SMS contacts and groups: importing a CSV list and keeping it clean

The short answer: on the SMS page in Meu Interweb, under Contacts, you keep the numbers you send to, with name, company, phone, e-mail and notes, and sort them into groups. Each account holds up to 20,000 contacts and 100 groups. A list you already have in a spreadsheet comes in all at once as a CSV file, and from then on you just pick the group when you send.

What each contact holds

Field	What it is for
Name	So the message arrives with the person’s name, for example with {$contact_first_name}.
Company	To know whose number it is, and for the {$contact_company} variable.
Phone	The number that receives the SMS. Each number can exist only once per account.
E-mail	To keep the whole contact in one place.
Notes	Anything you need to remember, such as when and how the person agreed to receive SMS.

Write the phone number with or without the country code, because the system can tell the country from the first digit: 923456789 goes to Angola and 841234567 to Mozambique. So +244 923 456 789 and 244923456789 are the same number as 923456789. Because each number is unique in the account, a contact is never duplicated, even if the same number appears in two lists.

Groups: send without picking numbers one by one

A group is a named list, such as “Customers”, “Suppliers” or “Agreed to promotions”. You can have up to 100, and one contact can be in several: Joana can be in “Customers” and in “Agreed to promotions” at the same time. Under Send, you choose one or more groups instead of typing numbers. On a contact’s card, Send SMS opens the send screen with that number already filled in.

Importing a CSV list

1	Prepare the spreadsheet: one row per contact, with columns for name, company, phone, e-mail and notes. The first row can be a header, in English or Portuguese. Without a header, the columns must be in this order: nome;empresa;telefone;email;notas (name, company, phone, e-mail, notes).

2	Save it as CSV. The file can be up to 2 MB.

3	Under Contacts, import the file and choose where it goes: an existing group or a new one created by the import.

4	Decide what happens to contacts you already have. With the update option, contacts already in the account take the details from the file.

A file with a header looks like this:

name;company;phone;email;notes
Ana Costa;;258841234567;ana@example.com;Agreed at the counter, 03/11/2026
Carlos Mendes;Mendes Lda;244923000111;;Agreed on the website form, 05/11/2026

Export before big changes. The CSV export gives you a copy of the list. It is also the easy way to fix many contacts at once: export, correct them in the spreadsheet, and import again with the update option.

Keeping the list clean

1	Remove anyone who asks to leave the list, straight away: delete the contact or take them out of the promotions group. The rest of the rules are in SMS good practices and consent.

2	Separate by purpose. One group for service notices and another only for people who agreed to promotions stops a campaign reaching someone who only wants to hear about their order.

3	Record consent in the notes: when and how the person agreed. If anyone ever asks, the answer is right there.

4	Fix numbers that fail. If the history keeps showing the same number as “Failed”, check that it is written correctly or whether the person has changed their number.

5	Review the list now and then. Old customers and unused contacts just take up space and, if they are in your groups, use credits.

Pasted numbers without a contact still receive, but without a name. You can paste a list of numbers straight into the send screen, but the name variables only work for numbers saved as contacts. See personalised SMS with the contact’s name.

Save your contacts, build groups and send from the SMS page in Meu Interweb.

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