After years of providing free services without any bells attached, WhatsApp is now going to start showing ads on the popular chat app. To be clear, users will only see ads on the Status screen — the app’s take on Instagram’s Stories.
So just like you see an ad after watching a few stories on Instagram, you will see ads on WhatsApp after you’ve scrolled through a few Status updates.
The company said that its ad mechanism uses signals like users’ country or city, language, and the channels they’re following, as well as data from ads that users interact with.
Meta said it is not using personally identifiable data, such as users’ phone numbers, messages, calls, and groups to serve targeted ads. If a user has added their WhatsApp account to Meta’s Account Center, the company will use their Account preferences to show ads.
The company said it is allowing companies and users to promote their Channels, WhatsApp’s broadcast feature, in the discovery section, and that it would allow select creators and businesses to charge users a subscription to unlock exclusive updates on Channels. The company said these subscription payments will be facilitated by app stores.
Meta said that over 1.5 billion people use Status and Channels per day.
So far, WhatsApp has generated revenue via its WhatsApp Business platform and click-to-WhatsApp ads. Meta has repeatedly mentioned these as growing channels of revenue in its last few quarterly earnings calls.
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Alice Newton-Rex, VP of product at WhatsApp, said in a briefing ads are a fitting extension of the app’s revenue streams.
“[The new ads and promotion products] felt like the next natural evolution, now that both those businesses have scaled to help people discover businesses directly within WhatsApp. And that was what we were increasingly hearing from businesses that they wanted to do as well,” she said.
WhatsApp said ads and these features will roll out globally in the coming months.
