After years of offering a free service without attaching a bell, WhatsApp starts displaying ads on popular chat apps. To be clear, users will only see ads on the status screen. The app takes on Instagram stories.
Just as I saw an ad after seeing some stories on Instagram, after scrolling through some status updates, the ads will appear in WhatsApp.
The company said its advertising mechanism uses signals such as the user’s country or city, language, channels they follow, and data from advertisements they interact with.
Meta said it does not use personal identifiable data, such as user phone numbers, messages, calls, and groups, to serve targeted ads. If a user adds a WhatsApp account to Meta’s Account Center, the company uses the account settings to display the ads.
The company said it allows businesses and users to promote the channel, WhatsApp broadcasting capabilities in the Discovery section, allowing selected creators and companies to request users to subscribe to unrenew the channel. The company said payments for these subscriptions will be facilitated by the app store.
Meta said more than 1.5 billion people use status and channels per day.
So far, WhatsApp has generated revenue through its WhatsApp business platform and Click-to-WhatsApp ads. Meta has repeatedly stated these as revenue channels that grow in the last few quarterly revenue calls.
Alice Newton Rex, vice president of product at WhatsApp, said in the briefing ads it was a proper extension to the app’s Revenue Streams.
“(New ads and promotional products) felt like the next natural evolution. Both of these businesses are expanding to help people discover their businesses directly within WhatsApp, so that’s what we’ve heard more and more from the businesses they wanted to do,” she said.
WhatsApp said these features will be rolled out globally in the coming months.