By Jonathan Baker A major announcement from earlier in the week has marketers and social media users sitting up and taking notice. Meta, the all-powerful tech giant, is presenting ads on one of its social media platforms, WhatsApp. Why is this big news? Here is history… An Effort That Took More Than 10 Years to Happen In 2014, Facebook purchased WhatsApp, a cross-platform messaging and calling app where users communicated with friends and family members. The purchase price was a walloping $19 billion. (Yes, ‘billion’ with a ‘b.’) Friction soon developed between Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and WhatsApp’s co-founders, Jan Koum and Brian Acton, over the issue of advertising. Koum and Acton were firmly ‘anti-ad,’ while Zuckerberg pushed for this. Things changed… Eleven Years Later Since 2014, events took place that led up to the current changes to WhatsApp. Disagreements over allowing (or forbidding) ads to appear on WhatsApp resulted in Koum leaving the company in 2017 with Acton following in 2018. And, of course, Facebook became Meta in 2021. And the once ad-free WhatsApp is serving brand information to users. As reported in CNBC, Zuckerberg refers to this change as “the next chapter” in Meta’s history. This raises the question: How will ads run on a messaging app? The First Type: Click-to-Message Ads Currently, advertisers have the option to run “click-to-message” ads that appear on Facebook and Instagram. These clicks redirect interested users to WhatsApp where they may learn more about what a specific brand has to offer. This capacity to enable ad viewing on WhatsApp—with assistance from other Meta-based social platforms—is indeed innovative, not to mention respectful of viewers having a choice. This leads to… The Second Type: Status Ads Brands wishing to promote their products and services on WhatsApp may in time do so through “status ads.” This type of advertisement will appear exclusively in the app’s “Updates” tab. The obvious advantage is that chats between two users will go uninterrupted. (Again, this effectively addresses the criticism among social media users who find random ad presentations intrusive.) Additionally, Meta is pursuing a change in channels… WhatsApp’s Channels Through the WhatsApp Channels feature, users receive news and updates about everything of interest to them, ranging from public figures to organizations (which include brands). Separate from WhatsApp’s chat capabilities, Channels offer a specialized space for receiving information and announcements. Maximizing its “next chapter,” Meta will now monetize this app’s Channels feature. Administrators have the option to pay to increase the visibility of their Channel, organization, or brand. Will WhatsApp’s Changes Work? The changes to WhatsApp have been fast and are ambitious. As these changes are recent, their success is yet to be determined. As the app has 3 billion users—100 million of whom are based in the United States—the chances of ad promotion and monetization could well prove successful. The EGC Group proactively stays “in the know” about the latest happenings in social media. Care to know more about how we’ve helped clients take their visibility to new heights? Contact us to find out. (Maybe we can do the same for your brand.)
