Create Ads that Click to WhatsApp

Ads that click to WhatsApp let people start chatting with your business the moment they tap your Facebook or Instagram ad. Paired with Chatfuel, that chat isn't a dead end: Fuely AI greets the lead, answers questions, recommends products, and can close the sale.

Setup has two parts: create the ad in Meta Ads Manager, then decide in Chatfuel how those leads get answered.

Creating the ad itself is one of the few steps the AI Co-Worker can't complete for you — it happens in Meta Ads Manager, inside your own Meta account. Everything on the Chatfuel side — enabling AI for ad leads, setting up per-ad rules — works both in the dashboard and through the Co-Worker.

Create your ad in Meta Ads Manager

Skip this section if you already have a live ad.

1. Open Ads Manager and create a new ad campaign.

2. Choose your campaign objective, for example Traffic, and click Continue.

3. Select a campaign setup — Recommended or Manual — and click Continue.

4. Select the settings you want and click Next.

5. Under Conversion, choose Messaging apps.

6. Under Messaging apps, choose WhatsApp as the only destination. Select your WhatsApp number from the list. Make sure you're connecting a number linked to Chatfuel.

   If you don't see your number in the list, click Connect account.

7. Set your Budget & schedule.

8. Configure your Audience controls.

9. Click Next.

10. In Ad creative, click Set up creative. Configure your ad image or video, plus any text needed, like ad description.

11. Under Message template, click Edit to edit the default template. A message template is the first thing your customers will see after opening a chat with your business.

12. Set up a pre-filled message that will appear in your customer's chat window after they open your ad. Click Save when you're done.

13. Your ad is now ready. Click Publish to launch it.

Set it up in Automations

Leads from these ads arrive through the ads that click to WhatsApp source, and that source has its own automation in Chatfuel.

1. Go to Fuely AI → Automations.
2. Under WhatsApp, open ads that click to WhatsApp.
3. Turn the automation on.

Fuely AI now answers messages from all your active ads, using the automation's settings and your Knowledge Base. For most businesses this is the whole setup: one automation, every ad covered.

Or ask the AI Co-Worker

Tell it what you want in chat:

"Make the AI answer leads coming from my WhatsApp ads."

It applies the change and confirms what it set.

Different behavior for different ads

If one campaign needs its own greeting, offer, or tone, create a custom automation targeted at that specific ad on the ads that click to WhatsApp source. In the rule's ad list, paste the ad ID from Meta Ads Manager — or simply paste the full Ads Manager URL, and Chatfuel extracts the ad ID from the link automatically. You can also add keywords to narrow the rule further — for example, react only when the lead's message mentions a particular offer.

Leads from ads you didn't target keep falling through to the base automation, so nothing goes unanswered.

If your ads differ mainly by their pre-filled message, you can also route leads with keywords alone — one rule per message, no ad IDs needed.