After determining, in S204, the to-be-monitored wake up signal that needs to be monitored, the terminal device monitors the to-be-monitored wake up signal based on a configuration of the to-be-monitored wake up signal. Therefore, it can be learned that, compared with the current technology, according to the wake up signal sending method provided in this embodiment of this application, a group to which the terminal device belongs is not simply determined based on the identifier of the terminal device, but the service feature of the terminal device is considered, for example, the uplink/downlink service trigger type of the terminal device or the probability that the terminal device is paged, the first category to which the terminal device belongs is determined based on the service feature of the terminal device, and then the to-be-monitored wake up signal is determined in the plurality of wake up signals based on the first category corresponding to the service feature. In this way, when any terminal device in the first category is paged, only a terminal device that has a same uplink/downlink service trigger type or has a same or similar probability of being paged is woken up, and another terminal device that is not paged is not woken up. This reduces a false alarm probability of paging, thereby reducing power consumption of a terminal device that is not paged.