Meta Business Help Centre

Best practices for ads that click to message

Ads that click to message can help you turn conversations into opportunities to grow your business by personally connecting with potential customers where they already spend time. You can create ads that click to message from a number of places on both desktop and mobile, including your Facebook Page, Instagram profile, WhatsApp Business app, Ads Manager or Meta Business Suite.

To help improve the performance of your ads that click to message campaigns, use some of the following best practices:

Greet people: Welcome and greet people in conversations on Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram Direct. It sets the tone of the entire interaction and shows that you are available and ready to engage with them. Encourage engagement and conversation with free, automated messaging tools and features such as instant reply in Messenger, custom FAQs on Instagram Direct or a greeting message in the WhatsApp Business app.
Link your accounts: Linking your Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram accounts can improve your online presence and make it easier for customers to find and connect with your business. You can link your WhatsApp Business account to your Facebook Page from the WhatsApp Business app or your Facebook settings. Similarly, you can link your Instagram account to Facebook from the Accounts Centre. This gives you access to features that can improve your campaign performance, such as advanced targeting in Ads Manager and the ability to select multiple platforms to run your ads.
When you link your WhatsApp Business account, your number appears as a contact option on the linked Facebook Page or Instagram profile. When a customer taps on this, they can message you directly in WhatsApp. Once linked, your Facebook Page automatically syncs business information to your WhatsApp Business account, making it easier to manage your conversations.
Choose the right campaign setup: Select the engagement objective in Ads Manager when creating posts and ads that direct your audience to start a conversation. This campaign setup tells our ads delivery system to find people most likely to start a conversation with your business using messaging. If you have a business presence on more than one messaging platform, you can select multiple apps when creating your ads. We will determine the default app that shows in your ad based on where a conversation is more likely to happen. This means more people may open a conversation in the app that they prefer to use, which can help improve your ability to engage your target audience. Note: We recommend that you allow campaigns to run for seven or more days to achieve stable results and account for weekly fluctuations.
Use tools to manage conversations: As you grow your business and start managing more conversations with your audience across Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, you can use tools to help you scale your messaging programmes.
Unified Business Inbox is a tool on Meta Business Suite for managing business messages and comments on Facebook and Instagram. Automated responses is a feature in Unified Business Inbox that allows advertisers to set up instant replies, FAQs and other messaging automations. You can also download the WhatsApp Business app to communicate with customers on WhatsApp. Create a WhatsApp business profile with helpful information for your customers, create a catalogue to showcase your products and services and use special tools to automate, sort and quickly respond to messages.
Test and experiment: Change how you set up your ads based on the insights and outcomes that you care about most. Try testing different ad creative and post-click experiences to find the best combination for your business. Use a mix of video and images and convey clear, concise messages that are aligned with your ad objective. You should also make it clear in your ad creative that clicking your ad will open a chat with your business. You can include language such as "message us to learn more about our promotions" and use a call-to-action button that says Send message or Chat now.
Track campaign performance in Ads Manager and adapt your welcome message and quick replies to get more conversations started.