A Click-to-WhatsApp ad is a Facebook or Instagram ad with a button that opens a WhatsApp chat with your business. There is no landing page and no form. The person taps, a chat opens, and they send you a message.
That makes these ads quick to start and easy to waste. The usual place to lose money is not Ads Manager. It is the chat, after the tap, when the reply comes late or nobody knows which ad the person came from. We ask clients to have six things in place before the budget goes live.
1. Choose WhatsApp as the destination in Ads Manager
Connect your WhatsApp number to your Facebook Page first. Use the number your team will answer from, not the owner’s personal number.
Then, in Meta Ads Manager, choose messaging apps as the place where you want results and pick WhatsApp. Meta renames these options from time to time, so look for the one that names WhatsApp. Open the ad preview and tap the button yourself. It should open a WhatsApp chat, not Messenger and not your website.
2. Write a pre-filled message for each ad
Ads Manager lets you set the message that is already typed in the chat when it opens. The person only has to press send.
Do not use the same line for every ad. Write one per ad, tied to what the ad shows. An ad for a festive offer can open with "Hi, please send me the festive offer details". An ad for a new batch can open with "Hi, I want the fees and timings for the new batch".
This does two jobs. The first reply becomes easy, because you already know what they want. And even if your tracking fails, the opening message tells you which ad brought the chat.
3. Reply within minutes
The person was scrolling Instagram a moment ago. If your reply arrives two hours later, they have moved on, and they may have messaged someone else in the meantime.
Decide who answers and during which hours. If nobody can answer at night, schedule the ads for the hours when someone can. Set an automatic first reply that confirms you got the message and asks the first question. An automatic reply does not replace a person, but it keeps the chat going until one is free.
4. Ask two or three qualifying questions
Not every chat is a buyer. Decide in advance what you need to know before a person spends time on the lead. Usually it is what they need, where they are, their budget and how soon they want it.
Ask with buttons where you can, because tapping is easier than typing. Stop at three questions. After that, hand the chat to a person with the answers already in front of them.
Property enquiries are a good example: budget, preferred area and whether they can visit this week will sort most chats. GetSetSales has a page on WhatsApp for real estate enquiries that covers this kind of flow.
5. Track which ad each lead came from
Ads Manager counts conversations started. It does not know who visited your shop or who paid. You have to carry the ad name into your own records.
On the WhatsApp Business app, a chat that starts from an ad shows a small preview of that ad at the top. On the WhatsApp Business API, Meta sends the ad details along with the first message. Either way, save it against the contact as a tag or as a column in a sheet.
At the end of the month, compare ads by visits, bookings or sales, not by cost per chat. The ad with the cheapest chats is not always the ad with the best customers. GetSetSales has a longer guide to Click-to-WhatsApp ads if you want more detail.
6. Follow up
Many people go quiet after the first reply. WhatsApp lets a business reply freely for 24 hours after the customer’s last message. After that, a business on the API needs an approved template to message them again, and Meta charges for it. So send one polite follow-up inside the 24 hours, the same evening or the next morning. Keep a list of people who asked for a call back.
Where a tool helps
When the volume is small, you can do all of this on the free WhatsApp Business app with one phone and a sheet. It gets hard when two or more people answer, or when the ads bring more chats than one phone can handle.
GetSetSales is DigiTurtle’s own product. It runs on the official WhatsApp Business API. You connect the number you already use and keep the WhatsApp Business app. It has a shared team inbox and no-code automations for the first reply and the qualifying questions. There is no monthly plan. It costs ₹0.15 per message or conversation, and the first 100 are free.
Any tool that covers the six points will do. The setup matters more than the software.
Before you publish the ad
- The ad opens WhatsApp on the right number.
- Each ad has its own pre-filled message.
- Someone is named to reply, and the ad runs in their working hours.
- The qualifying questions are written down, three at most.
- Every new chat is saved with the ad it came from.
- One follow-up goes out within 24 hours.