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Using Your CTWA Custom Audience in Meta Ads Manager

After creating your Custom Audience, the next step is using it inside a Click-to-WhatsApp advertising campaign.

This step tells Meta to show your ads only to people who have already chatted with your business.

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Why This Step Matters

Using a Custom Audience ensures your ads reach warm leads instead of completely new users.

This helps you:

  • Focus your advertising budget on high-intent users

  • Show more relevant messages

  • Continue existing conversations

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Step-by-Step: Selecting Your Custom Audience While Creating an Ad

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Step 1: Open Meta Ads Manager

  1. Go to facebook.com/adsmanagerarrow-up-right.

  2. Click the green “Create” button to start a new campaign.

  3. Choose your campaign objective — for CTWA campaigns, this will usually be:

    • “Engagement” → “Send Message”, or

    • “Sales” → “WhatsApp” (if available in your account).

Tip: The “Send Message” objective is most commonly used for Click-to-WhatsApp ads.

Click Continue to move ahead.

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Step 2: Set Up Your Campaign Basics

Give your campaign a clear name so it’s easy to identify later. Example:

  • CTWA Retargeting - Reconnected Leads - Oct 2025

  • WhatsApp Retargeting - Abandoned Chats

You can leave most campaign-level settings as default and click Next to move to the Ad Set section — where your targeting options live.

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Step 3: Go to the “Ad Set” Level

This is where you choose who will see your ad — your audience, placements, and schedule.

Under the section “Audience”, you’ll see several options:

  • Custom Audiences

  • Location

  • Age

  • Gender

  • Detailed Targeting

We’ll focus on the first one — Custom Audiences.

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Step 4: Select Your Custom Audience

  1. Click on the field labeled “Custom Audiences.”

  2. A dropdown list will appear with all your available audiences.

  3. Find and select the Custom Audience you created earlier — for example:

    • CTWA Leads - All Chats

    • WhatsApp Replied Last 60 Days

    • CTWA Product X Interested Users

Once selected, Meta automatically fills the targeting section with that audience.

Important:

  • You can select more than one audience if needed.

  • Make sure to exclude existing customers (if you have a separate audience for them) to avoid showing ads unnecessarily.

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Step 5: Refine Your Targeting (Optional)

You can still adjust location, age, and gender settings if needed — but usually, CTWA retargeting audiences are already specific enough.

Best Practice: Avoid narrowing your Custom Audience further unless you’re testing something specific (like region-based retargeting). The idea is to let Meta find everyone who matches your CTWA list.

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Step 6: Choose Your Ad Placements

Scroll down to the Placements section. Here, you can choose between:

  • Advantage+ Placements (recommended for most users)

  • Manual Placements (if you want to select platforms like Facebook Feed, Instagram Feed, or Stories manually).

For CTWA ads, both Facebook and Instagram placements work well, since they both support the “Send Message” → “WhatsApp” action.

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Step 7: Connect Your WhatsApp Business Account

In the Messaging Apps section, choose:

  • WhatsApp as the messaging destination.

  • Select your verified WhatsApp Business number connected via DoubleTick.

This ensures that when users click the ad, the chat opens in your official WhatsApp channel — where your DoubleTick automation, bot, or team can respond.

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Step 8: Review and Continue

After selecting your audience and ad destination:

  • Double-check your Custom Audience name.

  • Review your estimated reach — this helps confirm that Meta has successfully matched your uploaded contacts.

  • Click Next to move to the “Ad Level,” where you’ll set your ad creative (image, caption, and call-to-action).

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Real-World Example

A home service company receives many WhatsApp inquiries for cleaning services.

They upload these contacts as a Custom Audience.

Later, they run a retargeting ad saying:

“Need help with home cleaning this weekend? Tap to continue your WhatsApp conversation.”

When users click the ad, the same WhatsApp chat opens again.

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Final Summary

Across this guide series, you learned how CTWA Retargeting works step by step:

  1. Understanding CTWA Retargeting

  2. Using DoubleTick to capture WhatsApp leads

  3. Identifying the benefits of retargeting

  4. Creating a Custom Audience in Meta Ads Manager

  5. Using that audience in a Click-to-WhatsApp campaign

Together, these steps help businesses turn WhatsApp conversations into a structured retargeting strategy that keeps customers engaged and encourages them to return.

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