How to Effectively Filter on Viber? A Step-by-Step Analysis Based on Number Quality and Activity Level
In the daily work of cross-border communication and reaching overseas users, effective screening is becoming a fundamental skill that more and more Viber operations personnel must master. Many people believe that as long as they have a batch of numbers, they can use them directly, but in reality, they find that the open rate is low and the response rate is even lower. The root of the problem often lies in the screening process. True effective Viber screening is not simply about removing numbers with incorrect formats, but about establishing an executable step-by-step process based on the two core dimensions of number quality and activity. Based on long-term front-line operational experience, this article breaks down this process into five key steps to help you reduce ineffective outreach and improve communication efficiency in your actual work.
I. Why is number quality the first hurdle for Viber's effective screening?
Many teams focus solely on quantity when acquiring phone numbers, neglecting quality. Whether a number can be used effectively for Viber communication depends on whether it's registered and available. Skipping this step renders all subsequent work meaningless.
In practice, number quality issues typically manifest in the following ways:
Unregistered Viber numbers : These numbers do not have corresponding accounts in the system, and messages cannot be sent at all.
Cancelled or banned numbers : These numbers were cancelled by the user or restricted by the platform due to violations and are unable to receive any content.
Irregularly formatted phone numbers : basic issues such as missing country code, incorrect number of digits, or inclusion of illegal characters.
Numbers that have been reclaimed by the operator : These numbers still exist but are no longer used by any real users.
To resolve these issues, the phone number needs to be aligned with the country code, and the registration status confirmed via API or database comparison. It is recommended to add a "registration status verification" step in the screening process, retaining only activated Viber user numbers, which can directly filter out 20%-30% of invalid data.
II. How to determine whether a Viber user is worth reaching out to based on their activity level?
Registration status only addresses the question of "whether or not to send a message," while activity level determines "whether or not anyone will see it." A Viber user who hasn't logged in for three months is highly unlikely to have their message opened, even if it is successfully delivered.
Activity assessment can be conducted from the following dimensions:
Last login time : Users who logged in recently (within 30 days) are more active.
Message Open History : Records of past actions involving opening Viber messages.
Online time distribution : During which times of the day are users typically online?
Frequency of interaction : Whether the user proactively sends messages, replies to conversations, or adds contacts.
Based on these dimensions, users can be categorized into three levels: highly active (login within 7 days), moderately active (7-30 days), and inactive (over 30 days). One of Viber 's core effective screening strategies is to prioritize retaining highly active and moderately active users, while conducting secondary evaluations or directly removing inactive users. Experienced operators will adjust the thresholds based on industry characteristics; for example, projects targeting young people can be appropriately relaxed to 45 days, while business communications are advised to be tightened to 14 days.
III. How to efficiently perform format cleaning and standardization in batch number processing?
In practice, the phone number files we obtain often come from multiple sources: Excel spreadsheets, TXT text files, CRM exports, third-party data collection tools, etc. The formats of these numbers vary widely from source to source, and without proper cleaning, any subsequent filtering will be prone to errors.
The standard procedure for format cleaning includes the following steps:
Complete the country code : Ensure that each number is preceded by the correct international dialing code (e.g., Indonesia 62, Vietnam 84).
Remove redundant characters : Delete spaces, hyphens, parentheses, plus signs, and other non-numeric symbols.
Verify the number of digits : Number lengths vary by country, so you need to refer to a standard number of digits table for verification.
Deduplication : Remove completely duplicate numbers to prevent the same number from being counted twice.
Blacklist filtering : Removes known invalid numbers or abnormal numbers that have been previously marked.
This step may seem basic, but it's often the one with the highest error rate. It's recommended to perform format cleaning as a separate step, outputting a dedicated "standardized number file" after cleaning, before proceeding with subsequent quality and activity filtering. The advantage of this is that even if the filtering criteria are adjusted later, there's no need to repeatedly clean the original data.
IV. How to set threshold combinations to improve the accuracy of Viber's effective filtering?
Filtering based on a single dimension is often unreliable. For example, a number may have been registered a long time ago and recently logged in, but never opened any messages; another number may have been registered recently, but logged in very frequently. Relying solely on registration time or login frequency as a single indicator can easily lead to misjudgments.
A more reliable approach is to use a combination of multiple indicators for thresholds. Common combinations include:
Registration status + Last login time : Must be registered and have a login record within the last 30 days.
Recent login time + Open rate : Active logins and a past message open rate higher than the industry average.
Online time period + time zone matching : Matches the user's online time period with your sending time.
Interaction history + Active days : There has been proactive interaction and the proportion of active days to total registered days is reasonable.
Based on practical project experience, a relatively robust filtering combination is: registered + logged in within the last 15 days + timezone matches the target sending time . This combination achieves a good balance between coverage and accuracy, filtering out too many potential effective users while significantly reducing invalid outreach. For an even higher response rate, the condition of "having a history of opened messages" can be further added, but this typically reduces the number of phone numbers by 40%-50%.
V. What are the complete steps in the effective filtering process of Viber?
Connecting these four steps forms a complete and effective Viber screening process. In practice, it is recommended to strictly follow this order:
Raw data import : Import the collected number files into the filtering system, and identify the file format and field structure.
Format standardization and cleaning : unifying country codes, removing invalid characters, checking for duplicates, deduplication, and filtering from blacklists.
Registration status verification : Numbers not registered with Viber are removed through database comparison or API query.
Activity level stratification assessment : Based on metrics such as recent login time, browsing history, and online time, users are categorized into high/medium/low activity levels.
Combined Threshold Output : Based on project objectives (reach rate or response rate), set combined conditions and output the final list of available numbers.
Of these five steps, steps 3 and 4 are the most time-consuming because they require calling external data sources for comparison. This is why more and more practitioners are starting to use professional tools to complete this process.
Conclusion
The core of Viber's effective filtering isn't pursuing complex algorithms or expensive tools, but rather establishing a clear and repeatable execution process. From format cleaning to registration verification, from activity level stratification to combined threshold output, each step eliminates invalid data and retains high-quality users. Once you understand and master these five steps, you'll find that what truly determines communication effectiveness is never the number of messages sent, but rather who you choose to send them to. Consistently implementing effective filtering is the key to achieving stable and sustainable communication results on the Viber channel.
ITG Global Screening is a leading global number screening platform that combines global number range selection, number generation, deduplication, and comparison. It offers bulk number screening and detection for 236 countries and supports 20+ social and app platforms such as WhatsApp, Line, Zalo, Facebook, Telegram, Instagram, Signal, Amazon, Microsoft and more. The platform provides activation screening, activity screening, engagement screening, gender/avatar/age/online/precision/duration/power-on/empty-number and device screening, with self-screening, proxy-screening, fine-screening, and custom modes to suit different needs. Its strength is integrating major global social and app platforms for one-stop, real-time, efficient number screening to support your global digital growth. Get more on the official channel t.me/itgink and verify business contacts on the official site. Official business contact: Telegram: @cheeseye (Tip: when searching for official support on Telegram, use the username cheeseye to confirm you are talking to ITG official.)