Open Automations in the left sidebar and pick the Capture tab, fourth along. Its subtitle is the whole idea — Entry links and QR codes that bring people into a conversation — each one tags where the contact came from. Behind each link is an ordinary automation: someone opens the chat, a welcome message goes out, and a tag naming the source is written onto the contact. Because it is an ordinary automation, everything the Workflows editor can do is available to it afterwards.
Creating a capture link
New capture link sits at the top right of the Capture links card, the first of the tab's two cards, and opens a short dialog. Fields further down fill themselves in from the first one, so work down the form in order.
Name the source
Source name is where the link will live, not what it does — the placeholder gives the idea: e.g. Packaging, Instagram bio, Storefront. Typing here also fills in the source tag below and, on a WhatsApp link, the code word, so start with this field.
Pick the channel
Channel lists your connected WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram accounts and nothing else — a Telegram or email account cannot carry a capture link. The channel decides the shape of the link you get. Pick a Facebook page or an Instagram account and a note appears under the picker saying what a first-time visitor needs for the link to count (see When a Messenger or Instagram link counts, below).
On WhatsApp, add the number and the code word
Choosing a WhatsApp account adds two fields no other channel shows: WhatsApp business number (digits only, with country code), used to build the wa.me link, and Code word, the message that link pre-fills. Create link stays disabled until both are filled. On Messenger and Instagram the Source name and the channel are all the link needs.
Check the tag (and the code word)
Source tag arrives derived from the source name: Instagram bio becomes the tag
src-instagram-bioand, on WhatsApp, the code wordINSTAGRAM-BIO. Both stay editable — but editing the source name again re-derives them and discards your edit, so settle the source name first and adjust them after.Write the greeting and create
Welcome message arrives with a default you can replace: Hi! 👋 Great to have you here. Tell me what you're looking for and I'll help right away. Click Create link and the automation is built, bound to the account you picked, and listed on the tab.
The toast that confirms the creation is also the warning: Capture link created — publish the automation to activate it. The link and the QR are real and shareable the moment they appear, but the flow behind them is a Draft — scan it now and nobody is greeted and nothing is tagged. Open it and press Set Live before that QR goes onto anything printed.
The link, the QR and the tag
Each capture link is a row in the card's list, under three columns: Name, with the channel's icon, Status, reading Live or Draft, and Link, written out in full. The buttons sit above the list and act on the row you select: Open takes you into its automation in the Workflows editor (double-clicking the row does the same), then Copy link, Download QR and Delete. The QR code itself is not shown on the page; you get it with Download QR. Before you have made any, the card reads No capture links yet. Create one and put it on your packaging, bio, or storefront.
| Channel | The link you get | What identifies the source |
|---|---|---|
| wa.me/<number>?text=<code word> | The code word itself, sent as the visitor's first message. | |
| Facebook (Messenger) | m.me/<page id>?ref=<ref> | A ref carried by the link. The visitor never sees or types it. |
| ig.me/m/<username>?ref=<ref> | The same ref, arriving in the Instagram inbox. The link is built from the account's username. |
The QR you download encodes exactly that link and nothing else — there is no redirect and no counting hop of ours in between. That is also why it cannot expire or be re-pointed later: it is not a short link we control, it is the chat address itself. Download QR saves it as a plain black-on-white PNG you can drop straight into artwork. The flip side of that simplicity: because the QR is the link, any change to the link means printing a new code.
The last step of the generated flow writes the Source tag onto the contact, so src-packaging and src-storefront become two things you can filter on in Contacts, build a segment from, or enrol a sequence with. That tag is how you tell one entry point from another later on — the tab itself keeps no scan count — so give each link its own tag even when two of them greet people identically.
Why WhatsApp is the one to think about
A Messenger or Instagram link carries a ref (a short reference code) made from the Source name: lower case, accents dropped, and anything other than a–z or 0–9 turned into a single dash, so Café — Sucursal Polanco becomes cafe-sucursal-polanco. That ref rides in the link itself, so the visitor never sees or types it. The Source tag keeps its accents; only the ref loses them. A Messenger or Instagram link made before the October 2026 update from a source name with accents carries a ref Meta drops, so delete it and create it again. WhatsApp has no such carrier, which is why only a WhatsApp link has a code word. The hint under Code word says what it is: The pre-filled message the link opens WhatsApp with. Sending it is what starts the automation. The wa.me link simply pre-fills the chat box with your code word, and that text — whatever the person leaves in the box — is what the trigger matches on.
Two things follow from the code word being an ordinary message. A code word that reads like a common phrase will fire the flow for people who never touched your link. And somebody who clears the pre-filled box before sending gets no greeting at all, because there is nothing left to match. Keep it short, distinctive and unlikely — the derived INSTAGRAM-BIO shape is a good default precisely because nobody types it by hand.
When a Messenger or Instagram link counts
A Messenger or Instagram link always opens the chat. Whether IcloneU learns which link the person used, and starts the link's flow, depends on what Meta passes on, and that depends on who is tapping.
- Someone who has written to you before. Tapping the link or scanning its QR starts the flow straight away; they don't need to send anything. A page or account connected before the October 2026 update starts receiving these taps once you create a capture link for it with New capture link, or when you reconnect it under Connections. A trigger you wire by hand in the Workflows editor doesn't do this preparation.
- Someone writing to a Facebook page for the first time. Meta passes the link on only when they tap Get Started. The note under Channel says so: A first-time visitor's link only counts when they tap Get Started. Creating this link adds that button to the page if it has none. A page that shows conversation starters instead keeps them, and a toast warns that first-time visitors may not be counted.
- Someone writing to an Instagram account for the first time. Meta passes the link on only when the account has conversation starters (the question chips Meta shows before a first message). The person then taps a starter or sends a message, and either one counts. Set them under Connections → the account → Settings → Conversation starters. When the account you pick has none, the note under Channel warns you: This account has no conversation starters, so a first-time visitor's link will not count. Instagram links work in the Instagram app only: opened on the web, the chat opens and the link isn't counted.
Three states that look broken and are not
- The pill says Draft. The flow exists but was never switched on. Press Open, then Set Live. Nothing behind the link runs until you do, and the link will not tell you — it opens the chat quite happily either way.
- The row shows a sentence instead of a link. It reads No channel bound yet — open the automation and pick one to get the link. There is no link to show because there is nothing to build one from. The wizard fills both in for you, so a row in this state is normally one you wired by hand in the Workflows editor: a Messenger or Instagram trigger with no account linked, or a WhatsApp trigger with no number saved. Open it, supply the missing half, and the link appears and Download QR works. The one case the wizard can't fill is an Instagram account whose name isn't a plain Instagram username (letters, digits, periods and underscores, up to 30): the link is built from the username, so that account gets no link.
- It greeted the first visitor and ignored the same person's second visit. That is the default: a capture link's trigger greets each person once. When someone comes back through the same link, the flow doesn't run again, so there is no second greeting and no second tag — on WhatsApp their code word goes to your Clone like any other message. Someone who used the link before the September 2026 update gets one more greeting, because their earlier visit left no record. If every visit should get the greeting, open the trigger and turn on Fire every time. A different capture link has its own trigger, so the same person arriving through another link is still greeted there. And when a visit gets no greeting even the first time, on WhatsApp the person may have cleared the code word before sending, or been mid-way through another flow that was waiting for their reply, which takes the message first. On Messenger or Instagram, a first-time visitor may not have been counted at all — see When a Messenger or Instagram link counts, above.
Capture lists every trigger in your account of the three entry-point kinds — QR code / ref link, Instagram referral link and WhatsApp link — not only the ones this wizard built. A flow you wired by hand in the Workflows editor shows up here too, with its link and its QR the same way. Delete removes more than the row: it deletes the whole automation behind it, after a confirmation that says so — This also deletes its workflow and can't be undone.
Capture forms: popups on your own store
The tab's second card, Capture forms, builds something different: a popup your online store shows its visitors — in the card's own words, Popups your store shows to turn visitors into WhatsApp contacts. Each form belongs to one connected store (Shopify, WooCommerce, Tiendanube or Wix), so connect the store under Automations → Connectors first: until then the editor has no store to offer. Members who can view automations but not manage them see the list without its buttons.
Create the form
Click New form. Give it an Internal name, pick a Template and pick the Store it runs on. Each template fills in the copy and the fields for you: Welcome discount asks for a phone number, Newsletter for an email, and WhatsApp handoff shows a single button that opens a WhatsApp chat with the WhatsApp number you enter, with a Prefilled message if you want one. A WhatsApp handoff form has no success screen, fields, coupon or flow, so of the next two steps only its Headline, Message and Button text apply.
Write it and choose what it asks for
Set the Headline, the Message, the Button text and what the visitor sees after signing up. Under Data capture, switch on Phone (WhatsApp), Email or both, and add a Consent text if you want a line of small print under the button. The preview beside the controls updates as you type.
Add a coupon and a flow, if you want them
Coupon (code pool) hands each person who signs up one code from a code pool and shows it on the success screen. Flow on sign-up runs one of your automations after every sign-up, with the details as variables —
{{rv_phone}},{{rv_email}},{{rv_form_name}}and, when a code was claimed,{{rv_issued_code}}— so it can tag the contact or send the code on WhatsApp. The list only offers automations that have an account picked. On a WhatsApp account the flow messages a phone number, never an email: the contact's own WhatsApp number, else the phone already on their contact record, else the phone typed in the form. When there is none — an email-only sign-up from someone with no number on file — the flow still runs, so its tags and fields still apply, but its messages are skipped and it can't enrol the person in a sequence. A number WhatsApp has already reported as not on WhatsApp is skipped the same way. So a flow that must reach everyone on WhatsApp needs Phone (WhatsApp) switched on, which makes the phone required.Set when it appears, save and publish
Under Appearance and rules, pick the Brand color, the Delay (seconds) before the popup opens, and Re-show after (days), how long it stays hidden after a visitor closes it. Click Save: a new form is a Draft. Select it in the list and click Publish to make it Live; Pause takes it down again.
Paste the store snippet once
In Automations → Connectors, select the store's connection, click Settings and copy the Capture forms for your store snippet. Its hint says where it goes: right before the closing
</body>tag of your store's theme (on Shopify: Online Store → Themes → Edit code →theme.liquid). One paste covers every form for that store: forms you publish, edit or pause later reach it from IcloneU within minutes, with no further theme changes.
- Who signs up. A sign-up finds the contact by phone number, then by email, or creates one — a WhatsApp contact when a phone was given — so it can land in Contacts before any conversation. The same phone number, or the same email when there is no phone, always gets the same code back from the pool.
- Who sees it. A visitor who signed up never sees that form again in that browser, and one who closed it doesn't see it again until the re-show days have passed (7 by default).
- What the list counts. Shown, Sign-ups and Conversion are totals since the form was created. On a WhatsApp handoff form a tap on the button counts as the sign-up, and no contact is created until the person actually writes to you.
- On Shopify, a sign-up also identifies the visitor to the browse pixel, when it is installed, so cart and browse recovery can follow them from that moment — see Adding the browse pixel to your Shopify store.
Show on exit intent instead of a delay replaces the delay, as the line under it says: the form waits for the mouse to leave through the top of the window, so visitors on a phone or tablet never see it. A WhatsApp handoff form saved without a number shows nothing. The flow picked in Flow on sign-up runs on every sign-up even while it is still a draft, so only link a flow that is ready. And the popup's input hints and its error line have no field in the editor: they follow the language of the store page — Spanish on a page in Spanish (“Tu WhatsApp (+52...)”, “Tu correo”, “Revisa tus datos e intenta de nuevo.”), English on any other (“Your WhatsApp (+1...)”, “Your email”, “Check your details and try again.”). When the theme declares no language, the visitor's browser language decides. The editor's preview shows them in your IcloneU language.
Frequently asked
Yes, and you should. Open takes you into the flow, where the greeting is an ordinary Send Message node you can rewrite, add to, or branch. Editing it never touches the link, so the printed code keeps working.
Only the ones that change the link itself, because the QR is the link: the WhatsApp number, the code word on a WhatsApp link, or the ref on a Messenger or Instagram link — and, on Messenger or Instagram, binding the automation to a different account, because the link is built from the account it is bound to. The welcome message, the source tag and everything else you add to the flow are all outside the link.
No. The three link shapes are three different doors, and the automation behind one is bound to a single connected account. Create one capture link per channel. If you want to compare them later, give each its own source tag.
In Contacts, like anyone else who messages you — a capture link does not create a separate list. What it adds is the source tag, which is what lets you tell a packaging scan from a storefront scan months later.
Last updated October 4, 2026 · Automations
