Run ads that open a chat

A click-to-message ad opens a chat instead of a website. The customer taps the ad, a WhatsApp or Instagram chat opens with your shop, and they write to you. insideDM picks up from there.

Before you start

• Connect the WhatsApp number or Instagram account the ad will send people to. See Connect WhatsApp and Connect Instagram.
• Switch on the agent who should answer them, and test it first. See Test your agent, then switch it on.
• Ads is in the sidebar for roles that can see analytics. If yours can’t, the item reads no access.

Create the ad in Meta

insideDM doesn’t create or pay for ads. Make the ad in Meta Ads Manager, as you usually do, and choose messages on WhatsApp or Instagram as the place the ad sends people. Use the same number or account you connected to insideDM, or the chats won’t reach your agent.

What happens when someone taps the ad

The chat lands in Interaction › Conversations like any other, and your agent answers it with the same rules, products and approvals as every other chat.

See what each ad earned

1. Go to Grow › Ads. It covers the last 28 days.
2. The row of numbers follows people from the ad to the sale:
   • Wrote to you — chats that started from an ad.
   • Started shopping — of those, chats tagged High intent.
   • Bought — of those, people who paid for an order after the chat began.
   • Earned — what they paid, minus refunds, from your own orders.
3. On the Ads tab, each card is one ad, with its Chats, Orders and Earned. WhatsApp ads show their headline. Once your ad account is connected, Instagram ads show their name too, and each card shows the ad’s picture.
4. Press an ad’s name to narrow the whole page to that ad. Press Show every ad to go back.
5. Open the Conversations tab to see each person who came from an ad, how far they got (Browsing, Interested or Customer) and what they spent.

See clicks and spend beside each ad

Connect your Meta ad account in Set up › Connections. Clicks on the ad and Cost and return then fill in for every ad, next to the chats and orders it brought, along with its ad set and campaign names. You see what an ad cost and what it earned in one place.

If something’s not right

• “No ad-sourced conversations yet”. Nobody has written in from an ad in the last 28 days, or the ad sends people to a number or account that isn’t connected to insideDM. Check the ad’s destination in Meta Ads Manager.
• A chat says “No click id (Status placement)”. The ad ran in WhatsApp Status, and Meta doesn’t send a click reference from there. The chat still counts for the ad.
• A customer who already chats with you tapped an ad, but the ad shows no chat. A chat counts for an ad when the ad is what started it.
• “The ads screen could not be loaded”. Press Retry.