For the first time, Meta is introducing advertisements on WhatsApp, beginning with the Updates tab. Outside of private chats, the move also covers promoted material and channel subscriptions.
Officially, Meta has begun displaying advertisements in WhatsApp, starting with the Updates page. With this deployment, ads are seen within the chat app for the first time.
Through the “Status” feature in the Updates page of the app, Meta has begun displaying advertisements within WhatsApp for the first time. This represents a significant shift in the app’s functionality as it progressively transforms into a platform that facilitates advertising-based revenue generation.
Three new features that will be added to the Updates tab—channel subscriptions, promoted channels, and adverts in Status—were revealed by the business on Monday via the official WhatsApp blog. Additionally, WhatsApp disclosed that 1.5 billion people use the chat program every day.
What’s changing
The advertisements will show up under the Status area, which is a feature akin to Facebook Stories or Instagram Stories that lets users upload images, text, or videos that vanish after a day. These advertisements will appear next to the contacts’ personal updates that consumers view. Crucially, Meta made it clear that advertisements won’t show up in group discussions, private chats, or messaging.
In the blog post, WhatsApp stated, “We’ve been discussing our plans for years to create a business that doesn’t interfere with your private conversations, and we think the Updates tab is the right place for these new features to work.”
WhatsApp is launching a channel subscription model in addition to advertisements. Customers will be able to obtain special updates from their preferred channels by paying a monthly subscription. Admins can now increase the exposure of their content by displaying promoted channels in the Explore area.
How ad targeting will work
WhatsApp claims that limited data, such your city or country, language, the channels you follow, and your ad-interaction style, will be used to personalize the advertising. Your broader Facebook and Instagram ad preferences may also affect what you see if you have connected WhatsApp to Meta’s Accounts Center.
Meta emphasized, nevertheless, that it will not give or sell phone numbers to marketers. Additionally, it states that group activities, calls, and private messages will all remain end-to-end encrypted and will not be utilized to target advertisements.
Although the idea was put on hold for a while, Meta has been considering adding advertisements to WhatsApp for a number of years. Will Cathcart, the CEO of WhatsApp, acknowledged in 2023 that advertisements were still being developed. The modification is now formally recognized.
This action puts WhatsApp in line with Meta’s other services, which currently bring in a sizable sum of money from advertising, such as Facebook and Instagram. Over $160 billion in ad revenue was recorded by Meta last year.
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