It took 11 years since Facebook acquired it for $19 billion, but Meta is finally bringing ads to WhatsApp, marking a major change for an app whose founders shunned advertising.<\/p>\n
Meta announced Monday that businesses will now be able to run so-called status ads on WhatsApp that prompt users to interact with the advertisers via the app\u2019s messaging features. The ads will only be shown to users within WhatsApp\u2019s \u201cUpdates\u201d tab to separate the promotions from people\u2019s personal conversations. Additionally, Meta will begin monetizing WhatsApp\u2019s Channels feature through search ads and subscriptions. <\/p>\n
The debut of ads on the messaging app represents a significant step in Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg\u2019s plans to make WhatsApp \u201cthe next chapter\u201d in his company\u2019s history, as he told CNBC\u2019s Jim Cramer in 2022. The move to monetize WhatsApp also comes amid Meta\u2019s high-profile antitrust case with the Federal Trade Commission over the company\u2019s blockbuster acquisitions of the messaging app and Instagram.<\/p>\n
Already, Meta allows 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 between brands and consumers \u201cshould be the next pillar of our business,\u201d Zuckerberg told analysts in April, adding that WhatsApp now has over 3 billion monthly users, including \u201cmore than 100 million people in the U.S. and growing quickly there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now, companies can run those kinds of ads within WhatsApp itself. The new status ads appear in a user\u2019s Updates tab within that tab\u2019s \u201cStatus\u201d feature that can be used to share pictures, videos and text that vanish after 24 hours, akin to Instagram Stories. <\/p>\n
Since Meta bought WhatsApp in 2014, the popular messaging app has continued to grow worldwide. But unlike Facebook, Instagram and most recently Threads, WhatsApp has never allowed advertising.<\/p>\n
WhatsApp\u2019s 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 inject the app with advertising and other practices they shunned.<\/p>\n
The social media company does not reveal WhatsApp\u2019s specific sales, but analysts have previously estimated the app\u2019s revenue to be between $500 million and $1 billion from charging businesses for tools and services so they can message customers on the app.<\/p>\n
Meta will \u201cuse very basic information\u201d to recommend which ads to show WhatsApp users, Nikila Srinivasan, Meta\u2019s head of product for business messaging, said Friday. This includes a person\u2019s country, city, device, language and data like who they follow or how they interact with ads. <\/p>\n
The company debuted WhatsApp\u2019s Updates tab in June <\/strong>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.<\/p>\n Organizations and people who are Channel administrators will now be able to spend money to boost the visibility of their respective Channels when a person searches for them via a directory, similar to ads on Apple\u2019s and Google\u2019s app stores.<\/p>\n Additionally, 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 monthly subscription fees, but it plans to eventually take a 10% cut of those subscriptions, a spokesperson said.<\/p>\n Meta hopes that by limiting its new ads to WhatsApp\u2019s Updates tab it will disrupt users as little as possible, Srinivasan said. Users\u2019 status updates as well as personal messages and calls on WhatsApp will remain encrypted, she said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe really believe that the Updates tab is the right place for these new features,\u201d Srinivasan said.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It took 11 years since Facebook acquired it for $19 billion, but Meta is finally bringing ads to WhatsApp, marking a major change for an app whose founders shunned advertising. Meta announced Monday that businesses will now be able to run so-called status ads on WhatsApp that prompt users to interact with the advertisers via…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1645,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetradingdictionary.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetradingdictionary.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetradingdictionary.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetradingdictionary.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetradingdictionary.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thetradingdictionary.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1644\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetradingdictionary.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetradingdictionary.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetradingdictionary.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetradingdictionary.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}