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Tags and segments look like the same idea — two ways of grouping people — and they behave completely differently. A tag is a fact stored on the contact. You attach it, it stays there until someone removes it, and you can see it on the contact’s profile. A segment is a saved question, not a saved answer. It stores the criteria — stage, tags, how long since the contact last did anything — and runs them fresh against your contacts every time you open it or broadcast to it.

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A segment is a filter, not a list

This is the thing most people get wrong on day one, so read it before you build anything. There is no “add this contact to a segment” action anywhere in DMLY, because segments have no members to add. Membership is worked out at the moment you use the segment. That means:
  • Segments change on their own. Tag someone VIP tomorrow and they are in your VIP segment tomorrow, without you touching the segment.
  • People fall out silently. A segment built on Inactive ≥ <days>d loses a contact the moment they reply to you. A broadcast you scheduled last week does not go to the people who matched last week — it goes to whoever matches when it sends.
  • You cannot freeze a segment. If you need a fixed group that will not shift underneath you — “everyone who came to the October open day” — use a tag. A tag is the only thing in DMLY that holds still.
If a segment is a saved question, tags are the best answers to give it. Most useful segments are mostly tag criteria.

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Tags

A tag is a name and a colour. Any contact can have any number of them.

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Create and apply tags

You don’t create tags up front — you create them by using them. On the New contact and Edit contact form, type a name into the tag picker and press enter and the tag is created and attached in one move (Type a new tag name and press enter to create it.). The Add tag box on a contact’s profile takes a new name the same way. Segments are the exception: their tag pickers only offer tags that already exist, so typing a new name there creates nothing. Tags get onto contacts several ways:
  • On the contact. Open the contact and use Add tag in the tag editor.
  • On the contact form. New contact and Edit contact both have a tag picker.
  • From a CSV import. The tags column accepts several tags separated by a pipe or a comma — VIP|Buyer. Missing tags are created during the import. See Import contacts from CSV.
  • From an automation. The Add a tag action tags a contact as it moves through a flow.
  • From the AI agent. Its Add tags tool can tag a contact mid-conversation.
  • From DMLY itself. The Unsubscribe tag is applied for you — see below.
Tags are also readable and writable through the API.

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Manage tags

Contacts → Manage tags opens your workspace’s tag list, where you rename a tag, change its colour, or delete it. Tags belong to the Workspace, so every channel and every team member shares the same list. To bulk-create tags, go to the Tags tab of your workspace Settings, where Import CSV and Download sample live. Deleting a tag removes it from every contact that has it — the confirmation says so: Delete "<tag name>"? It will be removed from all contacts. Because segments are re-evaluated every time they run, any segment built on that tag starts behaving differently straight away.

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The Unsubscribe tag

Every workspace starts with one tag it did not create: Unsubscribe. You cannot rename or delete it (This tag is required for opt-out compliance and can’t be renamed.), because DMLY drives it automatically. When a contact replies STOP, DMLY marks them opted out and applies the Unsubscribe tag. Resubscribing them removes the tag again. The tag is a mirror of the opt-out so you can see it on the profile and exclude it in a segment.
The tag follows the opt-out, not the other way round. Putting the Unsubscribe tag on someone by hand does not opt them out — it just labels them. The opt-out itself only happens when the contact replies with an opt-out keyword such as STOP, or when an automation runs an Unsubscribe Contact node. The Suppressions view is where you review who is opted out and reverse it with Unblock or Resubscribe — it cannot opt anyone out.
You don’t have to exclude opted-out contacts by hand: broadcasts, sequences and automations already skip them. Excluding the tag is belt and braces, not a requirement.

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Segments

Segments live at Contacts → Segments — Reusable audiences for broadcasts, built from stage, tags and recency.

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What a segment can filter on

Exactly four things. There is nothing else in a segment definition — no lifecycle stage, no custom field, no source.
Contact tags is an AND, not an OR. If you want “VIP or Regular”, that is two segments — or one tag applied to both groups.

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Create a segment

1

Open Segments

Go to Contacts → Segments and select New segment.
2

Name it

Fill in Segment name. Name it after the question it asks — “VIPs, not lapsed” beats “Segment 2” when you are picking a broadcast audience three months from now.
3

Set the criteria

Choose a Contact stage, pick Contact tags the contact must all have, add any Exclude contacts with tags, and set Number of days since last activity if you want a recency rule.
4

Create it

Select Create. The segment appears in the list with its criteria and a live contact count.
The count beside a segment is contacts in this channel — it is scoped to the channel you are currently in, not your whole Workspace. The same segment can show a different number after you switch channels. Nothing is wrong; it is counting a smaller pool.

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Use a segment

  • In a broadcast. This is what segments are for — pick the segment as the audience and it resolves to real contacts at send time. See Broadcast audiences.
  • On the contacts list. Select Filters on Contacts, then use the Segment dropdown to filter the list through a saved segment, so you can look at exactly who a broadcast would reach before you send it.
Editing a segment changes every future use of it. Deleting one (Delete segment) removes the saved question only — no contact is touched.

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Which one do I want?

Use a tag

For a fact about a person that you decide: VIP, Colour client, Came to the open day, Prefers mornings. Tags are permanent until removed, and they are what segments are built out of.

Use a segment

For a group defined by a rule you will reuse: “VIPs in the Engaged stage who haven’t messaged in 60 days”. It stays correct as people move, without maintenance.
A segment is only ever as good as the tags underneath it. Check, in order:
  • Contact tags is an AND. Two tags means contacts need both. This is the usual cause.
  • A tag was deleted in Manage tags. Renaming is safe — segments match tags by identity, not by name.
  • Days since last activity is doing its job — contacts who replied recently no longer match an inactivity rule.
  • The count is channel-scoped. Switch channel and the number changes.
Segments decide who matches. They do not decide who is reachable. A contact can match your segment perfectly and still be skipped at send time because they opted out, were blocked, or have no open messaging window on that channel. Check the contact’s profile and the Suppressions view, then WhatsApp rules and limits.