Complete Guide to Number Screening for Beginners: Minimum Viable Process from Zero to Export

In overseas marketing, number screening refers to the process of batch verification whether the mobile phone number has been registered and active on the target platform (such as Telegram, WhatsApp, Line), and identifying the user’s gender, age and other characteristics. For teams that are new to overseas customer acquisition, if they blindly purchase a list of numbers and send them directly to a group, they will often encounter the risk of a large number of invalid numbers, low activation rates, and even being blocked. This article has designed a “minimum viable process” for novices: from generating numbers for free → submitting screening tasks → interpreting results → exporting high-quality data, allowing you to run through the first customer acquisition data pipeline in half an hour.

What is number screening? Why should newbies learn?

Number screening is essentially a “data cleaning + feature annotation” tool. You have a batch of mobile phone numbers in your hand, but you don’t know which ones are registered on Telegram, which ones are active on WhatsApp, and which ones are male users. The number screening system will detect the status of these numbers one by one and return fields such as “Activated/Not activated”, “Online/Offline in the last 30 days”, “Gender (male/female/unknown)”. With these tags, you can accurately target effective users and avoid wasting marketing budget on a large number of invalid numbers.

What pain points can number screening help you solve?

Telegram checks registration status before mass sending: If you buy 100,000 international numbers from the Internet and directly import them into TG mass sending, 70% of them will not be registered for TG. This will not only waste the message sending fee, but may also cause the account to be reported. After filtering numbers, only numbers that have activated TG are retained, and the ROI is increased by more than 3 times.
Screen active users before WhatsApp private messages: Although many numbers have activated WhatsApp, the users may have abandoned it. Through “activity detection”, numbers that have been online in the last 30 days are filtered out, and the open rate of private messages is significantly higher than that of random group messages.
Line marketing targets male users: Line has a high market share in Taiwan, Thailand, Japan and other markets. The “gender” field in the filter results can help you filter out male users, which is suitable for promoting male consumer products and avoiding casting a wide net.

Three common mistakes made by novices

Error 1: I didn’t know that the number can be generated for free, so I just spent money to buy it. Many novices spend hundreds of dollars to purchase number lists when they first start. As a result, the quality of the data source is low and the duplication rate is high. In fact, you can use the global number generation function to obtain random numbers in any country number range for free. The cost of detection is only incurred after generation, and the source data cost is almost zero.
Error 2: Repeated detection of the same batch of numbers wastes balance. After the number screening is completed, if the deduplication warehouse is not enabled, subsequent uploads of the same number will be charged again. It was a waste of money for a number that had obviously been tested.
Mistake 3: Only looking at “activation” but not “active/gender” results in poor marketing results. It only detects whether the platform has been opened, ignoring user activity and gender characteristics. As a result, the messages sent out reached a large number of inactive accounts, and the conversion rate was extremely low.

How to prepare mobile phone numbers to be screened? (two methods)

Before you start screening numbers, you need to have a batch of numbers to be tested. There are two ways to get started, choose according to your actual situation.

Method 1: Use the global number generation function (suitable for novices who do not have ready-made numbers)

If you don’t have accumulated customer numbers, the easiest way is to use the platform’s “Global Number Generation” module.

Select Country/Region: Select the corresponding international area code according to your marketing target country. For example, for the Vietnamese market, choose +84 (Vietnam), and for the Indonesian market, choose +62.
Select the number segment: Many national operators have fixed number segment prefixes (such as Vietnam Mobifone number segment 090, 093). You can directly select “All number segments” to randomly generate, or import a custom number segment CSV file.
Set the quantity: Novices are advised to generate 1000 to 5000 items for testing to avoid setting too many items at one time and causing subsequent testing to take too long.
Export CSV: The generated results are completely free. The number segments are randomly combined and can be used for the next step of screening tasks after exporting.

Note: The generated number only means “the number segment exists” and does not mean that the number has been registered on any platform. Whether it is activated or not needs to be confirmed by subsequent screening tasks.

Method 2: Upload existing number list (suitable for existing customer information or purchase data)

If you already have a number file in CSV/TXT format, you can import it directly.

Format requirements: A single column of mobile phone numbers must include the international area code. For example, +84912345678 (Vietnam), +62812345678 (Indonesia). If the original data does not have area codes, you can add them in batches using the formula in Excel: =“+84”&A1.
Duplication Recommendation: Use Excel or the platform’s built-in deduplication function to delete duplicate numbers before uploading. Duplicate numbers will be deducted repeatedly in subsequent screening numbers, increasing costs.
Note: The file size should not be too large. A single task supports up to about 1 million items. Newbies are advised to try the process within 10,000 entries.

How to submit the screening task step by step?

Taking the KK-DATA console as an example, the task submission process is very intuitive. After logging in https://app.kkdata.cc/, enter the “Screen Number Task” module.

Select detection platform and type

When creating a task, you need to check one or more target platforms and select the detection type for each platform:

Platform	Recommended detection types	Description
Telegram	Activation detection + Active detection	Get “whether to register for TG” and “recent online time”. If you need to target people “about 30 years old”, you can additionally check the gender detection (including age field).
WhatsApp	Activation test	Basic verification of registration. If you need “Active” or “Gender”, you can check the corresponding type.
Line	Activation detection + gender detection	Line gender detection has a better effect on identifying male users and is suitable for marketing products to men.
Zalo	Activation Testing	Basic testing for the Vietnamese market.

Newbies are advised to only do Telegram activation + activation first, which is the lowest cost and can quickly verify the data quality.

Check balance and submit task

After selecting the number file, the system will estimate the total cost of the task. The cost details are displayed on the right side of the console, and the unit price is different on different platforms (the specific amount is subject to the real-time price of the console). After confirming that the balance is sufficient:

If the balance is insufficient, you need to recharge first. The recharge method only supports USDT (TRC20), with a minimum of about 50 USDT. The balance will be automatically updated after the account is received.
Check the “Notify via Telegram after task completion” option (recommended). After binding the KK-DATA official robot, you will receive an instant message when the number screening is completed.
Click “Submit Task” and the system starts execution. You can check the progress at any time while the task is running.

Must read before submitting

The estimated cost is displayed on the right side of the console; if the balance is insufficient, you can use the free generation function first; the upper limit for a single task is about 1 million, but novices are recommended to test the process within 5,000 items at a time, and then expand the scale after becoming familiar with it.

How to interpret and export the results after the screening is completed?

After the task is completed, the detection results of each number can be viewed on the “Task Details” page. Different platforms export different fields. The most common field meanings are listed below.

List of common detection fields (Telegram/WhatsApp/Line)

Field name	Meaning
tg_active	Telegram’s most recent active timestamp (such as 2025-04-05 14:30:00), NULL means it has not been online for a long time
gender	Gender: male, female, unknown
age	Approximate age range, such as 25-35, inexact ID card age, can be used for crowd trend analysis (such as screening the “about 30 years old” group)
tgid	Telegram’s unique user digital ID, which can be used for two-step verification of tg private messages
ws_active	WhatsApp last online time (only appears if activity is detected)
line_uid	Line user’s unique identifier, which can be used for Line’s subsequent marketing
zalo_uid	Zalo user ID (for Vietnam market)

Special Note: The age field is based on platform public information and model estimation, and is not accurate to the ID card level. You can use it to filter the user group “about 30 years old”, but it cannot be used as the sole basis for decision-making.

Export filtering results and data deduplication

On the task details page, you can select the fields that need to be exported (for example, only export numbers that are “activated + active in the last 30 days”), and then choose to download in CSV or TXT format.

Important: Be sure to check “Save to Data Deduplication Warehouse” when exporting. This function will record the number detected this time in the platform database. Next time you upload the same number again, the system will automatically skip the detected record to avoid repeated deductions.

Tips for improving data utilization

After each screening is completed, check “Save to deduplication warehouse” on the export page. If you import the same numbers later, the system will automatically skip the ones that have been detected, saving detection costs. The data deduplication warehouse is effective across tasks, and the same number only needs to be detected once.

Billing and recharge considerations that novices must know

KK-DATA adopts a “no subscription, pay per item” model, so you don’t need to pay a monthly or annual fee in advance. After depositing USDT, the corresponding fee will be deducted from the balance after each number screening task is completed. Here are some key billing points:

Different platforms have different unit prices: Telegram activation detection is usually the lowest, WhatsApp activity detection is slightly higher, and gender detection will be more expensive. Please log in to the console to view the real-time price for the specific amount.
Display estimated cost before task submission: You can decide whether to execute it based on the budget. If the balance is insufficient, the task cannot be submitted and needs to be recharged first.
USDT recharge process: The minimum recharge is about 50 USDT (TRC20 network), and the transfer speed is fast, usually 5 to 10 minutes. The balance is automatically updated after recharging.
Beware of Fake Customer Service: Only the official robot @kkdata_robot and customer service @kkdata_cc are formal channels. Don’t believe any private accounts that claim “monthly packages” and “internal prices”.

FAQ

**Q: How much does it cost to screen a number? **

Answer: Different platforms and detection types have different unit prices. Telegram activation detection is usually the lowest. For details, please log in to the [Billing] page of the console or check the real-time price. The estimated total cost will be displayed before the task is submitted, and the price will be clearly marked.

**Q: Are all the generated numbers valid? Will there be any deductions? **

Answer: The global number generation function is completely free, and the generated results do not mean that the number has been registered on any platform. If you upload the generated number for the number screening task, the fee will be deducted on a per-item basis. Unactivated numbers will also be deducted for one-item testing fees.

**Q: How many numbers can be detected in one task? **

Answer: A maximum of about 1 million numbers can be submitted for a single task. However, novices are advised to first test the process with less than 5,000 items, and then expand to the full amount of data after becoming familiar with it.

**Q: Is the age field in the results accurate? Can it be used for precise orientation? **

Answer: The age field is based on platform public information and model estimation, and is not the exact ID card age. It can be used for crowd trend analysis, such as screening for the “about 30 years old” group, but it is not suitable as the sole basis for decision-making.

**Q: How to avoid wasting money on repeated testing of the same batch of numbers? **

Answer: After each screening is completed, the results will be saved to the platform’s “Data Deduplication Warehouse”. Next time you import the same number, the system will automatically skip the detected number and no more deductions will be made. The deduplication warehouse takes effect across tasks, which is very practical.

It is actually not complicated for a novice to complete a complete number screening process: generate or import numbers for free → submit the number screening task (it is recommended to start with Telegram activation + activation) → interpret the results and export → use the deduplication warehouse to avoid repeated consumption. Once you master this minimum viable process, you will have a reliable data foundation for your first step in acquiring customers overseas.

👉 Log in to the console to start screening numbers Two-way contact customer service: @kkdata_robot More usage documentation: https://docs.kkdata.cc/

The Complete Guide to Number Screening for Beginners: Minimum Viable Process from Zero to Export

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