You choose the audience in the campaign builder, after the content. The steps come in this order: the campaign name, its content (the flow), the audience, then scheduling. See Launch a campaign with the campaign Builder.
A list is a fixed group of contacts. You can fill it in several ways:
by importing a CSV or Excel file into the list;
by adding a contact manually from the Inbox;
with an automation that adds the contact to the list;
by converting a segment with Convert to list.
See Understanding and using lists on Kanal.
A segment groups the contacts who meet your criteria:
events: Read, Clicked, Received, Sent you a WhatsApp message, Placed an order;
frequency (at least once, zero times...) and period, in hours, days or weeks;
phone number country;
list membership (is in, is not in).
There are no "amount spent" or "last purchase date" criteria.
A segment does not update in real time. Click Recalculate to update it, or tick Recalculate before sending (unticked by default) at the campaign's Audience step. See Understanding and using segments on Kanal.
Import a one-off file directly at the Audience step. The extra columns of your file become contact variables that you can use in your messages.
Consent: importing a file into a campaign automatically switches contacts with the Unknown status to opt-in. Only import contacts who agreed to receive your marketing messages on WhatsApp. Unsubscribed (opt-out) contacts stay unsubscribed.
Target the customers of your Shopify store directly. Their WhatsApp consent is not synced from Shopify: they arrive in Kanal with the Unknown status. Make sure you collected their consent before sending them a marketing campaign.
With From Klaviyo, pick a segment from your connected Klaviyo account. Contacts are imported once, when you select the segment: there is no real-time sync. See Launch a WhatsApp campaign via Klaviyo.
Whatever the source, including a list or a segment, the contact's first name, last name and phone number are available natively as variables. You find them on the Begin Campaign starting node. With a file import, the extra columns can also be used as variables.
Before sending, run a test to check that the variables display correctly: Test a campaign and estimate its cost before sending.
Kanal automatically excludes unsubscribed (opt-out) contacts.
Contacts with the Unknown status are not excluded. Meta requires marketing messages to be sent only to contacts who consented: it is up to you to check that consent.
At the Audience step, only the number of contacts is shown, not the detailed list.
See also Managing unsubscribes (opt-out) on WhatsApp and Enable the WhatsApp opt-in on the Shopify checkout.
Campaign statistics are explained in Analyze the performance of your WhatsApp campaigns. The CTR (click-through rate) is only visible on the campaign's detail page.
