Build a WhatsApp marketing segment that will not get you reported
The segment decides whether a broadcast is welcome or reported, and reports lower your number's limits. Filter on stage, recency and consent, then open three.
On WhatsApp the audience is not just who receives the message; it is who might report it. Reports lower your number's quality rating, and a low rating lowers how many people you may message. So the segment is a quality decision as much as a targeting one. The filters are the same ones the phone team uses, which is the advantage: you already know what a warm contact looks like.
Before you start
- Your legal basis for messaging each group, settled.
- A contact schema with a source and, ideally, a consent attribute.
Steps
Start from open stages
Filtering on open stages excludes DND, Not interested and Wrong number automatically. That is the strongest argument for building audiences that way rather than listing exclusions by hand and forgetting one.
Filter on recency
Somebody who spoke to you last month recognises your name. Somebody from an import two years ago may not, and is the person most likely to report. Last activity within 90 days is a reasonable first cut for anything promotional.
Filter on consent where you have it
If you record consent as an attribute, filter on it. If you do not, add one — a dropdown, set on import and by forms — because "did they agree to this" is a question you will be asked.
Keep source in mind
Customers who bought from you, people who filled in a form, and a purchased list are three completely different positions. Do not put them in one segment and send them the same thing.
Open three records before you send
Counts lie; records do not. Three contacts from the segment, read end to end: does each one belong, and would each one recognise you?
Save the segment as a view
So the next broadcast uses the same definition, re-evaluated on the day. A saved view stores the rule, not the result.
Check it worked
After the send, watch the quality signals Meta gives the number over the following days. A dip after a broadcast is the segment telling you it was too broad.
The parts people get wrong
- DND is terminal and carries legal weight. Audit it: filter to DND and confirm the count only ever grows.
- A saved view re-evaluates when opened, so "warm contacts" stays warm.
The ones people actually ask
Can I message an imported list?
Only if you have the legal basis for it, and even then a cold list is the audience most likely to report you and lower your number's limits. Warm it another way first — a call, a form — before a WhatsApp broadcast.
How big should a segment be?
As big as the people who would recognise you. A new number has a low messaging limit that rises with quality; a large first send to a cold list is how numbers get restricted in their first week.