WhatsApp announced on Monday that it would present its most daring advertising features, marking an important change for the messaging platform which has remained largely without advertising since its launch.
This decision is sensitive to WhatsApp, whose chief firmly denied a report in 2023 which declared that the meta-ownership application explored advertisements when it sought to increase income.
Unlike Facebook, Instagram and other social platforms, WhatsApp has maintained minimal advertising since Meta acquired it in 2014.
Users and regulators have watched closely if the social media giant would seek to monetize an application that was mainly used to chat with friends and family, and was appreciated for their privacy.
Until now, the advertising of the platform consisted mainly of WhatsApp commercial promotional messages to opted customers and some tests of limited status announcements on certain markets.
The messaging application has no display announcements in cat flows or conversations.
The company said that it would deploy three new monetization features exclusively in its updated tab, which houses both the channels and the state features used by 1.5 billion people per day and has become widely available last year.
The company stressed that users who use WhatsApp that for personal messaging will not see any modification to their experience, because all new features are confined to the updated tab that can be deactivated in the settings.
“We are talking about our plans to create a business that has not interrupted your personal cats for years and we think that the updated tab is the right place for these new features to work,” said Whatsapp.
New features include paid channel subscriptions, channels promoted in the Discovery repertoire and advertisements in the status, the WhatsApp version of Instagram stories.
WhatsApp stressed that new advertising features are designed with confidentiality guarantees.
“I want to be very clear on one thing: your messages, calls and personal statuses will remain encrypted from start to finish. This means that no one, not even we can see or hear them, and they cannot be used for advertisements,” reporters Nikila Srinivasan, vice-president of product management at Meta, journalists.
The company is committed to never selling or sharing telephone numbers to advertisers and said that personal messages, group calls and subscriptions will not influence the targeting of announcements.
“To display announcements in status or channels, we will use basic information such as your country or city, your device language and your activity in the updated tab,” said Srinivasan.
The introduction of advertising represents Meta’s efforts to monetize the massive WhatsApp user base of more than two billion monthly active users.
Industry analysts have long hypothesized that Meta would eventually bring advertising to WhatsApp given its scale and engagement rates.
The calendar of these features was not specified in the ad.
“They will take place slowly in the coming months, so it could make a while until you see them in your country,” said Srinivasan.
