A customer taps your Instagram ad at 10:40 pm and types "price?". Nobody replies until 11 the next morning. By then they've asked two other businesses, and one of them answered in a minute. Most WhatsApp leads aren't lost because the product was wrong. They're lost because the reply was late, or the follow-up never happened.
WhatsApp automation for business fixes exactly that. It answers the first message instantly, asks the questions a salesperson would ask, sends each chat to the right person and follows up when a customer goes quiet. This guide explains what that looks like in practice, the automations worth setting up first, and three complete workflows you can copy.
What WhatsApp automation means, in plain language
An automation is a rule: when something happens, do something. In Mywa, every automation is one trigger followed by any number of steps.
Triggers: what starts it
- A message: a customer's first message ever, any message, a keyword like "price", a reply to one of your campaigns, or a button they tapped
- A change: a tag added, a chat assigned, a status changed, a lead's quality rising to hot
- Time: no reply for a while, the 24-hour window about to close, or a fixed schedule
- Another app: a Shopify order, a form on your website, or anything that can call a webhook
Steps: what happens
- Send a message, an approved template, a file, or a question with tappable buttons
- Wait for a reply, a set time, or for something to happen
- Branch on the answer, a keyword, business hours or any contact detail
- Do: add a tag, assign the chat, save an answer to the contact, leave a note, alert the team, add a row to Google Sheets, or call a webhook
You can build an automation as a simple list (When… → Only if… → Then…) or as a visual canvas once it has more than one path. It's the same automation either way.
Before and after automation
| Without automation | With Mywa automation | |
|---|---|---|
| Ad lead at 10:40 pm | Waits until morning | Greeted and asked a question in seconds |
| "What's the price?" | Someone types the same answer for the 40th time | Answered instantly, chat tagged as a price enquiry |
| Who handles the chat | Whoever notices it first, or nobody | Shared out across the team in turn |
| Customer goes quiet | Forgotten | Gets a nudge a day later, then tagged cold |
| Campaign replies | Lost in a busy inbox | "Interested" replies go straight to sales |
| Customer says STOP | Someone has to remember to remove them | Opted out automatically |
The WhatsApp automations to set up first
You don't start from a blank page. Mywa has ready-made automations for the most common jobs. Pick the closest one and change the words.
1. Auto-greet ad leads
When someone messages from a Facebook or Instagram click-to-WhatsApp ad, reply straight away, tag them as an ad lead and alert the team. A fast first reply is the single biggest win in WhatsApp automation.
2. Qualify leads with one question
Ask one qualifying question, such as "What are you looking for, and by when?" Customers who answer get tagged qualified and assigned to a salesperson. Those who don't get one polite nudge, then get tagged cold. There are three ways to ask:
- Typed reply: the customer answers in their own words.
- Buttons: three tappable options such as I want to buy, Just browsing and Need support. No typing, so more people answer. Buyers go to sales, browsers get tagged, support requests go to support.
- AI: AI reads the answer and sorts it into real enquiry, just curious, existing customer or not a lead.
3. Away message and quick acknowledgment
Outside business hours, an away message tells customers when you're back, without repeating itself on every message. During the day, a quick "Got it, someone will be with you shortly" goes out if nobody has replied within two minutes, so no customer feels ignored.
4. Keyword FAQ replies
When a message contains words like "price", "timings" or "location", send the answer instantly. Most businesses get the same five questions all day, and this takes them off your team's plate.
5. Round-robin chat assignment
New conversations are shared across your team in turn, and each person is alerted when a chat is theirs. Every customer gets one owner, and nobody answers the same chat twice. If you need it, keyword routing sends billing or payment questions to the people who handle them.
6. Follow-ups and the 24-hour window
WhatsApp only lets you send free-form messages within 24 hours of the customer's last message. Two automations work around that:
- No-reply follow-up: if a customer goes quiet for a day after you've written, send a template nudge. Still silent two days later? Tag them cold.
- Window-closing alert: an hour before the window closes on an unanswered chat, alert whoever owns it, while a normal reply still gets through.
Every send step also asks what to do if the window has already closed: skip it, stop, or send an approved template instead.
7. Campaign reply routing
When someone replies "yes" or "interested" to a campaign, tag them and assign them to sales. Any other reply goes to the team as usual. Your best campaign responses never sit unread.
8. STOP and START opt-outs
Customers who reply STOP are opted out and told how to come back. Those who reply START are opted back in. Opted-out contacts are skipped by every campaign and automation. This protects your number's quality rating, which in turn decides how far your messaging limit can grow.
9. Tags, lead scoring and your other tools
Automations can tag contacts, save their answers to contact fields, and add rows to Google Sheets or send them to your CRM through a webhook. Every conversation also gets an automatic lead score: hot, warm, cold or junk. An automation can alert sales the moment a lead turns hot.
Three WhatsApp workflows you can copy
Workflow 1: Ad lead → greeting → qualification → sales alert
- Trigger: first message from a click-to-WhatsApp ad.
- Send: "Hi {{name}}, thanks for reaching out! What are you looking for?" with buttons I want to buy · Just browsing · Need support.
- Wait for a tap, up to 2 hours.
- Branch:
- I want to buy → tag qualified, assign to sales (round-robin), alert the salesperson: "Ready to buy: {{name}}".
- Just browsing → tag browsing and send your catalogue link.
- Need support → assign to support.
- No answer → send one nudge, then tag no-response.
- Optional: report qualified leads to Meta, so your ads find more people like them (more on this below).
Workflow 2: "Price" keyword → instant answer → tag → follow-up
- Trigger: a message containing "price", "cost", "rate" or "kitna".
- Send your price list or a short answer with a link.
- Tag the contact price-enquiry.
- Wait for a reply, up to a day.
- If they reply: assign to sales. If they don't: send a follow-up template the next day, such as a limited-time offer or "Any questions I can help with?"
Workflow 3: Campaign reply "Interested" → salesperson → follow-up sequence
- Trigger: a reply to your campaign.
- Branch on keywords: "yes", "interested" or a tap on your I'm interested button.
- Tag interested, assign to a salesperson and alert them.
- Wait for the salesperson to reply. If the chat is still unanswered an hour before the 24-hour window closes, alert them again.
- If the customer goes quiet: send a template nudge after a day. If they're still silent, tag cold for a re-engagement campaign. Mywa can send cold leads a template every Monday and tag the ones who write back.
Guardrails that stop automation turning into spam
Automation done badly gets numbers blocked. Mywa has guardrails that apply to every automation, all the time:
- One automated reply per message. Two automations never both answer the same message.
- Per-contact caps. A limit on how many automated messages any one customer can get per hour and per day, across all automations.
- Quiet hours. Automated messages are held until morning instead of arriving at 2 am.
- Opt-outs are respected. Anyone who opted out is skipped.
- Humans can take over. An automation can stop when an agent replies, and you can pause automations for any one contact from the chat.
- Test before you publish. The test panel runs the automation against a real contact without sending anything, and shows the exact text each step would send.
AI steps have limits too. A reply drafted by AI is saved for a person to review, not sent automatically, unless you add a send step. If the material you gave it doesn't cover the question, the AI says so and hands the chat to a person.
Teach Meta which leads are real
By default, Meta optimises click-to-WhatsApp ads for taps, which is how a campaign fills up with people who just say "hi". If you connect Meta's Conversions API, a Mywa automation can report each qualified lead back to Meta. Meta then looks for more people like your real customers, not more people who tap.
You can also A/B test your opening message. Send half your ad leads one greeting and half another, and Mywa tells you which one got more replies.
How to tell if your automations are working
Track a handful of numbers before and after you switch automations on:
- First reply time: how long an ad lead waits for an answer
- Qualified leads: how many answered your qualifying question
- Follow-ups completed: chats that got a nudge, not silence
- Conversions: leads that bought, booked or paid
In Mywa, add a Goal reached step wherever an automation has done its job. The automation's Runs tab then shows what share of people reached the goal and how long it took, and lets you follow any single customer's path step by step.
Turn on your first automation
Start with one: auto-greet ad leads if you run ads, or the away message if you don't. It takes a few minutes, and every customer gets an answer from then on. Then add qualification, then follow-ups.
All of this is included in Mywa at ₹999/month, with up to 5 team members and Meta's message rates passed on at zero markup. Once leads are flowing, read how Mywa scores and prioritises WhatsApp leads so your team calls the best ones first, or try the live demo with sample data.