WhatsApp Contact Management: Organizing Your Contacts

The foundation of a good campaign is a well-organized contact list. With a disorganized list, you’ll end up sending messages to the same person twice, accidentally reaching people who don’t want to receive them, and you won’t know who wants what. The “Contacts” page in WapFlow gathers all numbers in one place and lets you organize them with tags and groups. In this article, we’ll explain how to keep your contact list organized—from importing contacts to managing your block list.

Ways to Add Contacts to Your Address Book

Adding a number to the address book does not imply permission to send commercial messages to that person. Regardless of the source, consider the issue of consent separately before sending any messages.

Bulk Import with Excel

1. Group the phone numbers in a single column in your Excel file. Enter information such as name, city, and category in separate columns.
2. Make sure the phone numbers include the country code. For Turkish numbers, starting with 90 is the most reliable method.
3. Open the import window on the Contacts page and select the Excel file.
4. On the column mapping screen, match the Excel columns with the directory fields.
5. Start the import and review the results.

Your contact list capacity varies depending on your plan, and your usage is displayed on the page. If you reach the limit, some contacts may not be added. You can check the pricing page for limits.

Importing the WhatsApp Phone Contact List

The “Import my WhatsApp contacts” option retrieves the contacts saved on the linked account’s phone by name and number. If you prefer, you can view only those not already in your contacts and import the ones you select. For some connection types, the phone contacts may be partially readable; in this case, the list will only include contacts displayed by their registered names.

Segmenting Your Audience with Labels and Groups

Although labels and groups may look similar, they are used for different purposes:

Automatic tagging

If you enable "Automatic Tagging" in Settings, campaign responses are categorized based on keywords: Interested, Asked for a price, Not interested, Wrong number, and Other. You can also add your own tags and assign them to contacts manually. Numbers tagged as "Not Interested" are added to the block list (if the setting is enabled) and skipped in campaigns.

A Useful Structure

• Use groups for permanent audiences, such as customer type or city.
• Use tags for changing situations, such as a response to a campaign.
• Instead of creating a large number of tags, start with just a few that you’ll actually use.
• Save conversation details in your contacts by adding notes to each person.

Finding the Right People with Filters

You can use the filters on the Contacts page to narrow down the list by tag, group, category, source, WhatsApp status, campaign result, and whether the contact came from a website or email. For entries from Google Maps, you can also filter by rating and number of reviews.

The “Add to Group” option moves the people you’ve found to a new or existing group in one go. You can then select this group in the “Select from Contacts” window during the campaign. We’ve explained how to narrow down your audience in the campaign contacts section.

Number Cleanup

Regularly cleaning up your contact list both increases delivery speed and reduces wasted messages.

• Check WhatsApp status: Use the Verifier to see if numbers are registered on WhatsApp. Contacts will appear as “Has WhatsApp,” “No WhatsApp,” or “Not Verified.”
• Delete those not on WhatsApp: You can delete numbers identified by the Verifier or in a campaign in a single step. This action cannot be undone.
• Clean up invalid numbers: You can delete numbers starting with 444 and 0850 in separate operations.
• Filter out invalid entries: Correct numbers with missing digits or incorrect country codes.

Block List

Messages are not sent to numbers on the block list in contact campaigns, and they are automatically removed from streams. The list is populated in three ways:

1. Automatically when a customer texts “DUR” or “STOP,” provided the relevant setting is enabled.
2. When the “Do Not Want” label is applied, provided the relevant setting is enabled.
3. By manually adding the number yourself.

Keep everyone who asks us not to contact them again on this list. When you upload a new Excel file, the block list is checked during the campaign, even if the same number reappears in the contact list. Therefore, it’s safer to keep people who don’t want to be contacted on the block list rather than deleting them from the contact list.

What Is the Groups Page For?

The Groups page in the left menu should not be confused with contact groups. This is where you store your WhatsApp group invitation links; you can add links one by one or import them in bulk, and mark them as public, permission required, or broken. You’ll use this list in the Group Tools. See the Group Tools article for details.

Data Security and the KVKK

The information in your contact list may contain personal data. Keep only the information you need, do not leave Excel exports in shared folders, and delete records you no longer use. Seek legal advice regarding your obligations under the KVKK.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I upload a CSV file?

The contact import screen accepts Excel files (.xlsx, .xls). If you have a CSV file, open it in Excel and save it in this format.

Is it required to prefix the numbers with 90?

Numbers with the country code provide the most reliable results. We recommend preparing your file accordingly.

Can I export the contact list?

Yes, you can download it as an Excel file using the export option on the Contacts page.

Will the same number be added twice?

After importing, you’ll see which records were added, updated, and skipped. It’s still a good practice to check the results.