Meta Platforms, whose CEO is Mark Zuckerberg, presents a new update in WhatsApp. In the instant messaging app, digital advertising is here to stay. This new change is a before and after in the conception and interaction of people with mobile applications. The ads will only be shown to users within WhatsApp’s “Updates” tab to separate the promotions from people’s personal conversations. Additionally, Meta will begin monetizing WhatsApp’s Channels feature through search ads and subscriptions. Read on to learn more.
Meta big announcement: ads on WhatsApp
Meta announced Monday that businesses will at thiscurrent time be able to run so-called status ads on WhatsApp that prompt users to interact with the advertisers via the app’s messaging characteristics.
The debut of ads on the messaging app represents a relevant step in Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s plans to make WhatsApp “the next chapter” in his company’s history, as he told CNBC’s Jim Cramer in 2022. The move to monetize WhatsApp also comes amid Meta’s high-profile antitrust case with the Federal Trade Commission over the company’s blockbuster acquisitions of the messaging app and Instagram.
“Should be the next pillar of our business”
Previously, Meta permits advertisers to run so-called click-to-message ads on Facebook and Instagram that steer users to WhatsApp where they can directly engage with businesses. Messaging among brands and consumers “should be the next pillar of our business,” Zuckerberg told analysts in April, adding that WhatsApp now has over 3 billion monthly users, taking onti account “more than 100 million people in the U.S. and growing quickly there.”
Currently, companies can run those kinds of ads within WhatsApp itself. The new status ads appear in a user’s Updates tab within that tab’s “Status” characteristic that can be used to share pictures, videos and text that vanish after 24 hours, akin to Instagram Stories.
Since Meta bought WhatsApp in 2014, the popular messaging app has kept growing to grow worldwide. But unlike Facebook, Instagram and most recently Threads, WhatsApp has never permitted advertising.
WhatsApp’s co-founders, Jan Koum and Brian Acton, were public in their scorn for the advertising industry, and the duo left Facebook after reportedly clashing with executives who were eager to include the app with advertising and other practices they shunned.
Increased earnings from advertisements
The social media company does not show in a puvlic way WhatsApp’s specific sales, but analysts have previously estimated the app’s revenue to be between $500 million and $1 billion from charging businesses for tools and services so they can message customers on the app.
Meta will “use very basic information” to recommend which ads to show WhatsApp users, Nikila Srinivasan, Meta’s head of product for business messaging, said Friday. This includes a person’s country, city, device, language and data like who they follow or how they interact with ads.
The company debuted WhatsApp’s Updates tab in June 2023 along with an accompanying Channels feature that allows people and organizations to send broadcast messages and updates to their followers as opposed to personal conversations. Meta will also monetize the Channels feature, the company said Monday.
Organizations and people who are Channel administrators will now be able to spend money to increase the visibility of their respective Channels when a person searches for them via a directory, likely to ads on Apple’s and Google’s app stores.
What channel administrators will be able to charge to user
In addition, channel administrators will be able to charge users monthly subscription fees to access exclusive updates and content, Meta said Monday. The company will not immediately make money from those oer month subscription fees, but it plans to eventually take a 10% cut of those subscriptions, a spokesperson explaned recently.
Meta hopes that by limiting its new ads to WhatsApp’s Updates tab it will disrupt users as little as possible, Srinivasan said. Users’ status updates as well as personal messages and calls on WhatsApp will remain encrypted, she said.