Guide · Ads · For the owner who runs Meta ads and wants WhatsApp promotions in the same campaign

WhatsApp promotions inside your Meta ad campaign: the marketing messages placement and who it can reach

Meta now lets a business add WhatsApp promotions to an ordinary Ads Manager campaign, as one more placement beside Facebook and Instagram. Meta's AI then decides, person by person, whether an ad or a WhatsApp message is more likely to work. Here is what Meta's own pages say it needs, who can receive the messages, and who answers the replies.

Published 7 October 2026

One campaign, ads and WhatsApp messages

Meta's Business Help Center describes marketing messages as a placement in Ads Manager. When a campaign has a traffic, leads or sales objective, WhatsApp promotions can be added alongside the ad placements, using the same creative, setup and budget. Meta says its AI then delivers an ad or a marketing message to each person, whichever is more likely to get the action the campaign is after.

What it needs: A WhatsApp Business account connected to the business portfolio, and a messaging customer base: the list of people who agreed to receive promotions. Eligible businesses see a prompt in Ads Manager's Account Overview that starts a guided setup.
What a message can be: Text, a photo, a video or a carousel, with buttons. Meta adds AI tools that can change the tone of the text, and can show products from the catalog that each customer is most likely to want.
How often: Meta says it has controls so people do not get several promotions at once, and that only one message can be sent to the same phone number every three days.
What it reports: Read rates, link clicks and cost per click, in the Campaigns tab of Ads Manager.

Meta notes the placement may not be available in every country yet. A campaign can leave it out by unticking it in the placement options.

The messaging customer base

Unlike an ad, a promotion can only go to someone who agreed to receive it. Meta's pages call that list the messaging customer base, and say it should include everyone who subscribed to the business's marketing, whether they agreed on WhatsApp, by email, on the website, in the shop or anywhere else. One base serves every campaign. A group with several brands needs one base if the parent company collects consent, and one per brand if each brand collects its own. Meta lists four ways to build it:

Sign-up inside Meta's apps: An option in Ads Manager that asks people who interact with the business on Facebook, Instagram or WhatsApp to agree to promotions, and adds them to the base.
Contacts from WhatsApp messages already sent: A setting that adds everyone the business sent a marketing, utility or login-code message in the past 15 days, then new contacts every day.
Contacts from website and app events: A setting that adds contacts from the events the business already sends to Meta from its website or systems, updated daily.
A customer list: An upload in Ads Manager's Audiences tab, with a column marking who agreed. Lists made before the placement was switched on have to be uploaded again.

Our reading: two of those switches are a promise

Meta's page says that turning on the sync from WhatsApp messages represents that every one of those contacts agreed to promotions, and the setting that adds everyone with a phone number in a customer list means the business agrees they all did. A customer who only received an order update or a login code may never have said yes to offers. Check how each contact agreed before switching either on.

Who receives the message

Meta's targeting article says everyone in the messaging customer base is the audience for the messages by default. The campaign's audience settings then apply to ads and messages together:

Audience controls: Hard limits: locations, a minimum age, custom audiences to exclude, and languages.
Audience suggestions: A starting point Meta may go beyond when that is likely to perform better, though only people in the customer base can receive a message.
Advantage+ audience: Meta's AI finds the audience using past conversions and interactions with earlier ads and messages, and stays within the customer base for messages by default. A business that cares more about reaching one specific group can switch back to the original audience options.

The opt-in rules that decide who may be in the base are in the opt-in guide, and Meta's sign-up link that adds people to it in the in-app sign-up guide.

Replies, and working with an agency

A promotion on WhatsApp invites a reply. Meta's product page lists three ways to handle them: Meta Business Agent answering with AI, Inbox in Meta Business Suite for a team answering by hand, or the routing of a provider the business already uses. For Inbox, Meta's steps are: in Meta Business Suite go to Settings, then Accounts, then WhatsApp accounts, choose the account, click Assign people, switch on Messages for each person and click Assign. Replies then appear under the WhatsApp tab in Inbox.

A business can let an agency send these messages, but Meta says the business has to build the messaging customer base itself; the agency cannot upload it. The business then shares the WhatsApp Business account and the base with the agency's business portfolio, under Data Sources and then Messaging customer bases in Meta Business Suite's settings.

How Meta's AI agent answers on WhatsApp is in the Meta Business Agent guide, the limit on promotions each person receives in the per-person limit guide, and Meta's separate sending route for promotions in the second route guide.

Questions

Can we send WhatsApp promotions from Ads Manager?

Yes, where Meta offers it. Its Business Help Center describes marketing messages as a placement that can be added to campaigns with a traffic, leads or sales objective, alongside Facebook and Instagram ads, using the same creative and budget.

Who can receive a WhatsApp promotion from an Ads Manager campaign?

Only people in the business's messaging customer base, which Meta says must contain only people who agreed to receive its marketing. Unlike an ad, a promotion cannot go to anyone outside it.

Does Meta decide whether a customer gets an ad or a WhatsApp message?

Yes. Meta's pages say its AI delivers an ad or a marketing message to each person, whichever is more likely to get the campaign's desired action, within the audience settings the business chooses.

How often can one customer get a WhatsApp promotion from these campaigns?

Meta's Business Help Center says only one message can be sent to the same phone number every three days, and that it has controls so people do not get several promotions at once.

Can our agency upload our customer list for WhatsApp promotions?

No. Meta says the business has to build its messaging customer base itself, then share it and the WhatsApp Business account with the agency's business portfolio.

Sources

Meta for Business: Marketing messages, read 7 October 2026.
Meta Business Help Center: About marketing messages as a placement in Ads Manager, read 7 October 2026.
Meta Business Help Center: How targeting works for marketing messages, read 7 October 2026.
Meta Business Help Center: About messaging customer base, read 7 October 2026.
Meta Business Help Center: How to build your messaging customer base, read 7 October 2026.
Meta Business Help Center: Set up reply management for marketing messages in Inbox, read 7 October 2026.
Meta Business Help Center: Marketing messages as an agency, read 7 October 2026.

More plain-language notes like this one are on the guides page.

Want every chat in one place you own?

We set up a business's WhatsApp number on a system its team runs, so every customer conversation sits in one place the business owns. A short call is the easiest way to see how that would work for you.

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