Conversa Labs Help Center
en
Language
pt_BR Portuguese (Brazil) en English es Spanish

Ad leads: yours vs third-party (external)

Open in
View as Markdown Open in ChatGPT Open in Claude
Conversa Labs

Conversa Labs

Last updated on Jul 19, 2026

Overview

In the Ads Manager Leads tab, every Click-to-WhatsApp (CTWA) ad click becomes a lead attributed to its source campaign. But not every lead there is yours: if your connected number clicks another advertiser's ad, the pre-filled message goes out from your number and the platform still receives the ad attribution — except it's the opposite of the lead you want.

To keep these apart, the platform classifies each lead as Yours or External:

  • Yours — a contact clicked your ad and messaged you. A real lead.
  • External — it was your connection that clicked a third-party ad (or the ad isn't one of your synced ads). It's kept for reference, but it's not a lead of yours.

External leads are not counted in Total, ROAS, and they don't fire a conversion (CAPI) back to Meta. That way the dashboard reflects only your real results.

Prerequisites

  • The Growth Ads module enabled on the account.
  • Nothing to set up: the classification is automatic and retroactive (existing leads were reclassified).

How the platform decides (two signals)

  1. Direction — if the ad message was outbound (your number initiated the click), the lead is marked external (reason self_click). A legitimate Click-to-WhatsApp ad is always inbound (the contact messages you).
  2. Ownership — if the ad (source_id) is not among your synced ads, it belongs to another advertiser and the lead is external (reason foreign_ad). If the account hasn't synced any ads yet, the platform gives the benefit of the doubt and keeps it as yours.

Step by step

  1. Open Ads Manager → Leads.
  2. Use the ownership tabs at the top of the list:
    • Yours (default) — only your real leads.
    • External — third-party ads your connection clicked.
    • All — both together.
  3. In the KPI row, the External number shows how many third-party clicks exist (outside Total).
  4. An external lead's row shows an External badge. Open the lead to see the detail panel: a banner explains why it's external (you clicked the ad, or the ad belongs to another advertiser) and reminds you it does not count in Total, ROAS or CAPI.

Settings & options

  • Fix it manually: when your ad account is not synced, auto-detection can't always tell your ad from a third-party's. Open the lead and use Mark as mine or Mark as third-party — tick Apply to every lead from this ad to correct the whole ad at once.
  • Sync your ad account to make auto-detection accurate: ownership is then checked automatically (an ad that isn't yours becomes external on its own).
  • External leads are still kept (conversation, contact and attribution preserved). Nothing is deleted.

Use cases

  • Clean up the dashboard: view only your real leads under Yours to measure ROAS without noise.
  • Audit team clicks: under External, see which competitor ads your number clicked.

Tips, limits & best practices

  • Sync your ad account to improve the ownership signal — without synced ads, the platform can't tell "your ad" from "a third-party ad" and keeps it as yours.
  • An external lead never promotes the contact to Lead or fires a conversion to Meta.

Troubleshooting

  • One of your leads shows as external? Check that the ad is synced (ad account connected) and that the conversation's first message was really inbound.
  • Want to see everything together? Use the All tab.

See also