Lead Source for WhatsApp is in beta, and sign-ups are open. It turns the WhatsApp chats your website starts into leads, each tied to the channel, campaign and pages behind the visit, in the same dashboard as your form leads.

The public release is close. Before it ships, we want more businesses that sell over WhatsApp running it on real traffic. Sign up for the beta on the Lead Source for WhatsApp page.

What does Lead Source for WhatsApp do?

It connects each WhatsApp enquiry to the person who sent it, the source of their visit, and what they read on your site before opening the chat.

So a report that used to say “12 people clicked WhatsApp” can say something more useful: this person came from a Google Ads campaign, read your pricing page and two case studies, then sent you a message. One of those sentences can settle a budget meeting. The other one starts it.

Why count the message instead of the tap?

Because the message is the enquiry. A tap on a WhatsApp button means the app opened on someone’s phone. Whether they typed anything is a separate question, and the button was never in a position to answer it.

Lead Source for WhatsApp waits for the message. When it arrives, it becomes a verified WhatsApp lead carrying the channel, campaign, landing page and page journey of the visit behind it.

The visitor who opens the chat and thinks better of it stays out of your conversion count. So does the bot.

What is in the beta?

  • Chats counted as conversions. A lead is created when a real customer message arrives, so taps and opened chats are left out.
  • WhatsApp leads beside form leads. They sit in your existing Lead Source account, filed under the same channels as your form enquiries.
  • A source on every matched chat. Google Ads, organic search, direct, referrals and any other channel that sent the visit, whenever the journey can be matched.
  • The pages before the chat. The landing page and every page read before the conversation moved over to WhatsApp.
  • The person who wrote. Each lead uses the identity WhatsApp provides for the sender, so nobody has to guess who was behind a button tap.
  • Repeat messages kept together. Several messages from the same customer stay one enquiry and one person, instead of multiplying into several.
  • WhatsApp across Analytics. WhatsApp conversions feed your wider lead and attribution reports, next to everything else.
  • Tracking per website. You choose which sites and which WhatsApp numbers Lead Source tracks.
  • An honest gap when there is one. A chat that cannot be matched to a visit still counts as a genuine conversion. Lead Source marks it Unattributed instead of inventing a source.
  • Message contents left alone. Lead Source uses the signals it needs for identity and attribution. It does not store what your customer wrote.

What happens when a chat cannot be matched to a visit?

It still counts. Some chats never pass through a tracked visit: the customer who saved your number last spring, a forwarded message, a QR code nobody tracked. Each arrives as a confirmed WhatsApp lead, marked Unattributed.

The tempting move is to credit those chats to whichever campaign looks most likely. It makes the report tidier and the spending decisions worse, so Lead Source leaves the source blank and tells you so.

Who is the beta for?

Businesses where WhatsApp is a real sales channel and the website sends people to it. In practice that means a WhatsApp Business number, a WhatsApp button or link on your site, and marketing spend you would like to judge on the customers it brings.

If you take enquiries through forms as well, run both. A form lead and a WhatsApp lead from the same campaign land in the same report, and the campaign gets credit for each. Forms, WhatsApp, the website journey and the traffic source, joined up around the person who actually got in touch.

How do I join the beta?

Use the sign-up form on the Lead Source for WhatsApp page. Give us your name, email and the site you want tracked. We switch WhatsApp on for your account, then connect your WhatsApp Business number with you.

If you are new to Lead Source, start free and install the snippet today. Your forms are tracked from the first visit, and WhatsApp joins them once the beta is on for your account.

Two guides cover the ground around it. WhatsApp conversions in Google Ads explains importing chats as offline conversions, and WhatsApp lead tracking compares the manual methods.