You choose the kind of campaign when you create it, and it can’t be changed afterwards. The two work so differently that converting one into the other would lose either the funnel or the conversation history.
Creating one
On the Campaigns page, press New campaign. Under What is this campaign for?, choose Talk to existing customers (the other choice is Find new customers). The choice is not offered on an account that has only Instagram connected: these campaigns write to customers on WhatsApp. The campaign has different pages from a campaign for new customers:
There is no Funnel page and no Info page: the conversation and its questions are generated from each offer.
The set-up checklist
Until the campaign is set up, a checklist sits at the top of each of its pages, headed Set-up: N of 6 done:- Choose the number
- Tell the assistant about you
- Add your customers
- Write an offer
- Announce it
- Start the campaign
Before you start
You need a connected WhatsApp number and at least one approved WhatsApp template. Without a number, every page of the campaign says so, with Connect WhatsApp. A template is an opening message WhatsApp has approved in advance. It is required to write to a customer who has not written to you in the last 24 hours. That rule is WhatsApp’s. Once the customer replies, the assistant writes freely. One approved template is enough to start. You don’t need a different one for every offer.Importing your customers
On the Clients page, open the ⋮ menu and choose Import from CSV. The file needs a phone column. name, tags and language are optional; every other column becomes a fact the assistant knows about that customer.- If your file has local numbers without a country code, set the Default country code.
- A file can have up to 10,000 rows. Your plan sets how many customers you can add each month, and the import tells you if the file is over it. An active plan is needed.
- Before the import runs you confirm: These customers agreed to receive WhatsApp messages from my business. This is not a formality. Importing a list that did not agree is how a number gets reported and blocked.
The welcome
You can set a message the assistant sends to new customers when they are imported. It is optional: without it, imported customers wait quietly until you announce an offer. In Settings, under How new customers are welcomed, press Set up a welcome:- What should it say?: describe it in plain words, for example Say hi from Bar Rossi, mention we’re open until 8pm, and that they can order here any time.
- Opening message: the approved template it opens with.
- Anything to ask?: optional questions, pressing Enter after each. If someone would rather not answer, the assistant moves on and doesn’t ask again.
Why the welcome takes days
A large import does not go out in an afternoon. It goes out a few at a time, only during your working hours, at the pace set in Settings. That pace is the protection. Sending thousands of messages from a number in one hour is the fastest way to have WhatsApp flag it, and a flagged number stops working for everybody, including the customers already talking to you. The Clients page shows Welcoming new customers: how many have been welcomed out of how many, and roughly when it will finish. If you need a specific customer reached sooner, message them yourself from Chats. The assistant picks the conversation up from there.Labels
Labels are how an announcement picks its audience:Premium, Milan, lapsed. They arrive with a CSV tags column, and you can set them on the Clients page.
- One customer: the Labels column on their row.
- Several at once: tick the customers and use Add label or Remove label in the bar that appears.
- All of them: Manage labels in the ⋮ menu lists every label with how many customers carry it. Renaming one renames it for all of them; renaming it to a label that already exists merges the two. Deleting one removes it from all of them. Nobody is deleted, only the label.