#WhatsApp Lead Mining: How to Extract Buyers from Group Chats

The Gold Mine You Are Sitting On

Every day, thousands of potential buyers announce their purchase intent in WhatsApp groups. They type things like "looking for a supplier of X," "anyone know where to buy Y," or "need a quote for Z." These messages scroll past. Nobody captures them. The buyer moves on.

If you sell anything -- products, services, SaaS -- and your target audience hangs out in WhatsApp groups, those messages are leads. Real, high-intent leads from people actively looking to spend money. The problem is that manually scrolling through dozens of groups looking for buyer signals is impossible to do at scale.

MoltFlow's group monitoring solves this by watching your WhatsApp groups 24/7, detecting buyer-intent keywords, automatically capturing leads, and scoring them based on signal strength. This guide walks you through setting it up from scratch.

How Group Monitoring Works

The architecture is straightforward:

1. You join WhatsApp groups where your target buyers hang out (industry groups, trade groups, community chats)
2. MoltFlow monitors every message in those groups in real time
3. Keyword rules match buyer intent -- when someone says "looking for a supplier," the system flags it
4. The sender becomes a lead with their phone number, message context, group source, and a relevance score
5. You reach out (manually or via automated outreach) while the intent is still hot

The key insight is speed. A buyer who typed "need bulk pricing on widgets" five minutes ago is worth ten times more than the same buyer 48 hours later. Automated monitoring catches leads the moment they appear.

Step 1: Connect Your WhatsApp Session

Before you can monitor groups, you need an active WhatsApp session connected to MoltFlow. If you have not done this yet, follow our getting started guide.

Make sure your session is in working status:

curl -X GET https://apiv2.waiflow.app/api/v2/sessions \
  -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_API_KEY"

Your connected account needs to be a member of the groups you want to monitor. MoltFlow cannot monitor groups your WhatsApp account has not joined.

Step 2: List Available Groups

See which groups your session has access to:

curl -X GET https://apiv2.waiflow.app/api/v2/sessions/my-session/groups \
  -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_API_KEY"

This returns every WhatsApp group your account is in, with group IDs, names, and participant counts. Pick the groups where your buyers are most active.

Pro tip: Start with 3-5 high-signal groups rather than monitoring everything. You can always add more once you have dialed in your keywords.

Step 3: Set Up Monitored Groups with Keywords

This is where the magic happens. Create a monitored group entry with keywords that indicate buyer intent:

curl -X POST https://apiv2.waiflow.app/api/v2/groups \
  -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "wa_group_id": "[email protected]",
    "keywords": [
      "looking for",
      "need a supplier",
      "anyone selling",
      "where to buy",
      "price for",
      "bulk order",
      "quote for",
      "recommend a"
    ]
  }'

Choosing the Right Keywords

This is the difference between a lead pipeline that works and one that drowns you in noise. Here is a framework:

High-intent keywords (these people want to buy now):

• "looking for a supplier of..."
• "need bulk pricing on..."
• "where can I buy..."
• "anyone selling..."
• "urgent requirement for..."

Medium-intent keywords (researching, but not ready yet):

• "recommend a..."
• "comparison between..."
• "reviews of..."
• "experience with..."

Low-intent / avoid (too generic, too much noise):

• "price" (by itself -- matches too many conversations)
• "good" or "best" (too vague)
• Single product names (match discussions, not intent)

Start with 5-8 high-intent keywords. Monitor the results for a week. Then adjust based on signal quality.

Step 4: Review and Act on Captured Leads

Once monitoring is active, MoltFlow captures every matching message as a lead. Pull your leads via the API:

curl -X GET "https://apiv2.waiflow.app/api/v2/leads?limit=20&sort=-created_at" \
  -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_API_KEY"

Each lead includes:

• Phone number -- The sender's WhatsApp number (ready for outreach)
• Message content -- The exact message that triggered the match
• Source group -- Which group the lead came from
• Matched keyword -- Which keyword fired
• Timestamp -- When the message was sent
• Score -- A relevance score based on keyword strength and context

Lead Scoring Logic

Not all keyword matches are equal. MoltFlow's scoring considers:

• Keyword specificity -- "need a supplier for industrial pumps" scores higher than "anyone know about pumps"
• Message length -- Longer, more detailed messages typically indicate stronger intent
• Recency -- Fresher leads score higher because intent decays fast

Use the score to prioritize your outreach. High-score leads get a personal message within minutes. Medium-score leads go into a nurture sequence.

Step 5: Automate the Outreach

Manually messaging every lead defeats the purpose of automation. Here is how to close the loop.

Option A: Immediate Auto-Response

For high-intent leads, send an automated introduction within minutes of detection:

curl -X POST https://apiv2.waiflow.app/api/v2/sessions/my-session/messages \
  -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "chatId": "[email protected]",
    "text": "Hi! I saw you were looking for [product]. We specialize in this. Happy to share pricing if you are interested."
  }'

Keep the first message short, relevant, and human. Do not dump your entire product catalog.

Option B: Custom Group Campaigns

Batch your leads into custom groups for targeted campaigns. MoltFlow lets you create custom groups from lead lists and send bulk messages with anti-spam throttling:

# Create a custom group from your top leads
curl -X POST https://apiv2.waiflow.app/api/v2/custom-groups \
  -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "name": "high-intent-leads-feb",
    "session_id": 1,
    "source_groups": ["[email protected]"],
    "label_filter": []
  }'

Then run a bulk send to the group with proper pacing to avoid WhatsApp rate limits.

Option C: Webhook-Driven Workflow

For maximum flexibility, set up a webhook that fires whenever a new lead is captured. Then wire it to your CRM, Slack, or n8n workflow:

curl -X POST https://apiv2.waiflow.app/api/v2/webhooks \
  -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "url": "https://your-server.com/webhooks/new-lead",
    "events": ["message"]
  }'

This lets you build custom logic: route leads to different sales reps, check against your CRM for duplicates, or trigger multi-step nurture sequences.

Real Results: What to Expect

Here are realistic numbers based on what MoltFlow users see:

• 5-15 groups monitored with good keyword targeting yields 20-50 leads per week
• Response within 5 minutes converts at 3-5x the rate of responding the next day
• Keyword refinement over the first two weeks typically doubles lead quality (fewer false positives)
• Automated outreach handles 80% of initial contact, freeing your team for closing

The compounding effect is what makes this powerful. You are not doing one-off prospecting. You have a system running 24/7 that captures intent the moment it appears. Over weeks and months, your lead pipeline fills up while you focus on closing deals.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Monitoring too many groups at once. Start with your best 3-5 groups. Learn what works. Then expand.

Using generic keywords. "Price" alone will match every conversation about anything. Be specific: "price for bulk," "pricing on," "cost of shipping."

Ignoring lead decay. A lead that is 48 hours old has already found another supplier. Set up alerts or auto-responses to act fast.

Sending aggressive first messages. Your first outreach should be helpful, not salesy. "I saw you were looking for X -- happy to help" works. "BUY NOW 50% OFF" gets you blocked.

Not iterating on keywords. Review your leads weekly. If a keyword generates mostly irrelevant matches, replace it. If you see common phrases in high-quality leads that you are missing, add them.

Get Started

WhatsApp group lead mining works best when you start today and refine over time. The setup takes under ten minutes. The leads start flowing immediately.

• Already using MoltFlow? Head to your dashboard, go to Groups, and set up your first monitored group with keywords.
• New to MoltFlow? Sign up for free and connect your WhatsApp account. The free plan includes group monitoring so you can test this before committing.

The buyers are already in your groups, announcing exactly what they want to purchase. The only question is whether you are listening.