ikas WhatsApp Integration: Setup Through a Private App

Sending automated WhatsApp messages from an ikas store takes two connections: one for your store and one for your business number. On the store side, you create a private app in the ikas admin and enter its Client ID and Client Secret on the ikas screen in Pushouse; the webhooks that relay store events are created automatically. On the number side, Meta’s official setup window links your line to the WhatsApp Business Platform, with Pushouse’s partner Gupshup in between. With both links working, ikas stores get six flows: messages reporting each order stage, a shipping notice carrying the tracking number, WhatsApp cart recovery reminders, an alert when a sold-out item is restocked, a welcome for new members, and campaigns for groups you pick in Müşteri Kitleleri (customer audiences).

Before customers see any of these flows, three decisions are yours to make: where in the store you ask for WhatsApp consent, which flows open first, and which rules your template texts follow. Knowing what each decision depends on, and which ikas screens to look at, also tells you which of ikas’s own cart, stock and SMS automations to keep and which to hand over to WhatsApp.

Messages your store starts on its own are bound by two sets of rules at the same time. The first comes from WhatsApp. Its Business Messaging Policy names two conditions: the number reached you from the customer, and the customer told you they agree to hear from you later. Because the policy makes no exception by topic, order and shipping notifications depend on that agreement as well. Under the policy, deciding how consent is gathered, and keeping that method lawful, is the business’s responsibility alone.

The second is Turkish law. The Regulation on Commercial Communication and Commercial Electronic Messages requires the recipient’s consent before a business sends messages that promote or market its goods and services (article 5). Notifications tied to a purchase, such as order confirmation, shipping and delivery, need no prior consent, but no promotion of goods or services may be added to them (article 6). Put together, the two rules mean that order and shipping messages travel on the agreement WhatsApp asks for, while reminders about carts, coupon-bearing welcomes and campaigns should be reserved for customers who also gave commercial message consent.

In an ikas store, customer numbers come from three different places, and each one needs its own thinking about consent:

At checkout, the person placing the order enters their contact details. Tell customers plainly, before the order is complete, that order and shipping updates will come on WhatsApp, and check in a test purchase that campaign and reminder consent is not collected with a pre-ticked box.
On the sign-up form, the customer opens an account. The new-member welcome works on ikas too; the message goes to members who also give communication consent while opening their account. A shopper who checks out as a guest, with no account, is not a member on ikas.
On a sold-out product’s page, the customer leaves a number to hear when it is restocked. Use that number for news about that product and nothing else.

Make sure the consent box meets article 7 of the Regulation. The box expressing consent must not be ticked in advance, and giving consent must not be a precondition for buying goods or services. Where consent sits inside a membership or sales contract, its text belongs at the end of the contract, before the statement of acceptance, under the heading “ticari elektronik ileti” (commercial electronic message), with an option to refuse and in type no smaller than 12 points. Consent gathered through your own form has to be recorded in İYS, Türkiye’s register for commercial message consent, within three business days, and the Regulation treats consent missing from İYS as invalid. To move the consent box in your ikas theme or change its wording, ask the ikas support team how it is done.

The connection screen depends on this groundwork too. The ikas screen in Pushouse asks for the addresses of the pages holding your commercial electronic message (ETK) form and your KVKK (Turkish data protection) notice, and it refuses to save while either field is blank. The point is that your customers can reach these texts. If either text lacks a page of its own on your site, publish it before setup begins.

Alongside this preparation, the setup needs:

An admin who can create a private app in the ikas panel and grant edit permission for all six permission groups.
The part of your ikas address before myikas.com, and the WhatsApp number your customers can contact you on.
Published pages for your ETK form and your KVKK notice, with their addresses.
Your business’s Meta account and the line to be connected; if the line is active on a phone with WhatsApp Business, that phone.

If you would like to discuss the flows and a suitable starting order before setup, take a time for a demo with our team through the “Book a Meeting” button, or leave us a short note about your store in the contact form further down.

Create the private app in ikas and enter its details in the panel

Create the private app with the required permissions

On the ikas side, everything rests on a private app you create in your admin. The Özel Uygulama Oluşturma (Creating a Private App) guide in the ikas help center gives these steps:

In the ikas admin, open Uygulamalarım (My Apps) from the Uygulamalar (Apps) menu and click Özel Uygulamalara Git (Go to Private Apps).
On the next screen, choose Özel Uygulama Ekle (Add Private App).
Under Temel Bilgiler (Basic Information), name the app so you will recognise it later (for example “WhatsApp notifications”) and enter the email address that should receive notifications.
For the app type, pick Standart Uygulama (Standard App), the type that talks to your store through the GraphQL API.
In İzinler (Permissions), grant the access listed below and save. Saving generates the Client ID and Secret automatically.

ikas sorts the data on its permission screen into six groups: Ürünler (Products), Siparişler (Orders), Müşteriler (Customers), Kampanyalar (Campaigns), Envanter (Inventory) and Online Mağaza (Online Store). Each group gets either view-only or view-and-edit access. Choose view and edit access together for all six groups; that grants every permission the connection uses. When the connection is saved, the app’s access is checked, and if any permission is missing the connection does not save.

Treat the Client Secret like a password. ikas’s developer documentation asks for it to be kept secure, since it can be used to get into your ikas account. Instead of emailing or messaging it to anyone, type it into the connection screen yourself.

Enter your store details on the connection screen

The connection screen opens with four fields: store name, the WhatsApp number customers can contact you on, Client ID and Client Secret. The store name is whatever comes before myikas.com in your ikas address, so for ornekmagaza.myikas.com you would enter just “ornekmagaza”. While pasting the Client ID and Client Secret, check that no stray space ends up at either end. The contact number is shown in your messages as the line customers can reach you on, so pick one they already recognise.

Further down the screen you set the timing of the cart reminder and add the addresses of your ETK and KVKK pages. The points to weigh when choosing the delay are in our piece on timing the cart message. A successful save shows the notice “Entegrasyon bilgileri başarıyla kaydedildi” (integration details saved successfully). The webhooks the flows use are created for you, so nothing has to be defined on the ikas side. If the screen shows “Entegrasyon bilgileri kaydedilemedi. Lütfen yeniden deneyin.” (integration details could not be saved, please try again) instead, first make sure all six groups have edit access in the private app, then check the spelling of the store name; the notice does not say which permission is missing. Once the save goes through, the store side of your ikas WhatsApp integration is finished and the business number is next.

Connect your business line to the WhatsApp Business Platform

Automated notifications leave through the WhatsApp Business Platform, which many sources still call the WhatsApp Business API, not through the app on your phone. Pressing “Entegrasyonu Başlat” (Start integration) on the panel’s WhatsApp connection screen opens a window run by Meta. There you sign in with your Meta account, choose the WhatsApp Business account that belongs to your business (or set one up on the spot) and grant the permissions it asks for; after that you pick your number and continue. Keep the window open until its last screen confirms that setup is complete; once you close it after that screen, the panel refreshes by itself.

Settle on the number before opening the window, because one option on the setup screen depends on it:

If the number is currently active in your phone’s WhatsApp Business app, tick “Kullanılacak numara mevcutta kullanılan WhatsApp Business Hesabı mı?” (Is the number already used as a WhatsApp Business account?). The line goes on working in the app after the connection, and the number in your customers’ contacts stays the same.
A number that runs personal WhatsApp has to have that account deleted before it can be connected. Meta’s business phone numbers documentation adds that a number registered on the platform still works for calls and SMS, though no longer in the personal WhatsApp app.
For a brand-new line that has never been on WhatsApp, leave the box unticked. The same documentation lists the requirements: you own the number, it has a country and area code, and it can receive phone calls or SMS; short codes are not accepted.

Meta describes how a Business app number works alongside the platform in a separate document. One-to-one chats continue in the app, and the message history stays identical on both sides; group chats are left out of the sync. The phone’s Business app has to be on version 2.24.17 or newer. Setup disconnects the other devices linked to the number, and WhatsApp for Windows and WearOS cannot be linked again afterwards. If your team replies to customers from WhatsApp for Windows, agree on a new routine before setup.

Some customers answer a notification in the same chat, to correct an address, ask about a return or check a size. From the moment a customer writes, a 24-hour reply period runs; Meta’s service messages documentation names it the customer service window and explains that replies need no template while it is open. Incoming messages can be handled by the WhatsApp question routing flow. Its welcome message holds up to three topic buttons; a customer who writes freely rather than pressing a button has the words in their message matched against your rules and is sent to the matching topic, and anything that matches nothing lands in the welcome flow you picked. When a team member takes the chat over in the panel, the bot steps aside, and it answers new messages again 30 minutes after the last message your team sent from the panel.

If your number runs on both the Business app and the platform, Meta’s document says the app’s own tools, such as greeting messages, away messages and quick replies, carry on unchanged. Once question routing is live, message the line from another phone and count the welcomes you receive; if there are two, switch off the one in the app. Agree in advance who on the team handles which topic, and from the phone or the panel, so that two people never answer the same customer from two different screens.

Each flow relies on a different record in ikas

Every flow reads its own record in ikas: the order status, the shipping details, the cart, the variant stock, the member account or the purchase history. When that record is incomplete or late in ikas, the flow suffers with it.

Order and shipping messages follow the order record

With WhatsApp order notifications, you choose the stages that trigger a message; an ikas store can message the customer at three of them: order placed, shipped and delivered. Each message carries the order number and the current status, and every stage has its own editable text. Customers paying by bank transfer (havale or EFT) also get your IBAN and account details on WhatsApp, which saves them hunting through emails for payment details. Since the messages follow the order status in ikas, a status your team never updates means the customer never hears about it.

The WhatsApp shipment tracking flow tells the customer once the shipping details reach the order. The message shows which order it concerns and its tracking code, and its link opens the carrier’s tracking page. Only one message goes out per order: nobody who has already received the parcel is told it is on its way, and an order shipped late in the day gets its message the next morning. Per ikas’s order processing guide, tracking details can be entered while marking an order as shipped, and ikas’s own customer notification can go out in that same step. Because the message waits for the shipping details on the order, a warehouse that enters tracking codes in one batch at the end of the day pushes the notification back to that hour.

Cart and stock messages run on the number the customer leaves

When someone puts a product in the cart and leaves before ordering, the reminder greets them by name once the delay you set on the connection screen has passed; a discount code is optional. Three situations stop the reminder: the order has been completed, the same cart has already had a message, or the customer gave no consent. Anyone who wants no more messages leaves the list with a tap on the reminder’s “Tanıtımları Durdur” (Stop promotions) button, and the orders and revenue won back by reminders appear in your panel. The size of your consented list sets how many people the flow can reach. If you plan to include a code, check what it costs your margin with the worked numbers in deciding on a code in the cart message.

A sold-out product’s page gets a button for requesting news: “Stoğa Gelince Haber Ver” (“let me know when it’s back”). In WhatsApp back-in-stock alerts, shoppers first select the size or colour they want, then type a phone number; there is no need to sign up. Only when that size or colour is restocked does the alert go out, and the message’s link goes straight to the product page. When the restock is smaller than the waiting list, only as many people are notified as there are units. The flow can be no more accurate than your variant stock in ikas: a size listed as available in the system but missing from the shelf still triggers an alert, and the customer orders something you cannot ship. For the wording, our sample back-in-stock messages are a good starting point.

The new-member welcome depends on an account opened on ikas

ikas stores can use WhatsApp welcome messages as well: the message goes to members who also give communication consent while opening an account on your site. A shopper who orders as a guest, with no account, is not a member on ikas and receives no welcome. A gift voucher in the message is optional; a short welcome on its own works too. If a coupon is attached, the code is verified first, so no customer receives a broken code. Each number is welcomed once; opening a second account with the same number does not bring a second welcome.

How far the flow reaches depends on the share of your customers who shop with an account. An update announcement from ikas describes filtering the customer list by criteria such as account status and communication consent; seeing how many accounts opened in recent months carry consent keeps your expectations of the welcome grounded. If guest checkouts make up most of your orders, the flow speaks to a small audience; spelling out on your sign-up page what an account gives the customer may shift that balance. For the coupon’s validity and minimum basket, see working out a welcome coupon’s validity and minimum spend for worked examples.

Müşteri Kitleleri uses the purchase history in ikas

Müşteri Kitleleri groups your customers using the purchase data that comes over from ikas. You describe the audience in plain words, such as “customers whose basket was over 1,000 TL and who completed their order”. That sentence becomes a rule over the order history, the rule is shown on screen, and if it was misread you correct it or try again. Each group card carries three figures: head count, how many can be messaged, and net revenue. From the same screen, the group goes either into an Excel file or into a WhatsApp bulk messaging campaign. A group built from people without consent is still listed but cannot receive a send. The AI never sees your customer list; it only receives the sentence you type. More example queries are listed under AI website analytics.

Other modules that work on ikas

Alongside the six flows, you can also use these modules in your ikas store:

A first-purchase incentive for members who have never ordered, and win-back messages for customers whose last order was a long time ago.
A post-purchase survey that collects the customer’s opinion on WhatsApp once the product is delivered.
A spin-to-win wheel that can create the won discount code automatically in your ikas store.
A promotional side tab that keeps offers and coupons at the edge of the page, and an on-site notification center that gathers your announcements in one place.
Shoppable Reels that link Instagram videos to products, and the Trendyol reviews integration that brings your Trendyol product reviews to your site.

Choose your first flows from the numbers in your ikas admin

Open the flows one by one. Launch everything at once and you will struggle to trace a reply, an opt-out or a template error back to the flow behind it. To decide the order, check three places in the ikas admin:

The Terk Edilmiş Sepetler (Abandoned Carts) page under Siparişler (Orders) shows how many carts were abandoned and how many the ikas automation recovered. Plenty of abandoned carts plus a growing list of consented numbers moves the cart reminder up the queue.
Filtering the customer list by account status and communication consent shows how many people the welcome and the campaigns can reach.
In your products’ stock history, sizes and colours that keep hitting zero show how much the stock alert has to do; for clothing, shoes and similar categories it is worth opening early.

For most ikas stores, order status and shipping notifications make a sensible first step. Customers already wait for this news, these messages leave no room for promotion, and the first orders show you how the templates fill with ikas data. Open the cart reminder once you have split the work with ikas’s own abandoned-cart automation, and the welcome once the sign-up consent text and the coupon terms are ready. Turn to Müşteri Kitleleri campaigns once you have settled which groups deserve a message of their own; our article on the groups to separate in a campaign sets out how to decide.

Plan the sequence around your message credits. In Pushouse, message credits (kontör) and module subscriptions are separate things, and each message sent by the flows you open is deducted from your credits. Give each new flow about a week and read the messages sent, the replies and the orders that follow before opening the next one; that leaves time to correct the texts.

Keep the order template plain and the campaign template complete

Everything your store sends first must use a Meta-approved template. Meta’s template documentation is explicit on two points: outside an open customer service window only templates can be sent, and no template can be used before approval. Meta’s categorization guide puts messages that follow up on something a user did or asked for in the utility category, and its utility samples include an order confirmation and a shipping message with a tracking number. The same guide files an order update carrying a promotion under marketing as mixed content, and gives a reminder about products left in a cart as one of its marketing samples.

The moment a campaign line slips into a shipping or order template, two things go wrong: Meta treats the template as marketing, and the message breaches the Regulation’s ban on promotion in purchase notifications. Keep the utility template to one job:

{{customer name}}, your {{store name}} order ({{order number}}) has been handed to the carrier. Tracking number: {{tracking number}}. To follow your parcel on the carrier’s page: {{tracking link}}

Marketing templates must include everything the Regulation requires. Merchants (tacir) must show their MERSİS number and trade name; tradespeople (esnaf) their name and surname together with their Turkish ID or tax ID number (article 8). A discount has to be stated clearly, with its validity period and conditions given in the message or through a link to a page dedicated to them (article 8). Each message must offer a way to refuse, and refusing must be easy and free on the channel that carried the message (article 9); a refusal has to be acted on within three business days of reaching you (article 10). WhatsApp gives you that route through a quick reply: put a “Tanıtımları Durdur” button on the template, or “Stop promotions” if the template is in English. Customers leave the list through that button; a customer who answers with a single word like “DUR”, “ÇIKIŞ” or “STOP” stays on the list, so a template should never tell people to send such a word. In the samples below, {{legal details}} stands for your merchant or tradesperson details, and the closing sentence sends the customer to the button.

{{customer name}}, {{product name}} is saved in your cart. If you would like to complete your order, you can return to your cart here: {{cart link}}

{{legal details}} Tap “Stop promotions” and these reminders will stop.

Your {{store name}} account is open, {{customer name}}. Use the code {{coupon code}} on your first order to get {{discount amount}} off baskets of {{minimum spend}} or more; the code is valid until the evening of {{last day}}.

{{legal details}} Our promotional messages stop as soon as you tap “Stop promotions”.

Send a marketing template only to people expecting that message. The same Meta template documentation says templates can be paused after repeated negative feedback from customers or low read rates; our guide to campaign sending frequency covers how to cap sends with that risk in mind. After approval, also check in a test order how every field fills in from ikas; an empty customer name or a strangely formatted order number makes even an approved template look sloppy.

Avoid clashes with ikas’s cart, stock and SMS automations

ikas’s own automations also contact customers about carts, stock and orders. Before the WhatsApp flows go live, look at the Otomasyonlar (Automations) screen of your sales channel under Satış Kanalları (Sales Channels), and at your SMS settings:

ikas’s Terkedilmiş Sepet Otomasyonu (Abandoned Cart Automation) emails or texts a customer who fills in their details at checkout and then drops out, after a delay you set; texting requires the NetGSM integration. Stores on the Scale Plus package can send this reminder on WhatsApp too. Each email can carry a discount code generated just for that customer.
With the Tekrar Stokta Otomasyonu (Back in Stock Automation) switched on, a sold-out product’s page shows “Stoğa Gelince Haber Ver” (“let me know when it’s back”) where “Sepete Ekle” (Add to cart) used to be, and the customer is emailed once stock returns.
With the NetGSM integration installed, order status updates such as created, shipped and delivered can also go out by SMS. Marking an order as shipped also lets you choose ikas’s own customer notification.

Give each topic to a single channel, or stagger the channels over time. If two channels are to share cart reminders, write the sequence down: the WhatsApp reminder in the first hours, say, and the email the next day. Never put two different discount codes in the two channels; customers will ask which one counts, and you lose track of which reminder produced the order that used it. Because both stock features show a button with the same label, anyone running both should open a sold-out product on a phone and count the buttons on the page, then choose once and for all between collecting requests by phone number or by email. For orders as well, decide whether the SMS and the ikas notification stay on for each step you move to WhatsApp; why one step should not repeat across several channels is explained in our guide to which message goes out when after an order.

Beware of counting the same sale twice in reports. ikas’s Terk Edilmiş Sepetler page shows the carts its automation recovered and the total recovered revenue, while the Pushouse panel shows orders and revenue won back by the WhatsApp reminder. A customer reminded on both channels can show up in both reports, so adding the two figures does not give you total recovered revenue.

Before the flows reach customers, go through each one on your own phone. Place a test order on your site, move it through its statuses in ikas and count the notifications at each step; if the shipped step is on both in order notifications and in the shipping notice, watch closely what your phone receives when the order ships. Next, open an account with consent, put a product in the cart, enter your details at checkout and leave without paying, then request a stock alert for a sold-out size and add stock to that size. If a message fails to arrive or opens the wrong page, write to us with the number of your test order.

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Prepare your consent setup and legal pages before you connect