You’ll now start seeing ads on WhatsApp
The time has finally come. Meta has introduced ads to its popular WhatsApp platform.
As the company explains in its blog post, these ads will appear in WhatsApp’s Instagram Stories-like Status feature.
It’s a notable move for Meta, which has been looking into bringing ads to WhatsApp for years after the platform’s founders were vehemently against it. Ultimately, though, it shouldn’t be a surprise that this is happening, given that Meta generated more than US$160 billion (about C$217 billion) in ad revenue last year alone. Meanwhile, Meta says WhatsApp is used by 1.5 billion people daily.
In addition to ads in Status, Meta says it offers paid channel subscriptions and promoted channels to give businesses and creators other means of reaching people.
That said, Meta stresses in its blog that these changes are only coming to the Updates tab, which is separate from your personal chats. In other words, your private messages will remain ad-free — at least for now.