Can I Advertise in WhatsApp Status? Status Ads and Promoted Channels for Businesses
WhatsApp Status ads are bought in Meta Ads Manager and available in most Arab countries. How to buy them, sizes, privacy, and vs click-to-WhatsApp ads.
Yes. On 16 June 2025 Meta announced ads inside WhatsApp's Updates tab: ads between Status updates and promoted channels. You buy them in Meta Ads Manager by choosing the "WhatsApp Status" placement, and Meta's documentation says they are available worldwide except the European Union, the United Kingdom and a few countries including Syria. The ad sends the viewer to a WhatsApp chat with you or to your website.
01What is new in the Updates tab?
On 16 June 2025 Meta announced three monetization tools in WhatsApp's Updates tab, which about 1.5 billion people use every day according to Meta. Personal chats have not changed.
- Status ads: an image or video ad shown between people's Status updates that opens a chat with the business or its website.
- Promoted channels: the channel owner pays to have the channel shown higher in the channel directory.
- Channel subscriptions: followers pay a monthly subscription for exclusive content.
On privacy, Meta says messages, calls and personal Status updates remain encrypted, that it will not sell or share a user's phone number with advertisers, and that it will not use their messages or groups to choose ads. Targeting is based on country, city, language, followed channels and interaction with ads, plus information from Meta accounts if the user has linked them in Accounts Center.
Source: Meta's announcement of the Updates tab in WhatsApp, 16 June 2025.
02Are they available in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf?
Meta's Marketing API documentation states that Status ads are available worldwide except the European Union, the United Kingdom, Iran, Cuba, Syria, Russia and North Korea. That means Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan and Morocco are not on the excluded list.
The rollout reaches accounts gradually. The easiest way to check: create a campaign in Ads Manager, open manual placements and look for "WhatsApp Status". If it appears, it is available for your account.
Check the list before planning a regional campaign, as the documentation may change. And if your audience is in Europe or the UK, the ad will not be shown to them under the current documentation.
Source: Meta developer documentation "Ads in WhatsApp Status", September 2026.
03How do you buy a Status ad? Step by step
- Open Meta Ads Manager and choose your business portfolio.
- Choose the objective: awareness, traffic, engagement, leads or sales.
- Set the destination: a WhatsApp chat or your website. A website destination does not require a WhatsApp Business API account.
- Under placements choose "WhatsApp Status"; the documentation requires selecting Instagram Stories with it.
- Link your business WhatsApp number to the ad if the destination is a chat.
- Upload a vertical image or video, and write the text and call-to-action button.
- Set up the auto-reply and your team before publishing, then submit the ad for review.
| Item | Specification |
|---|---|
| Formats | A single image or single video; carousel and collection are not supported |
| Size | Vertical 9:16, ideally 1080 × 1920 |
| Destinations | A WhatsApp chat or a website |
| Pricing | An auction based on audience, country and competition, not a fixed price |
| Placement requirement | Select Instagram Stories along with WhatsApp Status |
Design the video to make sense without sound, and keep important text away from the edges of the screen so interface buttons do not cover it.
04Status ad or click-to-WhatsApp ad?
| Criterion | WhatsApp Status ad | Click-to-WhatsApp ad on Facebook and Instagram |
|---|---|---|
| Where it appears | Between Status updates inside WhatsApp | Feed, Stories and Reels on Facebook and Instagram |
| Viewer's mindset | Browsing friends' Status updates, close to chatting | Browsing content, then moving to WhatsApp |
| Formats | Vertical image or video only | More formats, including carousel |
| Track record | A new placement with less performance data | A placement proven over years |
| Free 72-hour window | Check your bill with this placement | Available if you reply within 24 hours |
The best approach in practice: do not pick one. Run the campaign across several placements, including WhatsApp Status, then compare cost per conversation and conversation quality for each placement after two weeks.
05Promoted channels: when are they worth it?
If you have a WhatsApp channel where you post offers and content, promotion lifts it higher in the channel directory, where people look for new channels. A channel is one-way communication: you post and followers read and react, and no one sees followers' phone numbers.
- Good for: stores with weekly offers, restaurants with a daily menu, trainers and educational content, local media.
- Not good for: customer service and one-to-one sales, which belong in chats.
- Measurement: the number of new followers, then how many of them actually messaged you from a link in the channel.
06After the tap: get the conversation ready
The ad brings the tap, and the conversation brings the sale. A customer who opened the chat from a Status update expects a reply within a minute; if you take an hour, they go back to their friends' updates and forget you.
In Modeer 360 an AI agent answers every chat from the ad within seconds in the customer's dialect and logs the customer in the CRM with the campaign tag, so you know which placement actually brought in sales.
Key takeaways
- Status ads are bought in Meta Ads Manager by choosing the "WhatsApp Status" placement.
- Meta's documentation lists them as available worldwide except Europe, the UK and specific countries including Syria.
- Formats: a vertical image or video, and the destination is a WhatsApp chat or a website.
- The ad's value is decided by how fast you reply inside the chat.
Frequently asked questions
Will ads appear inside my personal chats?
No. According to Meta, ads appear only in the Updates tab, and personal chats and calls remain encrypted and ad-free.
Does the advertiser get my number if I see their ad?
No. Meta says it does not sell users' numbers or share them with advertisers. The advertiser only knows your number if you message them yourself.
Do I need the WhatsApp Business API to advertise in Status?
If the destination is your website, an API account is not required according to the documentation. If the destination is a chat, you need a business WhatsApp number linked to the ad.
How much does a Status ad cost?
There is no fixed price; cost is set by auction based on audience, country, competition and objective. Start with a test budget and compare the cost per conversation with other placements.
- #WhatsApp Status ads
- #WhatsApp promoted channels
- #WhatsApp Updates tab
- #Advertising on WhatsApp for business