My ad opens a WhatsApp chat: how do I work out the cost per conversation and the cost per real order?
Run the numbers twice. First with conversations started as the conversions, which gives cost per conversation. Then with the orders you actually closed in WhatsApp, which gives cost per order. The ad platform only sees the chat begin, so the second figure has to come from your own count.
Why you need two figures, not one
In click-to-WhatsApp ads, the conversion the platform records is someone tapping and starting a chat. Everything after that, from asking about price and size to confirming an order or going quiet, happens inside WhatsApp where the platform cannot see. Stop at cost per chat and the campaign looks very cheap; stop at cost per order and you cannot tell whether the problem is the ad or the way chats are handled.
Example: 160 chats and 32 orders
A campaign was shown 40,000 times and got 800 clicks for a spend of 1,200 AED. The report shows 160 conversations started, and your WhatsApp history shows 32 confirmed orders from those chats.
With chats as conversions: cost per chat 7.5, and a click-to-chat conversion rate of 20%.
With confirmed orders as conversions: cost per order 37.5, and a click-to-order rate of 4%.
A third run: put the 160 chats in the clicks field and the 32 orders in conversions, and conversion rate reads 20%, the share of chats that became orders.
In that third run, the CPC box shows 7.5, which is really cost per chat, and the CTR of 0.4% means nothing because chats are not clicks. Use this run to read conversion rate only, and label it chat to order.
What the three figures tell you
- Cost per chat measures the ad: what you pay for someone to start talking to you.
- The share of chats that become orders measures what happens after the ad: reply speed, clear pricing, the size or colour being in stock.
- Cost per order combines the two: cost per chat divided by the share of chats that close, here 7.5 over 20%, which is the 37.5 above. It is the figure to compare with your profit per order.
If cost per order rises, check first which of the two moved. If cost per chat held steady and the closing rate fell, fix the way chats are answered before you touch the ad.
The steps
- Copy impressions, clicks, spend and conversations started from the ad report.
- Enter them in the Campaign performance calculator and read CPA as cost per chat, then press 'Copy result'.
- Count the confirmed orders from that period's chats and run it again with them in place of chats.
- Compare cost per order with your profit per order, then use the ROAS calculator if you want return on ad spend.
For links outside ad platforms, such as a bio link or a ready-made message a customer sends, you can create a chat link with pre-filled text using the WhatsApp link generator, so the first message tells you which link the customer came from.
Common questions
How do I count orders that came from the ad specifically?
The calculator cannot know that. A practical way is a distinctive opening message per campaign, or logging each chat's source in your sheet when it starts.
A customer ordered two weeks after the chat. Do I count it?
Pick a fixed rule and write it down, such as counting orders within a set period after the chat started, and apply it every month so comparisons stay fair.