keep someone available to receive it. (Ankit, #61190, 8 Aug) |
eid_greeting_menu | Marketing | Eid Mubarak, {{1}}! Our special {{2}} is available for pre-order until {{3}}. Reply MENU to order. (Farhan, biryani family pack, 20 Mar) |
wedding_season_booking | Marketing | Hi {{1}}, bridal trial slots at {{2}} are open for the wedding season. Want to book one? (Anjali, Glow Studio Koramangala) |
Build it in Broadchat
- Tag festive opt-ins and regions under CRM → Tags, then build segments in CRM → Segment (for example, Gujarat customers for Navratri).
- Submit templates in CRM → WhatsApp Templates four weeks ahead, with image headers.
- Create personalised greeting cards with Dynamic Experience → Image Experience, so each customer's name appears on the image.
- Recharge the channel wallet (see recharging the wallet) for the full send before the week starts; a low balance stops sends mid-campaign.
- Schedule the campaign in CRM → Bulk Campaign. Pacing spreads sends within your number's messaging limit and throughput.
- If you have several numbers, a Rocket Campaign can split one audience across them. Each number must have its own opted-in customers and good quality; splitting is not a way around limits.
- Add Match Keyword triggers in Chatbots → Chatbots for Show designs, Book a visit and Stop offers, and set Working Hours so late replies get an honest response.
Limits and pacing
Your business portfolio has a messaging limit: the number of unique people it can reach with templates in a rolling 24 hours, in tiers of 250, 2,000, 10,000, 100,000 and unlimited. A 15,000-contact Diwali send on a portfolio at 10,000 will take two days. Plan for it, or grow the limit earlier with steady, good-quality sends. See quality rating and messaging limits. Per-user marketing limits also apply, so some people will not receive every festive message.
Failure modes and fixes
- Template rejected two days before Diwali. Submit four weeks ahead with realistic samples, and keep a plain backup version approved.
- Sends stop halfway. Wallet balance or messaging limit reached. Check both in Channels → All Channels before scheduling.
- Blocks spike. Too many festivals, too many messages. Pick the two or three festivals your customers care about and skip the rest.
- The inbox floods. Staff it, add canned replies for price, delivery and store-timing questions, and route orders to the right team.
Illustrative ROI
Illustrative only. A jeweller sends a Dhanteras message to 6,000 opted-in customers. If 2% book a store visit and a third of those buy at an average bill of ₹48,000, that is 40 sales and ₹19,20,000 in revenue, before making charges and margins. Subtract Meta's marketing template charges for 6,000 deliveries, image creation and the subscription; current Meta rates are on WhatsApp API pricing. Compare against the same festival without WhatsApp if you have that history.
For inactive customers outside festival weeks, a re-engagement campaign fits better. Agencies run festive calendars for many clients at once through the partner program.
Broadchat modules used
- Bulk Campaign with scheduling
- Rocket Campaign
- Segments and tags
- Image Experience (personalised greeting images)
- Channel wallet
- Chatbot keyword triggers
- Live Chat team inbox
Industries: Ecommerce, Jewellery, Restaurants, Salons and spas, Automobile dealers, B2B distributors
What to measure
- Revenue per opted-in contact for each festival, compared with the same festival last year if you have it.
- Reply and button-tap rate per template, to see which festive offer and creative worked.
- Opt-out and block signals per send, and quality rating during festival weeks.
- Failed sends by error code (messaging limit, 131049 per-user limit, low wallet balance) to plan the next season.
- Inbox response time on peak days, since slow replies waste the demand a campaign creates.
Sources
- Messaging limits — Meta for Developers, checked 12 October 2026
- Templates overview — Meta for Developers, checked 12 October 2026
- Per-user marketing template message limits — Meta for Developers, checked 12 October 2026
Broadchat team · Product and partner success team
The people who build and support Broadchat, the white-label WhatsApp Business API platform. We write from what we see while onboarding partners and their clients on the official WhatsApp Cloud API, and we check every article against Meta's current documentation.
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Frequently asked questions
When should I submit Diwali WhatsApp templates?
About four weeks before the festival. Meta's review can take up to 24 hours, and a rejected or recategorised template needs another round. Submitting early also leaves time to test a small batch before the main send.
Can I send a Diwali greeting as a utility template?
No. Greetings and offers sent to many customers are Marketing. Only transactional messages about an existing order, such as a delivery cut-off for an order already placed, can be Utility, and only without promotional wording.
How many festive messages are too many?
There is no fixed number, but every extra marketing message raises the chance of blocks and per-user limit failures. Most businesses do better with one strong message per major festival and one follow-up to people who read but did not reply.
Will splitting my list across numbers increase my reach?
Not by itself. Messaging limits apply per business portfolio, and each number's quality depends on how its recipients react. Use several numbers for genuinely separate brands or regions, not to work around limits.