The Most Complete Guide to WhatsApp Customer Wins (CTWA) in 2025

WhatsApp Click-to-WhatsApp Ads, an innovative ad format, is a great tool for acquiring new customers and helps you maximize your ad spend on Facebook and Instagram!

01 What are WhatsApp Direct Ads?

WhatsApp Direct Advertising (CTWA) is a form of Facebook and Instagram advertising. It allows viewers to initiate WhatsApp conversations with brands directly from ads they see on platforms like Facebook or Instagram. Conversations can be fully human-led or automated using the YCloud WhatsApp Bot, with the option to hand off to a human agent using YCloud's Human Takeover module.

Marketers have struggled to create high-converting landing pages and generate leads, but now we can eliminate landing pages to shorten the user journey and replace them with real-time, personalized conversational experiences that make marketing easier.

02Why use WhatsApp Direct Ads?

Efficient Customer Acquisition

Attract more customers and let them know about your products or services through the platforms they use in their leisure time (Facebook and Instagram). In countries/regions such as Indonesia and Malaysia, people use Facebook and Instagram to get news and celebrity updates and WhatsApp to interact with friends and family.

Increase conversions and drive sales

Compared with traditional advertising forms, CTWA can better attract users' attention because users can directly interact with enterprises through WhatsApp, and this personalized and instantaneous communication can increase users' engagement and promote transactions.

Increased return on investment

Integration with Meta's Conversion API feeds events back to the ad platform, allowing the ad system to optimize ad targeting for conversions and reduce cost per action.

Window of opportunity for remarketing

This ad format eliminates the landing page and creates a WhatsApp-based connection with the customer. Even if the customer fails to convert this time, a long-term connection can be established with the customer through WhatsApp to drive long-term conversions with a private message

In general, CTWA is suitable for industries that need to generate deals through chat interactions. Examples include: finance, insurance, healthcare, B2B trade, real estate, short-form, fiction, automotive and DTC e-commerce.

03 How do I access WhatsApp Direct Ads?

pre-positioning

You will need to complete the following steps before you can begin acquiring customers through CTWA:

Step 1: YCloud Account Creation

Step 2: Create a WABA Account

Information to be prepared:

- A Facebook account.
- telephone number

The phone number must be able to receive voice calls or text messages.
The number has not been registered for a WhatsApp App or business account before.

Detailed operation reference:Create a WhatsApp Business API account

Step 3: Invite the sales and customer service team on board

Leads from ad placements will interact with your WhatsApp business account, and you will need to arrange for your sales/customer service team to have access to the YCloud platform in advance and configure the corresponding permissions for them.

Invitation Path:

Account > Company settings > Users and teams > Invite user in the lower left corner.

Detailed operation reference:Invite users and teams

Step 4: Setting up customer assignment rules

The sales/customer service invited in step 3 are then configured into the allocation rules of the WhatsApp business number to ensure that they can receive timely inquiries from interested customers.

Detailed operation reference:Dialogue distribution rules

04 Getting Started with WhatsApp Direct Ads

Once the pre-preparation is complete, you can start advertising:

Step 1: Check ad account link status or connect Facebook ad account if not connected

YCloud automatically associates all advertising accounts under the BM to which your WhatsApp business account belongs.

You can view it in Ad acount.

YCloud will support you to bind different BM's Facebook ad accounts in the future, stay tuned.

Step 2: Connect WhatsApp Business API Number to your Facebook Page

Make sure you have administrator rights for your Facebook Page

- Navigate Facebook Page > Click Settings (top right) > Select WhatsApp
- Enter your WhatsApp Business phone number and click "Continue".

If your WhatsApp account and advertising account belong to the same BM, you can complete the binding directly.
If your WhatsApp account does not belong to the same BM as the advertised account, log in to your WhatsApp BM account again and visit the Request page to approve the binding request.

If you wish to run an advertising campaign on Instagram, you should also associate your Instagram account with a Facebook page.

After completing the above steps, you can start setting up your first Click-to-WhatsApp ad.

Step 3: Setting up Click-to-WhatsApp Ads on Facebook Ad Manager

Open Facebook Ads Manager

Visit your Facebook Ad Manager and click "Create" to get started.

Selection of marketing campaign objectives

To use with WhatsApp, select "Sales".

Select Manual sales campaign

Fill in the relevant basic information to create your campaign. This includes:

Name your campaign
Declare if you have a special ad category, e.g. recruitment
Define whether or not to A/B test ads
Note: This step requires that Advantage+ catalog ads be turned off.

Create a Campaign

Configuring Ad Group Details

Conversion location: Select "Messaging apps".
Ad type: Select "Click to message"
Facebook Page: Select Facebook Page
Messaging Apps: Select WhatsApp. Note, do not select other message apps such as Messager.
Performance goal: select Maximize number of purchases through messaging

You will only see the WhatsApp number once you have completed Step 2 above: Connect your WhatsApp Business API account to your Facebook page.

Ads are automatically optimized for delivery based on customer conversion (Converted) data returned by YCloud only if Maximize number of purchases through messaging is selected for the Performance goal.

Select WhatsApp Number

Select performance goal

Choose your audience, display location, budget and schedule

See the Facebook Ads documentation for a full understanding of bidding strategies.

Now that you have successfully selected your campaign's objectives and budget, click "Next" and define the campaign's ad groups.

Setting up advertising creative

Here's a 5-point checklist for optimizing ad creative and media display placement for best results:

Edit specific ad display positions on Facebook and Instagram to resize images. You can also convert a set of images into a video slideshow to increase click-through rates.
Add primary text and headlines to your Click To WhatsApp ads. You can add up to five main text options and headlines.
Add a description to the ad for more details and context.
Select the CTA button for your WhatsApp ads. You can select one from multiple available CTAs.
Preview the ads in the display positions in Advanced Preview. This is how each media display position will look on your Facebook and Instagram feed.

Creating and previewing message templates

Click "New" and create a welcome message template for a quick chat after people click on your ad.

Welcome Message Template

Publish your advertisement

Facebook will now review your ads. Once approved, it will go live based on your targeting.

Detailed operation reference:Setting up Click-to-WhatsApp Ads on Facebook Ad Manager

05 WhatsApp Direct Ad Tracking and Attribution

Step 1: Add tracking indicators

We set up basic tracking metrics based on a user's ad journey, including:

Conversations started: the number of conversations initiated by people who saw the ad.
Engagement: after the prospect sends the second message

We also support you in defining new conversion tracking metrics by collecting conversation data:

Select the campaign you want to manage > Track Events > click + Track New Event.

Here you can choose the tracking method, including flagging leads or triggering keywords in chat.

Step 2: View Tracking Data

View Leads from Ads

Click on "Track events" to the right of the campaign.

Select the Track events you want to view and click "View Leads".

View the Leads that triggered this trace event.

Step 3: Setting up conversion attribution

You can select the most important events in the list to define as converted

When a customer triggers this event, it will be passed to the Facebook ad platform via CAPI to optimize ad targeting.

You can define the event as a "conversion" of the campaign by clicking the "Set as Conversion" button on the interface.

06 WhatsApp Best Practices for Converting Customers with Direct Ads

Receiving Inbound Leads in Inbox

Potential customer inquiries are assigned to the appropriate sales or customer service based on pre-set customer assignment rules

Sales/Customer Service will need to log into the YCloud Inbox workbench to respond to customer messages.

Path: Log in to your YCloud account > Inbox

Convert customers 24/7 with chatbot

Chatbot can provide 24/7 customer service, reducing costs while standardizing service processes.

During non-working hours, Chatbot can collect information and needs of potential customers, providing sales teams with valuable data to follow up during working hours. This not only improves customer satisfaction, but also captures leads for new business opportunities during non-working hours.

Customer Remarketing

Remarketing is an effective strategy for converting potential customers into actual buyers. Through remarketing, companies can re-engage customers who have shown interest but have not yet made a purchase.

Bulk Remarketing:

- Circling Remarketing Goals

Filter by Contact attributes, including source, tags, etc., to filter out target customers
Download leads from CTWA Ad Tracking Events

Using WhatsApp's Campaign feature, businesses can send customized messages to customers who have shown an intent to buy. This bulk mass mailing can be promotions, special offers or new product information designed to inspire customers to buy.

Automated hatching of leads:

Compared to a one-time mass mailing, Journey can help you free up your hands to be more efficient.

Using the Journey tool, it is possible to automate the process of following up with potential customers, gradually guiding them towards a buying decision through a series of interactions and messaging. This approach helps organizations better understand their customers' needs and provide the right information at the right time.

Deep Connections and Conversions via WhatsApp Personal

For many high-unit-price business models, completing a transaction through a simple conversation is a no-brainer.

This is where allowing sales to connect with customers through their personal WhatsApp accounts and maintain deep interactions with them over time is essential.

You can hand over the intentional leads you take to sales and have them communicate one-on-one, either by pulling in a group or showing dynamics to enhance trust, thus building trust over time and completing conversions.

Calling

Calling functionAllows you to make voice calls to customers directly through WhatsApp, which can be used to solve complex problems or communicate more deeply, increase customer trust, and also be used to follow up on sales opportunities, by having direct conversations, businesses can persuade their customers more effectively and facilitate the closing of sales.

Calling is currently in Beta testing and only allows forBrazil, Mexico, India or IndonesiaCountries for customer trials, if you are interested, please scan the QR code at the end of the article to contact YCloud.

In today's competitive digital marketing world, CTWA stands out in social media advertising with its immediacy, personalized communication and high conversion rate, making it a powerful tool for acquiring new customers. It has significant advantages in improving marketing efficiency and the quality of customer interactions by streamlining the user interaction process, directly connecting potential customers with brands, and significantly improving user engagement and response speed. Therefore, enterprises should quicklyAdoption of CTWA through YCloudto capitalize on opportunities to leapfrog marketing efficiencies and accelerate customer relationship building and business growth.

The Most Complete Guide to WhatsApp Customer Wins (CTWA) in 2025

01 What are WhatsApp Direct Ads?