How to create click-to-WhatsApp ads from the Business app or Ads Manager, and what to reply

Deshmukh Solar fits rooftop systems around Aurangabad with a team of nine, two of whom answer WhatsApp. Pallavi Deshmukh, the owner (invented, like everyone named here), started click-to-WhatsApp ads in August. The first week brought forty chats. Most of them said “subsidy kitna milega?” at 10 pm, and half were never answered, because the ad pointed at a salesman’s personal number and he was asleep.

Click-to-WhatsApp ads are the most direct paid demand Meta sells to an Indian business. This guide covers both ways of setting one up, what greets the person who taps, and what to do in the chat so the money isn’t wasted.

What a click-to-WhatsApp ad is

It’s a Facebook or Instagram ad whose call to action opens a WhatsApp chat with your business instead of a website. Meta’s help centre puts it in one line: these ads “send people that click on your ads directly into conversations with your business on WhatsApp”.

The ad itself can be shown on Facebook, on Instagram and inside WhatsApp. Meta’s placements table lists all three for ads that click to WhatsApp, and WhatsApp’s help centre adds that the Status and Channels placements are only available from Meta Ads Manager, not from the Business app. The glossary has the terms used below.

Which route you take depends on whether your number is on the free WhatsApp Business app or on the WhatsApp Business Platform through a provider.

Route A: from the WhatsApp Business app

The app route needs no Ads Manager. WhatsApp’s help page for Android, captured on 8 September 2026 and still live on 15 October, gives the steps:

1. Tap Tools, then Advertise. Or the three-dot menu, then Advertise, then Get started.
2. Choose what to advertise: a photo from your phone, an approved catalogue item or a status. You can pick several.
3. Write the ad description and tap Next.
4. Set a daily budget, a duration and an audience. Tap Next.
5. Review and tap Create ad.

You can do this with a linked Facebook account and its payment method, or without one, in which case the app verifies an email address and asks for a payment method and business details. Payments, prepaid funds and an account spending limit sit under Advertise, then Ad account settings.

Ads from the app can’t be scheduled in advance or set to repeat. You can hold one draft at a time, and a draft is deleted after seven days. Approval takes up to 24 hours. And if your Facebook Page isn’t linked to the WhatsApp Business account, WhatsApp says the ad delivers only on Facebook, not Instagram. Link the Page first, under Tools, then Facebook and Instagram.

For a shop with one number and one owner, this route is fine. The chat lands in the app on that phone and the app’s greeting message is what the person sees; our guide to greeting and away messages covers its limits.

Route B: Meta Ads Manager, for a Platform number

Once your number is on the WhatsApp Business Platform, build the ad in Ads Manager. Meta’s help page, read on 15 October 2026, asks for two things first: a WhatsApp Business account, app or Platform, and that number connected to your Facebook Page or added to your business portfolio. For a Platform number Meta points you to a separate request flow; ask your provider.

The steps vary by objective. For the leads objective:

1. In Ads Manager, click Create and choose Leads.
2. Name the campaign and click Next.
3. Under Conversion, select WhatsApp. The performance goal defaults to maximise number of conversations.
4. Choose the Facebook Page. The WhatsApp number connected to that Page is the one the ad will open.
5. Set budget, schedule, audience and placements, then click Next.
6. At the ad level, in the Message template section, choose Create new or Use existing, click Edit, write the welcome message and Save.
7. Finish the ad and click Publish.

The traffic, engagement and sales objectives put WhatsApp under Message destinations instead, and the awareness objective puts it under Destination at the ad level. If WhatsApp is greyed out, click Connect account and verify the number there.

A third way sits in the middle: from your Facebook Page, click Advertise, choose the goal Get more messages, pick WhatsApp as the app and set up the welcome message. It works for a single photo, a video or a post with a link.

Which objective? Meta’s best-practice page says to pick engagement, leads or sales to match the outcome you want, and to let a campaign run seven days or more before judging it. Start with leads; its default goal is conversations, the thing you’re paying for.

The welcome message is the landing page

It’s what the person sees when WhatsApp opens, and it decides whether they type anything.

In Ads Manager the Message template section offers Start conversation: a greeting plus prompts people can tap. You may also see Collect info with a form in WhatsApp, which uses WhatsApp Flows. Meta’s page says the feature may not be available to all advertisers yet and doesn’t work with partner-app templates; our Flows explainer covers it. If your provider has built a welcome sequence through Meta’s API, it appears under Partner app.

Meta’s developer page for Welcome Message Sequences, updated 16 June 2026, shows what one contains: a text greeting, an autofill message that sits pre-typed in the person’s reply box, and ice breakers, which are tappable quick replies. Ice breakers set on the number itself follow the Conversational Components rules: up to four, 80 characters each, no emojis, and WhatsApp hides them if the person arrived through a wa.me link with pre-filled text.

What to write: one greeting line that names the business, one question, and prompts that answer it. For Deshmukh Solar:

• Greeting: “Hi, this is Deshmukh Solar in Aurangabad. Tell us about your roof and we’ll send a quote the same day.”
• Prompts: “Price for a 3 kW system”, “Subsidy and paperwork”, “Book a site visit”.

Not the brochure, and not “How can we help you today?”, which makes the person do the explaining.

One more thing the click gives you: Meta’s webhook carries a referral block with the ad’s headline, body, source ID and a click ID, so a Platform tool can record which ad started the chat.

The free window, in brief

If the person messages from the WhatsApp app on an Android phone or iPhone and you reply within the 24-hour customer service window, that reply carries no Meta charge and the free entry point window opens. Meta’s pricing page, updated 30 September 2026, says the window “may remain open for up to 7 days”, and every message you send inside it is free of Meta charges, templates included. Meta’s Business Help Centre adds a caution: “this feature may not be available to you yet”.

Chats started from WhatsApp on a laptop don’t open one, and you pay for the ad regardless. Our article on the free entry point window has the full rules and a seven-day plan. The one rule that matters at set-up: whoever answers ad chats must do it within 24 hours, including 10 pm on a Sunday.

A three-button qualifying flow

SW Sachin Wagh talking to Deshmukh Solar

1. Sachin Wagh:
   Price for a 3 kW system 10:04 pm
2. Deshmukh Solar:
   Hi Sachin, thanks for writing to Deshmukh Solar. A 3 kW price depends on your roof and your monthly bill. Which is closest? 10:04 pm
   • Under ₹2,000
   • ₹2,000 to 5,000
   • Above ₹5,000
3. Sachin Wagh:
   ₹2,000 to 5,000 10:05 pm
4. Deshmukh Solar:
   Is the roof yours to use? 10:05 pm
   • Own house
   • Housing society
   • Rented
5. Sachin Wagh:
   Own house 10:06 pm
6. Deshmukh Solar:
   And when are you planning to install? 10:06 pm
   • Within a month
   • 1 to 3 months
   • Just checking
7. Sachin Wagh:
   Within a month 10:06 pm
8. Tagged: 3 kW, own house, within a month. Source: ad "Monsoon subsidy". Assigned to Mangesh.
9. Deshmukh Solar:
   Good morning Sachin, Mangesh here from Deshmukh Solar. For your bill and roof, 3 kW is the right size. Price sheet first, or a free roof survey? 9:12 am
   • Send price sheet
   • Book survey

Three questions with buttons, each answered in one tap. Bill and timing sort the lead; the roof question is the one only a solar installer would ask, so swap it for your own: the standard for a coaching class, the budget band for a builder. The lead generation playbook covers who owns the lead by morning, and bot examples has twelve flows by industry.

What to measure

Four numbers, weekly: chats started from ads, chats that got a reply inside 24 hours, leads that met your written definition of qualified, and cost per qualified lead.

Meta publishes no benchmark for any of them. Ads Manager reports messaging conversations started; the other three come from your inbox. Cost per qualified lead is arithmetic:

(ad spend + Meta message charges + tool fee + staff time) ÷ qualified leads

An illustration at Meta’s India rates, effective 1 October 2026 and before GST. Say Pallavi’s month brings 300 ad chats and 90 qualified leads, and the team sends one day-5 marketing template to every lead that went quiet. If the free window held for all of them, the template charges are nil. If 60 of those templates went out after a window had closed, they cost 60 × ₹0.8631, about ₹52. Typed replies inside the 24-hour window are service messages: 1,000 a month per number carry no charge, then ₹0.1150 each. Say 2,400 replies: 1,400 × ₹0.1150, or ₹161. With ad spend as A, cost per qualified lead = (A + ₹213 + tool fee + staff time) ÷ 90. The message line is small. The two lines that move the result are A, and how many of the 300 became 90.

Five mistakes that waste the ad

Sending people to a personal number

Meta’s set-up page requires a WhatsApp Business account, app or Platform. Beyond the rule, the chat history lives on one salesman’s phone and leaves with him. Our piece on customers in staff phones is about exactly this.

Nobody replies after hours

Ads run at night. A reply that lands 26 hours later opens no free window. If nobody works nights, the first reply has to be automatic, and it has to ask a real question.

Asking for the phone number they just messaged from

The chat has it. Forms that open with “please share your name and mobile number” lose people who feel they’ve already given both. Ask for the pin code, the roof, the budget band: anything the chat doesn’t already tell you.

Marketing templates to people still in the 24-hour window

While the person’s 24-hour window is open you can type a reply, and it’s billed as a service message at ₹0.1150 after the free thousand. A marketing template costs ₹0.8631 and reads like a broadcast to someone who is mid-conversation. Inside a free entry point window both cost nothing, but the tone problem stays. Save templates for after the window closes.

No opt-in capture

A person who messaged you from an ad has started a conversation, not subscribed to your offers. Meta’s opt-in page requires a clear statement that the person is opting in, with your business named. So add a step after the qualifying questions: “Can Deshmukh Solar send you offers and updates on WhatsApp?” with Yes and No buttons, and store the answer against the contact with the date. India’s DPDP Rules put most of their notice and consent duties into force around May 2027, so the habit is worth building now. Our opt-in guide has wording and the record to keep.

Before the next ad goes live, tap it yourself at 10:30 pm from a phone. If the reply doesn’t ask you a question within a minute, fix that before you touch the budget.