WhatsApp Ready for Monetization: To Start Showing Advert to Users

Popular messaging app, WhatsApp will begin showing adverts to users as from next year (2020). This was confirmed by the application’s parent company Facebook.

Facebook revealed this new development during the company’s annual marketing summit in the Netherlands.

Facebook  bought WhatsApp for $19 billion in 2014. This is Facebook’s largest acquisition to date and the largest acquisition of a ventured-backed company in history as at that time yet the messaging application has been running completely free without any known form of monetization.

WhatsApp Running Ads Free Policy

Remember, the original creators of WhatsApp promised users the app will remain ads. They shared this blogpost in regards to that. Then, they only charge each user a yearly fee of $0.99 to cover hosting cost after the user have enjoyed the App for a year free of charge.

The fee was stopped after a while because many users had not credit card to make payment and feared they may lose contact with their loved once after using the App for the free the first year.

Bridge of Policy by Facebook

WhatsApp co-founder Jan Koum left Facebook over disagreement on user data privacy, advertising and encryption.

Facebook monetize all it’s platforms but WhatsApp but this will be changing by 2020.

An attendee at the Facebook Marketing Summit, Oliver Ponteville shared some photos of the presentation on Twitter.

The photos show how the advert will appear within people’s WhatsApp statuses.

And richer message formats for businesses pic.twitter.com/QWFJ2PVF7i

— Olivier Ponteville (@Olivier_Ptv) May 21, 2019

The sample images shared from the event show ads will be a bit intrusive as they will take up your entire screen as you click through your friends’ statuses.

When the ads comes up, at the top of your screen will be the ad companies name instead of your contacts name and this will disappear after a little while.

If the advert appeals you and you wish to get more information, all you need do is swipe up.

By 2020 when the WhatsApp advert rolls out, the App privacy policy will definitely change the more  considering that most ad companies including Facebook take advantage of user engagement when showing ads thereby showing specific kinds of ads to target users thereby increasing conversion. It will be left to users to decide whether to continue using the messaging platform for all their instant messaging or to consider moving to their main competitor TELEGRAM which prides itself for total encryption of user messages guaranteeing full privacy.