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WhatsApp to roll out ads and paid subscriptions
WhatsApp will roll out ads on the status screen globally in the next few months. Businesses will soon have the option to select a WhatsApp status for ads, just as they would for other Meta campaigns on Facebook or Instagram.
WhatsApp product VP announces global launch
“It’s going to be a global launch, and it will be starting over the next couple of months. I can’t share the specific timeline per country. I should say it will be a slow rollout,” said Alice Newton-Rex, VP product at WhatsApp.
Personal messages, calls and statuses remain end-to-end encrypted, as disclosed by the company in a press release. According to Newton-Rex, businesses have requested ads on WhatsApp for a long time. Now, both big and small businesses can come to Ads Manager and choose to take out these ads and set their budget to pay for the ads.
“It will operate via the auction system. It should feel similar to businesses of any size taking ads on Facebook or Instagram. Each ad is reviewed at the ad level rather than the advertiser,” said Newton-Rex.
Meta specified that over 1.5 billion people use Status and Channels on a daily basis.
WhatsApp has been generating revenue via its WhatsApp Business platform and click-to-WhatsApp ads.
Meta has mentioned these as growing channels of revenue in its last few quarterly earnings calls.
To show ads in the Updates tab, the American instant messaging service will use location data such as country or city, language, the channels you’re following, and users’ interaction with the ads they see.
For users who have chosen to add WhatsApp to Accounts Centre, the platform will use ad preferences and information across Meta accounts.
Besides ads, WhatsApp is also introducing channel subscriptions for exclusive content from preferred channels for a monthly fee.
When asked, WhatsApp told the press that channel admins can set this monthly fee within a range.
“It’s only going to be available to select channel partners at the beginning. We hope to broaden it and roll it out more widely. Initially, we will not take any of the fixed fee, so the same will be going directly to channel admins. The payments will happen through the app stores from the user side,” said Newton-Rex.
Additionally, WhatsApp will also start promoted channels, where users will discover new channels that might be interesting to them. For the first time, admins can enhance their presence and grow their channel, said WhatsApp.