Critical campaigns

Critical campaigns are for messages a contact has to receive, such as an order confirmation, a payment receipt, a one-time code, a password reset, a delivery update, or an account or security alert.

An owner or admin marks a campaign as critical in Campaign settings. A reason is required. Everyone else can see that it is on, and why, but cannot change it.

A critical campaign skips EngageApp's sending limits. Those limits are the frequency cap, quiet hours, send-time optimization, and the survey cooldown, all set under Settings, then Messaging. The send also goes out ahead of ordinary campaign sends.

Managed email on EngageApp's shared sending domain still stops at 5,000 messages per workspace per day. Critical mail is drawn first under that cap. A workspace that sends a lot of critical email should connect its own email provider (your own SMTP) so those messages are not sharing the domain cap.

A critical campaign does not skip the rules that protect consent and deliverability outside those limits:

• A contact who unsubscribed, replied STOP, or is on your suppression list is not sent.
• The send needs credits. If the wallet cannot cover it, it does not go out.
• WhatsApp still follows Meta's rules. Outside the 24-hour window, only an approved template can send. Marketing templates are not allowed on a critical campaign. Marketing to US numbers stays blocked. Marketing stays off until the contact has opted in.
• If a provider rate-limits the send, EngageApp queues it and tries again. It is not thrown away.
• If event storage is full, EngageApp refuses the event with a storage error. An event-triggered critical campaign does not start for that event until you raise the limit under Settings, then Storage.

Carriers and inbox providers can still delay or refuse a message. Marking a campaign critical does not guarantee delivery.

You cannot mark a campaign critical when its subscription topic is a marketing topic, or when a WhatsApp step uses a template Meta classifies as MARKETING. Use a transactional topic, or none, and a utility or authentication template.

Each send shows in campaign history. A send that went out says it was critical and which EngageApp limits it skipped. A send that did not go out says why, for example the contact unsubscribed or the workspace was out of credits.

The list of campaigns shows a Critical badge. Use Critical only together with a status filter to find them.