Smart Groups

A smart group is a WhatsApp Marketing audience defined by rules instead of a list. "Ordered at least twice, but not in the last 30 days" or "birthday is today" stay correct without anyone adding or removing people. You can send a campaign to a smart group, send to it automatically every day, or export it for a Meta ad.

Smart Groups are on the Smart Groups tab of WhatsApp Marketing.

Sela retains refresh-run counts and outcomes for usage diagnostics from the metering release onward. Refreshing a group counts once even when its worker continues through multiple batches. Earlier refresh history is unavailable. A refresh count is separate from campaign recipients, message delivery and AI-credit consumption.

Who can use it#

On a lower plan the tab shows what Smart Groups do and a link to your plans. Existing smart groups keep their last members, but they stop refreshing and auto-sending until the plan includes them again.

How customers are matched#

Each customer is one customer profile. Sela links a person's WhatsApp chats, storefront orders, imports and other channels to the same profile by phone number (and email where one exists). The phone number is what a WhatsApp message reaches, so it is the shared key.

A refresh checks customer profiles in the workspace until it finishes, fills the group, or reaches an account work limit. Archived, merged and staff profiles are skipped. A customer who matches the rules joins the group only when:

• the profile has a valid phone number. Matches without one are counted as No phone number. Instagram or Messenger customers who never shared a number are in this count;
• the customer has not opted out of WhatsApp or marketing messages in Sela. These are counted as Opted out.

A group holds at most 5,000 members, the most one campaign can reach. Scanning stops when the group reaches this limit. The displayed counts then describe only the customers evaluated, not the entire workspace. Add a condition to narrow it.

Refresh allowances#

The Smart Groups page shows refresh starts and customer evaluations used this UTC month. These usage and rule-metadata snapshots update every five minutes while the page is visible; group progress remains live. All branches of a business account share these allowances.

Custom packages use their closest tier. These operational limits do not add a charge or change your AI credits or messaging wallet. Wait 15 minutes between refreshes of the same group. Creating a group, changing its rules, manual refreshes and scheduled refreshes use the same allowance. Failed starts that were admitted also count.

Large customer histories also draw from a bounded data-read allowance, so a scan can stop before the customer-evaluation limit. If it stops, the group shows a failure and cannot be sent to or exported until a refresh completes successfully. Narrow the rules, wait for the monthly reset, or contact support. A rule change cannot bypass a cooldown or exhausted allowance. Scheduled groups wait for a later eligible dispatch when another refresh occupies their account's capacity.

Customer summaries are reused across groups and invalidated when the relevant order or conversation data changes. Tag, city and customer-since conditions can decide a match without reading history. A daily auto-send can reuse an audience successfully refreshed in the last 15 minutes on the same local date.

AI suggestions create supported rules; they do not analyze historical message text to infer product interest.

Conditions#

Choose all conditions or any condition. A group has 1 to 8 conditions, and a workspace can keep 50 smart groups.

Only orders linked to a customer profile are counted. Storefront, order desk and confirmed chat orders are linked.

Create a smart group#

1. Open WhatsApp Marketing → Smart Groups.
2. Start one of three ways:
   • Start from a preset: Used to order, now quiet; No message for a week; Birthday today; Birthdays this week; Loyal regulars; Ordered once, never came back; Chatted but never ordered; New this month; and Reward waiting (with a loyalty card).
   • Suggest with AI: describe who you want to reach, or leave it empty, and choose Suggest. The assistant proposes up to five groups using the same conditions and your real tags. Each suggestion costs a small number of AI credits, and nothing is created until you choose Review & create.
   • New smart group: build the rules yourself.
3. Check the name and conditions, then choose Create group.

The group page opens and shows Updating while Sela checks your customers. You then see Members, Match the rules, No phone number and Opted out, with the current members below.

Keeping groups up to date#

• A group refreshes when it is created, when its rules change, and when you choose Refresh.
• Groups with date-based conditions (last order, last message, customer since, birthday) refresh once a day after 04:00 in your workspace timezone.
• While a group is refreshing, campaigns cannot select it. The campaign estimate says so; wait a moment.
• A refresh that does not finish within 30 minutes is marked failed and can be started again.

Members of a smart group cannot be added or removed by hand. Change the rules instead.

Send to a smart group#

One campaign. On the group page choose Create campaign, or select the group in the campaign's audience step. It counts like any audience: duplicates are removed and opt-outs are checked again before sending.

Daily auto-send. Turn on Daily automatic send on the group page, then choose:

• the number to send from, when the workspace markets from more than one. The daily runs always use that number; if it is disconnected, the run reports that it could not send;
• an approved template and its variables. Recipient Name fills each person's name;
• the hour after which the day's campaign starts, in your workspace timezone;
• Don't repeat a person for (days): 1 to 365. Anyone this group already messaged within that time is left out. Birthday groups suggest 300 days, other groups 30.

Each day after that hour, Sela refreshes the group, creates a campaign for the new eligible members and starts it. The campaign appears in Campaigns with an Automatic badge. It is charged like any campaign: from your partner's balance on the link code path, or from your WhatsApp balance for an Our Partner number. The group page shows the last run and its result: sent, nobody new, empty, not sent because the workspace is read-only (it is being offboarded), or why it could not send (for example, an unapproved template). A day is only tried once; a failed run is not repeated the same day.

For birthdays, create Birthday today and turn on daily auto-send with a greeting template, for example one that includes a gift code. This works next to the loyalty card birthday reward.

Reach a smart group with a Meta ad#

Choose Export for Meta Ads on the group page. You get a CSV file with each member's phone in international format and their first and last name. In Meta Ads Manager, open Audiences → Create audience → Custom audience → Customer list and upload it. Meta hashes the data on upload. You can then target the audience directly or build a lookalike from it.

The file contains full phone numbers, so the button only appears for roles that may export contacts. Download it fresh before each ad: the group changes daily.

Troubleshooting#