Bulk SMS and email campaigns from CRM, plus WhatsApp via auto-funnels

Bulk SMS and email campaigns from CRM bring back money that is already sitting in your client base. A dental clinic collects patients for years but only reminds those who call on their own. One SMS saying “Time for your check-up” brings part of the base back — with no new ads.

The account offers two ways. SMS and emails go out right from the CRM list: select the leads you need, and everyone gets the message at once. A WhatsApp campaign is run by an auto-funnel. An auto-funnel is a scenario the system carries out on its own with every matching lead. WhatsApp can't be sent in one click from the list, but the auto-funnel writes from your number and pauses between messages. You don't need a separate mailing service, and the base stays with you.

Watch the two-minute video, and below you'll find the step-by-step setup.

Why a business should message its own base

• Clinic or salon: a reminder about a routine visit for those who haven't come in for six months. The filter finds them in a minute.
• Online school: an email with the webinar link for those who signed up, and an SMS for those who missed the live session.
• Online store: a promotion for those who have already bought (“Payment” → “Yes”). A familiar store earns more trust than a cold ad.
• Services with a long decision cycle: an email with portfolio examples for clients stuck at the “Thinking” stage.
• Any business: only the right segment gets the message, and replies, calls and payments show up in the same CRM cards.

What campaigns you can run in your account

Telegram and MAX are covered in detail in the article MAX messenger broadcast.

How to send bulk SMS from your CRM

1. 1
   Pick the clients

   In “Leads”, set conditions in the “Search and filter” field and click “Find”. How to build an exact segment is explained in the article customer segmentation in CRM.
2. 2
   Select the leads

   Tick the checkboxes or click “Select all” on the dark panel at the bottom: all records matching the filter are taken, not just the page.
3. 3
   Open the campaign window

   “More” → “Send SMS”. In table mode, the same is in the “⋯” → “Bulk SMS” menu.
4. 4
   Confirm

   Type the phrase from the window, for example “send SMS to 250 leads”, and click “Confirm”.
5. 5
   Write the text

   In the “SMS to leads” window, choose a “Template” or type the “SMS text”. The counter shows how many SMS the message takes.
6. 6
   Save the template

   Enter a “Template name” and click “Save template” so you don't have to type the text again next time.
7. 7
   Send

   The “Send SMS” button. Progress is shown in the card in the account header: “Sent N of M” and a “Stop” button.

Email campaign to your customer list from your own domain

An email is sent the same way: select the leads, click “More” → “Send Email” and type the phrase “send e-mail to N leads”. In the “E-mail to leads” window, fill in “From” (the mailbox name and your domain after “@”), “Subject” and “Message”. The “HTML” button turns on layout mode, and a good email can be saved as a template.

The sender domain is connected in the “Email” section on the “Outgoing” tab. How to add the DKIM and SPF records is explained in the article email to CRM and your own domain. The same tab shows bounces and complaints: a yellow tag on bounces from 5% means the base has many non-existent addresses, a red tag on complaints from 0.1% means emails are being marked as spam.

WhatsApp broadcast to customers via an auto-funnel

1. 1
   Create an auto-funnel

   “AI bots” → “Auto-funnels” → “Add autofunnel”, choose a template. What such a scenario can do is covered in the article automated sales funnel.
2. 2
   Set the recipients

   In the “Launch conditions” block, add the segment filter. The “Matching leads” counter shows how many leads will get the message.
3. 3
   Add the “Chat bot” block

   Choose the “WhatsApp sender accounts”, the “Sending type” “Text” or “File”, and tick “Do not wait for the client’s answer”.
4. 4
   Close the branch

   Add “Do not repeat the funnel” so that everyone gets the message once.
5. 5
   Spread out the sending

   In the “…” → “Settings” menu, use “Set the lead processing range in minutes”: there will be a random pause between leads, and the number gets flagged as spam less often.
6. 6
   Start

   Click “Save”, then “Start” in the card's “…” menu.

Auto-funnel messages without AI are free. A WhatsApp number has a daily limit of 15,000 messages; after that, sending waits until the time in the “Stopped until HH:MM” tag. Write to people who know you and expect your messages.

To keep your WhatsApp number from collecting “Spam” reports, don’t open with a long offer. In the first “Chat bot” block, send a short greeting with a question and untick “Do not wait for the client’s answer”. Put the offer text, link or file in the next block, in the “Other words” branch: without keyword branches, any reply goes there. A client who has replied expects the follow-up and is less likely to hit “Spam”. The safest moment to write is right after a call, when the client has agreed to receive a message — see message after the bot’s call.

How much does a bulk SMS campaign cost

An SMS costs from $0.0748 depending on the carrier; Beeline and MegaFon have their own rates. An SMS with your SMS sender ID costs from $0.0888: the client sees the company name instead of a number. Text up to 70 characters is one SMS; longer text is split into parts of 67 characters, and each part is charged. The cost of every message is shown in “Balance details” on the “SMS” tab.

Why SMS are not delivered and emails land in spam

• The employee has the “Forbid sending SMS” right switched on.
• The balance has run out — at a zero balance, campaigns stop.
• Carriers reject SMS with banned advertising (alcohol, tobacco, gambling) and words that mix Cyrillic and Latin letters. SMS longer than eight parts are delivered less reliably.
• Emails: the domain isn't “Connected”, or the base has many non-existent addresses or spam complaints.

Read also: Customer segmentation in CRM: lead filters and saved views, Win back lost customers: how to bring back clients who said no, SMS sender ID: how to send texts under your company name