Click-to-WhatsApp ads were set up by the book. The WhatsApp platform couldn't pass Meta the click identifier it needs, so Meta couldn't tell which conversations came from which ads.
Decision
Rather than keep trying to get the signal out of WhatsApp, send the qualified-lead signal to Meta as offline conversions, matched on hashed phone and email, and gate the purchase event behind a confirmed sale so Meta only learns from real ones.
What it cost me
My first instinct was one consolidated dataset. The platform's limits ruled it out, so the evidence decided.
A call I'd make differently
I trusted Click-to-WhatsApp to tell Meta which chats became leads, because the setup matched the documentation. It never did. Now I prove a signal arrives end to end before any budget depends on it.
