Most of the local clients I work with (clinics, repair services, small shops) get almost all their leads from a WhatsApp button or a tap to call link, not from forms. In GA4 I usually set a click event on wa.me and tel: links and mark it as a key event, then import it to Google Ads. The problem is a click is not a real lead, people tap and never send the message. Some clients see 40 clicks and maybe 10 actual chats. How are you handling this? Do you just optimize for clicks and accept the noise, use call tracking numbers, or something else like asking the client to log real leads and uploading them as offline conversions? Curious what actually worked for small budgets.
For WhatsApp a prefilled message helps a lot. Put a short code in the wa.me text, different for ads, the map listing and the site, and then you can count actual chats per source on the client's phone instead of guessing from clicks. It's manual, but even a weekly count tells you more than 40 taps.
Clicks are a weak signal, so I'd add one cheap qualifier on top of them. A short thank-you or auto-reply message, or asking callers a single question like 'how did you find us?', lets the client tag each enquiry as real, wrong fit, or spam. Once a month, total the tagged leads against the click count to get a click-to-lead ratio per channel, and use that ratio to judge the ads rather than raw clicks. If a client is on a tiny budget, that simple tally is usually enough before paying for call tracking software.
Thanks both, the prefilled code idea is a good one. I would keep the codes short and boring, like AD1 or MAP1, because people sometimes edit the text before sending and a long code gets deleted. A monthly tally of tagged leads against clicks also gives you a ratio to set a target cost per real chat instead of per click.