How to advertise your business on WhatsApp

By ADA Marketing Division, Rundu, Namibia. Reviewed 5 October 2026.

1. Set up a WhatsApp Business profile

WhatsApp describes the business profile as a place for your logo, business description, hours and website. The Business app is free to use. Use the business name customers already know, and the one sentence that says what you sell and where. The free setup guide covers the rest.

2. Advertise on WhatsApp Status

A Status update disappears after 24 hours, and you decide who can see it, according to WhatsApp. That makes it good for things that change: today's stock, a price, a deadline. You can also share items from your catalogue to Status. Check your Status privacy setting so the customers you want to reach are included, and ask happy customers to save your number.

One post, one photo, one price, one instruction: “WhatsApp me to order.”

3. Groups: be useful before you sell

Groups for your town, school, church or buyers can bring customers, but they belong to other people. Our advice:

• Read the rules and ask the admin before posting an advert.
• Post something useful with your price and how to contact you, not a poster every day.
• Never add people to your own group without asking them first.
• Answer questions in the group even when nobody is buying.

The risk is real. WhatsApp's guidelines name “repeated unwanted contact” as spam, and say users may not use bulk messaging or automation to harm WhatsApp or its users. Its business policy says people can block or report a business, and that WhatsApp may limit the messages a business can send based on that feedback.

4. Broadcasts: only to people who said yes

WhatsApp describes Business Broadcasts as private one-to-one messages sent to many people at once, with scheduling and analytics. Its business policy says you may message people only if they gave you their number and agreed to receive messages from you. So build the list honestly:

• Ask at the counter and on Status: “Reply YES for our weekly specials.”
• Keep a note of who agreed, and when.
• Stop at once for anyone who asks.
• Send rarely: once or twice a month, with something worth reading.

WhatsApp sets limits on broadcasts and can change them, so check its Help Centre for the current figure and do not rely on a number from an article, including this one.

5. Add a catalogue

WhatsApp says you can add up to 500 items to a catalogue, with up to 10 photos or videos for each, and sort them into collections. You can share one item or a whole collection in a chat or on Status, and hide an item that is out of stock. Put a price on everything, so people who message already know what you charge.

6. Labels, quick replies, greeting and away messages

• Labels let you organise and filter chats. Use four: New, Quoted, Paid, Follow up.
• Quick replies are shortcuts for answers you give often: price, location, hours, how to pay.
• A greeting message welcomes a new customer automatically.
• An away message answers outside your business hours and says when you will reply.

Fast, clear replies matter more than any of the above. If enquiries come and nobody buys, start there.

7. A link people can tap to start a chat

WhatsApp's own advice is to put your chat link in social media bios and post captions, and a QR code on signage, packaging and receipts. The WhatsApp buttons on this site work the same way: one tap opens a chat with the first line already typed. Use a different first line for each place you put the link, for example one for Facebook and one for a flyer. Then the first message tells you where the person found you.

8. What to post, and how often

Our suggestion for a small shop, to adjust from your own results:

9. Count the enquiries

Each new chat, ask “How did you find us?” and tick it on a sheet: Status, group, Facebook, a friend, a flyer, other. Add a label for the source. At the end of the month, count. Keep what brings customers and drop the rest. How to tell which marketing is working.

10. When to add paid adverts

When these are working and you want more people than they bring. WhatsApp lists adverts on Facebook and Instagram that open a WhatsApp chat as part of its Business app. Our campaigns can be set up that way, from N$1,499.99. Advertising campaigns, or try the planner.