How to create ads on WhatsApp Business (click to chat)

Published on October 15, 2026

You can create an ad without ever leaving WhatsApp Business.

The app itself builds an ad that shows up on Facebook and Instagram, and when someone taps it, it opens a WhatsApp chat with your business.

That’s what the WhatsApp Help Center describes: you pick photos, videos, catalog items or statuses, and you set the budget, duration and audience.

What a click to WhatsApp ad is

It’s a regular Facebook or Instagram ad with a different destination.

Instead of sending people to a website, it sends them to your chat.

According to the official page on sharing information with Meta, when someone interacts with the ad, WhatsApp starts a chat between your business and the potential customer.

To make that work, your business profile name is shared with Meta and goes into the ad.

Your profile photo is shared too, but only if it’s visible to everyone in your privacy settings, as the same official page says.

It’s worth checking your name and photo before you start, since that’s what customers will see.

With or without a Facebook account

The Help Center shows two ways to advertise from the app:

Without a Facebook account: you use your email address for verification and payment, with no Facebook login.
With a linked Facebook account: you log in to Facebook and use the payment method you already have there.

The path is almost the same either way.

The difference shows up when it’s time to pay.

Step by step on Android

This is the path on the official Android page for your first ad without a Facebook account:

Tap the three dots and go to Advertise and Get started. Or go to Tools and Advertise.
Choose what to advertise: a photo from your phone, a catalog item or a status. You can pick more than one, and catalog items must already be approved.
Tap Next, write the ad description and tap Next again.
Set a daily budget, a duration and an audience.
Review the ad, tap Create ad and accept Facebook’s non-discrimination policy.
Confirm your email with the six-digit code, choose your country, currency and time zone, and add your payment method and business information.

From the second ad on, it’s shorter, because your payment method is already saved.

If you link Facebook, the option shows up as Advertise on Facebook in the menu and you pick a payment method through your Facebook account, according to the same Android page.

If you stop halfway, the draft is waiting under Tools and Advertise.

You can only have one draft at a time, and it’s deleted after seven days, as the Help Center warns.

On iPhone and on your computer

On iPhone, the iOS version of the page starts from Settings, Advertise and Get started.

If the app asks whether you want to continue with Facebook, just tap Skip to go ahead with your email only.

In the browser, on WhatsApp Web, the web version of the page uses the Ads icon in the left menu, or Tools and Advertise.

There the ad is built with photos, and you also choose where it will show.

Budget, duration and payment

You choose how much you want to spend per day and how many days the ad stays live.

The official budget and duration page has the rules that matter most for your wallet:

The ad stops running when it reaches your budget, and you’re never charged more than you set.
Duration ranges from 1 to 60 days.
You can change the budget and duration at any time, even mid-campaign. What you already spent before the change stays the same.

You don’t need a credit or debit card.

The official payments page lists credit and debit cards, PayPal, direct debit from a bank account in supported countries and local manual payment methods, depending on your ad account’s country and currency.

That’s also where you can set an account spending limit: once you hit it, your ads pause until you raise, reset or remove the limit.

Approval and rules

Every ad is reviewed before it goes live, and the review typically takes 24 hours, according to the Help Center.

Ads and ad accounts must follow Meta’s advertising policies and the WhatsApp Business policies.

While your ad account is in review, you can’t create new ads.

Two more details from the same page: you can’t schedule an ad to start later or set it to repeat on its own, and results often improve after the first two days.

To run an ad that has ended again, use Recreate ad.

If your ad is rejected, it shows a Rejected label under Advertise and Manage ads.

Tap it to see why and, if you think it’s a mistake, tap Request review, as the official page on rejected ads explains.

To avoid getting there, the WhatsApp best practices guide asks for ads that are true to what your business offers and no unsolicited messages or spam once customers are in your chat.

When the chat comes in

The ad ends where the chat begins.

From there, it’s the reply that makes the sale.

The app has two features that help with that first moment:

Greeting message: sent automatically on a customer’s first message or after 14 days without a chat, according to the official greeting message page.
Away message: lets people know you’re unavailable, always, on a set schedule or outside business hours, as the official away message page shows.

Both help, but neither answers the price, the question or the open slot the customer asked about.

And both only go out when your phone is connected to the internet, as the official pages for greeting messages and away messages say.

Where we come in

A good ad fills your inbox, and every chat left unanswered is ad money sitting idle.

The assistant we set up sits on your business number with your company’s content, clears up questions, books times on your real calendar and hands over to a person anything off script.

That way, someone who taps your ad at eleven at night still leaves the chat with an answer.