Key Terminology

Before diving in, here are the key concepts you’ll encounter throughout Broadcast. Understanding these terms will help you navigate the platform with confidence and get the most out of every feature.

Broadcast Channels

A Broadcast Channel is the top-level organizational unit in Broadcast. Think of it as an isolated workspace for a specific brand, audience, or project. If you’ve used other email platforms, a channel is similar to a “list” or “account” – but more powerful.

Each channel has its own:

Subscribers
Email broadcasts and sequences
Templates
Email server connections
Analytics and reporting
Suppression lists
Opt-in forms

This isolation means you can run completely separate email programs under one Broadcast account. A SaaS company might have one channel for product updates and another for their blog newsletter, each with different sender identities, subscribers, and sending infrastructure.

You can create as many channels as you need and switch between them from the sidebar.

Broadcast Emails

A Broadcast Email (often just called a “broadcast”) is a one-time email campaign sent to a group of subscribers. This is the classic newsletter or announcement email – you compose it, choose your audience, and hit send.

Broadcasts can be:

Sent immediately to all selected recipients
Scheduled for a future date and time
Targeted to specific segments or your entire subscriber list

Every broadcast tracks opens, clicks, bounces, and unsubscribes so you can measure performance after sending.

Email Sequences

An Email Sequence is an automated series of emails delivered over time. You might know these as “drip campaigns” or “autoresponders” from other platforms.

Sequences let you define a series of steps, each with its own email content and a configurable delay. For example, a welcome sequence might send:

A welcome email immediately after signup
A tips-and-tricks email two days later
A product showcase email five days later

Subscribers can be enrolled in sequences automatically (through opt-in forms or tags) or manually. Each subscriber progresses through the sequence independently based on when they were enrolled.

Transactional Emails

Transactional Emails are one-off, API-driven messages triggered by a specific action. These are not marketing emails – they are messages your application sends in response to something a user did. Common examples include:

Password reset emails
Order confirmations and receipts
Account verification emails
Notification alerts

You send transactional emails through the Broadcast API. They bypass your subscriber list entirely and are delivered to a specific email address on demand.

Subscribers

A Subscriber is a person on your email list. Every subscriber belongs to a specific channel and is identified by their email address.

Subscribers have three possible statuses:

Active – They can receive emails. This is the default state for new subscribers.
Inactive – They are on your list but will not receive any emails. This can happen through manual deactivation, a bounce, or a bulk deactivation.
Unsubscribed – They opted out of receiving emails. Broadcast tracks when they unsubscribed and respects this preference automatically.

Each subscriber can also carry additional data: first name, last name, tags, custom data fields (stored as JSON), IP address, source, and subscription dates.

Segments

A Segment is a dynamic group of subscribers defined by a set of rules. Instead of manually maintaining lists, you describe the criteria and Broadcast automatically includes every subscriber who matches.

Segment rules can be based on:

Tags – subscribers who have (or don’t have) specific tags
Activity – subscribers who opened or clicked recent emails
Custom data – values stored in subscriber custom data fields
Status – active, inactive, or unsubscribed subscribers
Dates – when they subscribed, last activity, and more

Segments update in real time, so as subscribers gain or lose tags, change status, or match new criteria, they flow in and out of segments automatically. You can use segments to target broadcasts, enroll subscribers in sequences, or simply analyze your audience.

Templates

A Template is a reusable email design that you can apply when creating broadcasts or sequence steps. Instead of starting from scratch every time, you build a template once and reuse it across campaigns.

Templates support the Liquid templating language, which means you can include dynamic content like subscriber names, custom data, and conditional blocks. This keeps your emails personal while saving you time on formatting and layout.

Email Servers

An Email Server is your connection to an email service provider (ESP) – the infrastructure that actually delivers your emails. Broadcast does not send email directly; it sends through your connected ESP.

Supported providers include:

Amazon SES – High volume, cost-effective
SendGrid – Easy setup, reliable delivery
Mailgun – Developer-friendly
Postmark – Excellent deliverability
Resend – Modern and developer-focused
Custom SMTP – Any standard SMTP server

Each channel needs at least one email server configured before you can send. You can connect multiple servers to a single channel for redundancy or to separate transactional and marketing traffic.

Opt-in Forms

An Opt-in Form is an embeddable signup form that you can place on your website, landing page, or blog to collect new subscribers. When someone fills out a form, they are added to the corresponding channel automatically.

Opt-in forms can be customized with your own fields, styling, and confirmation settings. You can also configure forms to apply tags or enroll new subscribers into sequences upon signup, making them a powerful starting point for automation.