In short: WhatsApp identifies every customer by a phone number in international format: country code first, then the number without its leading 0, digits only. Wrong formats are the most common reason imports fail and campaign messages come back as failed.
The format
- Country code first: 972 for Israel, 1 for the US and Canada, 44 for the UK.
- No leading 0 after the country code: 972501234567, not 9720501234567.
- Digits only: no spaces, hyphens or parentheses. A + at the start is fine, but leave it out of import files.
| Country | Local number | International format |
|---|---|---|
| Israel | 050-123-4567 | 972501234567 |
| US | (212) 555-0199 | 12125550199 |
| UK | 07700 900123 | 447700900123 |
| Italy | 333 123 4567 | 393331234567 |
Importing a file into Mumble
Mumble accepts two formats in the phone column:
- Full international number (972501234567) with
country_codeleft empty. Mumble detects the country from the number. - Local number (0501234567) with a two-letter country code in
country_code, for exampleILorUS. Mumble converts it to international format.
A local number without a country code is rejected. Duplicate numbers in the file are skipped.
Fix a large list in a spreadsheet
- Format the phone column as Text, so Excel does not drop zeros or show 9.72E+11.
- In Google Sheets, this formula cleans an Israeli number in A1 and adds 972:
=IF(LEFT(REGEXREPLACE(A1,"[^0-9]",""),1)="0", "972"&MID(REGEXREPLACE(A1,"[^0-9]",""),2,20), REGEXREPLACE(A1,"[^0-9]","")) - Or skip the formula: keep local numbers and fill
country_codewithIL. - Import 100 rows first as a test, then the rest.
Common questions
I imported 1,000 numbers and only 300 were added
The rest were probably local numbers with no country code, or invalid numbers. Fix them in the file and import only those rows again.
Campaign messages failed for some customers
Check each recipient’s status in the campaign report. Fix or remove invalid numbers. Note that Meta does not deliver marketing templates to US (+1) numbers.
The same customer appears twice
They were probably saved once in local and once in international format. Keep the international one and delete the other.
Is +972 the same as 972?
Yes. In import files, use digits only.