Wallet Push Broadcasts: Send to Every Cardholder in 5 Minutes (Apple + Google)

Push messages right inside Apple Wallet and Google Wallet are one of the most direct marketing tools a local business has today — and at the same time one of the most underrated. The message lands straight in the system notification center, with no spam filter, no separate app permission, and without your guests ever having to hand over an email address first. In practice, you reach far higher visibility rates this way than with a classic email newsletter — though the exact figure depends on your industry, your offer, and your cadence. This guide shows you how to send your first Wallet broadcast in under 5 minutes.

What is a Wallet broadcast?

A broadcast is a short message (header up to 80 characters, body up to 280 characters) that we push simultaneously to Apple PassKit and to the Google Wallet API. It appears:

• On iOS as a notification with your logo + header + body. Tapping it opens the Wallet card.
• On Android in the Wallet app's notification center, in the same format.

Unlike an email, there's no spam filter, no "Promotions" tab, no inbox sorting — the message is visible immediately. Unlike an app push, there's no extra app to install, no separate permission prompt. Your guest already has the Wallet installed anyway.

Step by step: your first broadcast in 5 minutes

1. Log in to the dashboard + open the Broadcast tab

Head to your dashboard and click Messages → Push Broadcasts in the left menu. You'll see a list of all your past broadcasts (empty at first) and a big "New broadcast" button in the top right.

2. Choose the program scope

In the modal, pick the program whose cardholders should receive the message. You can choose:

• A single program: only the "Coffee card" holders, not the "Breakfast card" holders
• All of your merchant's active programs: everyone who has saved any card of yours

Pro tip: start with one program, watch the reaction, and only then move on to multi-program broadcasts.

3. Write the header + body

Header (max 80 chars):  "Happy hour today: 4-6 p.m."
Body (max 280 chars):   "Every cappuccino at half price.
                         Come on by and grab 2x stamps."

Best-practice rules:

1. The header answers "What?" — not a marketing slogan, but the concrete offer
2. The body answers "Why now?" — a time anchor, the reward, a call to action
3. No wall of emoji — 1-2 at most, otherwise it looks spammy
4. No all-caps in the header — iOS Wallet renders it bold anyway

4. Send or schedule

You have two options:

• Send now — the message lands on devices within 1-2 minutes
• Schedule — pick a date and time, and we'll send at the chosen moment

You can still edit or cancel a scheduled broadcast up to 5 minutes before it goes out.

5. Check the send stats

After sending, the broadcast appears in the list with:

• Recipients: how many devices it went out to (Apple + Google shown separately)
• Quota usage: how many broadcasts you have left this month
• Audit entry: who sent it (user) and when (timestamp)

Click-through tracking isn't possible due to Wallet limitations (Apple and Google don't give us any data on whether a guest tapped the notification) — the KPI is "foot traffic in your business" over the next few hours.

Best-practice use cases

Happy hour activation

Send the broadcast 30 minutes before the promotion starts. Example:

Header: "Happy hour 4-6 p.m." Body: "Double stamps on all cappuccinos. Come on by!"

A worked example: if your cardholders typically live or work within a few minutes' walk and the offer fits the timing, a clearly worded promotional window can drive noticeable extra visits. The exact conversion depends on your industry, offer, time of day, and reward — these numbers can't be predicted across the board.

Holiday special / seasonal promotion

Send 1-2 days before the event. Example for Mother's Day:

Header: "Sunday is Mother's Day — treat your mom" Body: "Bring your mom along, her coffee is on the house. Until Sunday, 6 p.m."

Here lead time is what counts — too last-minute and no one can plan for it, too early and it gets forgotten.

Reactivating dormant cards

Once a quarter, send a "We miss you" broadcast to every card that hasn't earned a stamp in ≥ 60 days. Example:

Header: "We miss you!" Body: "On your next visit, get 2 stamps instead of 1 — just show your card."

How many of these dormant cards you actually reactivate depends heavily on the reward, the lead time, and how old your card base is. Treat every reactivation broadcast as an experiment and compare the stamp spike in the days afterward to your normal baseline.

Notification-worthy updates

• Hours change ("No late service today, shortened hours until 4 p.m.")
• Location change ("The food truck is at Linz's main square today")
• New product ("Starting today: oat milk at no extra charge")

Quotas + limits

By plan:

*Push broadcasts have no hard volume limits. The Google API has a technical quota limit (several thousand per hour) that normal business operations never hit. We parallelize in batches of 20 to conserve quota.

What you should NOT do with broadcasts

• Daily messages. After 2 weeks, guests delete the card out of notification fatigue. Keep it to once a week as a maximum, once a month as a default.
• Advertising for third parties. Wallet broadcasts aren't meant for affiliate links or sponsorships. Apple + Google can revoke the Pass Type ID, and then all your cards are gone.
• Personalized messages. Broadcasts go to everyone. If you want to segment (e.g. only customers with more than 10 stamps), you need the email newsletter path, not push broadcasts.

Push vs. email: which when?

In most cases you'll combine the two: push for the time-critical promotion, email as a reminder 2 days later.