Marketing vs. transactional messages

When sending messages via Push, Email, In-App, SMS, or WhatsApp, you choose whether the message is marketing or transactional. This choice determines how Pushwoosh applies user preferences, frequency limits, and the global control group.

Choosing the right message type

Message type	Marketing message	Transactional message
User preferences	Respects subscription preferences. Only sent to users who opted in to the subscription category you choose in the campaign.	Bypasses user preferences. Sent to all users, including those who unsubscribed from marketing messages.
Frequency capping	Global frequency capping and silence periods apply.	Frequency capping and silence periods do not apply.
Control group	Excludes users in the global control group.	Includes users in the global control group.
Typical use cases	Promotions and offers, newsletters, product and feature updates, re-engagement, lifecycle campaigns, announcements.	Account and security, orders and payments, critical notifications, verification.

Where to set the message type

The message type is set in the channel-specific settings: either in a journey element or in the one-time message form.

Email: The message type is available in Customer Journey and when sending a one-time message. In a journey, set it in the Email element. For one-time emails, set it in the campaign setup.
Push: The message type is available in Customer Journey and when sending a one-time push. In a journey, set it in the Push element. For one-time push, set it in the campaign setup.
In-app: The message type is available only in Customer Journey. Set it in the In-app element when building a Customer Journey.
SMS: Set it in the SMS element when building a Customer Journey.
WhatsApp: Set it in the WhatsApp element when building a Customer Journey.

API requests and message type

Use the same marketing and transactional values in the API as in the Control Panel.

For push, see /createMessage parameters. For email, see createEmailMessage.