Blog / Automation & AI

Segmenting WhatsApp contacts with tags and attributes: the guide

You run a shop or a business and you’ve put together a nice address book of WhatsApp contacts. The time comes to send a communication and you feel the most natural temptation in the world: writing the same message to everyone. It’s an understandable mistake, but a costly one. The loyal customer who spends every month and the curious one who wrote to you once six months ago are not the same person, and treating them the same way means speaking poorly to both.

The solution is called segmentation: dividing the address book into groups of similar people, so you can send each group the right message. It’s not something only for large companies with marketing departments: a few well-chosen criteria are enough to completely change the results. Let’s see how.

What segmentation is and why it matters

Segmenting means grouping contacts based on characteristics they have in common, so you can speak to each group in a relevant way. Instead of a single message for everyone, you prepare different communications for regular customers, for those who haven’t bought in a while, for those who’ve just discovered your business.

The benefits are concrete and immediate. Targeted messages get read more, because they reach people who are truly interested. Unsubscribes drop, because people don’t feel bombarded with offers that don’t concern them. And, on WhatsApp in particular, another aspect matters too: fewer complaints and fewer blocks mean a healthier number and messages that keep being delivered without issues.

Tags and attributes: the tools for segmenting

To divide the address book you use two tools, simple to understand.

Tags

A tag is a label you attach to a contact to remind yourself of something about them. It works like colored sticky notes: “VIP customer”, “interested in courses”, “to call back”, “Christmas purchase”. A contact can have multiple tags at once, and that’s exactly their strength: by combining them, you get increasingly precise groups.

Attributes

Attributes are the contact’s structured data: the city, the date of the last purchase, the amount spent, the channel they came from. While you assign tags as free-form labels, attributes are more precise information that often updates itself with the customer’s activity. Together, tags and attributes let you build any segment you need.

The four criteria for segmenting well

You don’t need to invent dozens of groups. Almost all useful segmentation revolves around four criteria. Understanding them helps you not get lost.

Behavior

It’s what the customer does or has done: they bought recently, they haven’t bought in months, they clicked an offer, they abandoned a cart halfway, they came to an event. Behavior is often the most powerful criterion, because it reflects the person’s real interest, not just their stated intentions.

Value

It’s how much the customer is worth to your business: how much they spend, how often, how long they’ve been with you. Distinguishing high-value customers from occasional ones lets you reserve dedicated attention and offers for the best ones, without giving them away to those who wouldn’t appreciate them.

Source

It’s where the contact comes from: they wrote from the QR code in the store, from an ad, from the website, from an event, from word of mouth. The source tells you what that person already knows about you and which language to use. Someone who found you by chance should be welcomed differently from someone who’s followed you for a long time.

Consent

It’s fundamental and too often overlooked: who has agreed to receive messages and who hasn’t, and for which kinds of messages. On WhatsApp, writing to people who don’t want to hear from you leads to blocks and complaints that damage your number. Keeping a clear segment of those who gave consent, and respecting those who ask not to receive anything anymore, isn’t just correct: it protects the channel.

Examples of ready-to-use segments

Here are some concrete segments almost any business can create by combining tags and attributes, with an idea of what to send to each.

• Loyal customers: those who have purchased several times in recent months. To them, a preview of new arrivals or a small reserved perk.
• Dormant customers: those who haven’t bought in a long time but were active in the past. To them, a win-back message with a reason to return.
• New contacts: those who wrote to you recently and haven’t purchased yet. To them, a welcome message and a first trial offer.
• Interested in a category: those who showed interest in a certain product or service. To them, targeted communications only on that topic.
• High-value customers: the best by spend and frequency. To them, dedicated attention and priority treatment.
• By area: contacts in a city or neighborhood. To them, an invitation to a local event or the promotion of the nearest store.

With SendApp you assign tags to contacts and combine them with attributes to build your segments, then launch the campaign directly on the chosen group. The same number, managed via QR code or through Meta’s official APIs, lets you send targeted messages without blasting your whole address book.

How to use segments in campaigns

Creating the segments is only half the work: the value comes when you use them to send different communications to different groups. The principle is simple: to each segment its own message. To loyal customers a tone of appreciation and a perk; to dormant ones a gentle nudge; to new ones a welcome.

Remember, though, two technical things about WhatsApp. The first is the 24-hour window: if you write to a segment of customers who haven’t contacted you in a while, you’ll need approved templates. The second concerns numbers: with the official APIs you can send to large lists, while the standard app has tighter limits, such as broadcast lists that stop at 256 contacts. Segmenting well helps here too, because you send only to those who are truly on target instead of forcing big numbers.

Best practices for effective segmentation

• Start simple: a few well-made segments are worth more than twenty groups you never update.
• Keep tags consistent: use clear, always-identical names, so you don’t end up with duplicate labels that say the same thing.
• Update the address book regularly: a customer changes category over time, from new to loyal to dormant.
• Always respect consent and honor requests not to receive messages right away: it protects the number and your reputation.
• Measure what works: look at which segments respond best and refine the messages accordingly.
• Don’t send to everyone for the sake of it: often writing to a small, well-targeted segment pays off more than a communication to the whole list.

In conclusion, segmenting your WhatsApp address book is the step that turns a list of numbers into a relationship tool. With tags and attributes, and with the four criteria of behavior, value, source, and consent, you can speak to each customer as they deserve: more-read messages, fewer unsubscribes, and a channel that stays healthy over time.