Click to WhatsApp ads: turn every ad chat into a sales lead
10 November 2026 · 7 min read
The short answer
A Click to WhatsApp ad opens a chat with your business number. In SautiDesk that chat lands in the shared WhatsApp inbox and, once you switch it on, opens a lead with an owner and a next step. Leads are on SautiDesk Pro, KES 3,000 per person a month, with no SautiDesk charge per WhatsApp message.
A Click to WhatsApp ad is a Facebook or Instagram ad that opens a WhatsApp chat with your business instead of a web form. In SautiDesk, each of those chats lands in your shared WhatsApp inbox and opens a lead with an owner and a next step, so the person who tapped your ad does not wait in an unread chat. Leads are on SautiDesk Pro, at KES 3,000 per person a month.
You create the ad in Meta’s Ads Manager and choose WhatsApp as the place the chat opens. Meta’s own help pages cover those screens. This guide starts where the ad ends: the first message arriving at your number.
From Lead to Cash
- A customer taps your ad. WhatsApp opens with your business number and the customer sends their first message. Meta does not charge for messages that customers send to you.
- The chat arrives in the shared inbox. SautiDesk finds the customer by phone number or creates a contact, and the chat joins their ticket with any calls, SMS or email.
- A lead opens. It starts in the first open stage of your pipeline, which is New in the standard setup, as warm, with a value of KES 0, named after the contact or their number. Its source is the one you chose for WhatsApp.
- It gets an owner. The lead goes to an available person on the queue your WhatsApp channel routes to, by that queue’s own rule. The owner is notified, and the lead is on their list.
- The owner works it. They reply on WhatsApp, call, add notes, set the value and move the lead along its stages. Every message and call stays on the lead.
- It ends as Won or Lost. Moving a lead to Lost asks for a reason, such as Price or No response, so you can see why ad chats do not turn into sales.
How to set it up in SautiDesk
- Be on SautiDesk Pro. Leads are part of SautiDesk Pro.
- Connect your WhatsApp Business number and point your ad at that number.
- Turn Sales on. Open Settings, then Sales, and switch Sales on.
- Open the Channels list. Go to Settings, then Sales, then Channels.
- Find the WhatsApp row.
- Switch on “New conversations on WhatsApp open a lead”. It is off until you turn it on.
- Choose the source these leads get, such as Facebook, Instagram or WhatsApp.
- Put your sales team on the queue your WhatsApp channel routes to. They are the people who receive these leads.
What an agent does with the lead
The lead card shows the stage, a value in shillings, a hot, warm or cold temperature, the source, the owner and any tags. An agent can change the stage, value, temperature, source and tags. If a lead has no owner, anyone who can see it can press Take it.
- Stage: move the lead from New through the stages you set to Won or Lost. Logging an activity such as Offer sent can move it for you.
- Value: type the amount the customer is likely to spend, in shillings.
- Temperature: mark it hot, warm or cold as the conversation develops.
- Source: if you run Facebook and Instagram ads into one number and the customer tells you where they saw the ad, set the source to Facebook or Instagram on the lead card.
- Follow-up: set a time for the next step. SautiDesk offers In 1 hour, Tomorrow 9:00 and In 3 days, or a time you pick. The owner is reminded before it is due, when it is due and if it goes overdue, and supervisors are told if it stays overdue.
- Calls and messages: what you send from the lead is recorded on that lead, beside the customer’s earlier chat.
When a chat joins an existing lead
A contact has one open lead at a time. If a customer who already has an open lead messages again, the chat joins that lead and its owner is notified, so no second lead appears. A customer who bought before, and whose last lead is closed, gets a new lead the next time they message from an ad. Leads open only while Sales is on and the plan is Pro, and a contact you have blocked opens nothing.
What Meta charges for ad chats
Meta charges per delivered message, and it does not charge for messages customers send to you. When a customer reaches you from a Click to WhatsApp ad, Meta charges nothing for your replies and templates for up to 7 days. After that window, the usual rates apply: a marketing template to a Kenyan number is $0.0225 (KES 2.92) and a utility template is $0.004 (KES 0.52), at Meta’s Rest of Africa rate read on 10 November 2026. SautiDesk adds nothing per WhatsApp message. The full rate card and the 24-hour window are in WhatsApp Business API pricing in Kenya.
Ad chats on one phone and in SautiDesk
| On one phone | In SautiDesk | |
|---|---|---|
| Who can answer | The main phone and up to four linked devices | Every person on the team, from their own screen |
| Owner | No named owner on a chat | The lead has an owner, or someone on the queue takes it |
| Next step | Whoever remembers | A follow-up with a time that reminds its owner |
| Stage and value | In someone’s head or a spreadsheet | On the lead card, in shillings |
| Outcome | Not recorded | Won, or Lost with a reason |
| When a person leaves | The chats go with the phone | The chats stay with the business |
A worked month for three people on Pro
Take a sales team of three on SautiDesk Pro. In a month, 150 people message the business number from the ad. The team replies to all of them inside the free 7-day ad window. Sixty customers go quiet, and after the window closes the team sends each of them one follow-up template, which Meta classes as marketing.
| Line | Count | Charged by | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| SautiDesk Pro | 3 people | SautiDesk | 3 × KES 3,000 = KES 9,000 |
| SautiDesk charge per WhatsApp message | any number | SautiDesk | KES 0 |
| Replies to the 150 ad chats, inside 7 days | 150 chats | Meta | Free |
| Follow-up templates after the window (marketing) | 60 | Meta | 60 × $0.0225 = $1.35 (KES 175) |
| Total | About KES 9,175 |
The ad spend you pay Meta to run the ad is separate and is not in this table. Every one of the 150 chats has an owner and a next step on a lead, where on one phone each would depend on someone remembering to reply. The pricing calculator works out the SautiDesk total for any team size.
For the wider picture of a shared number, read how to run WhatsApp customer service as a team. If your team still shares one phone, see five signs you have outgrown the WhatsApp Business app.
Turn every WhatsApp ad chat into a lead with an owner on SautiDesk Pro for KES 3,000 per person a month, listed on the pricing page.
Exchange rate used on this page, as of 10 November 2026: 1 US dollar = KES 129.93. Meta bills in dollars, so the shilling figures move with the rate.