Meta to roll out ads on WhatsApp and offer paid subscriptions
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The news: WhatsApp will start showing ads inside its app for the first time, Meta announced overnight, in a major shift for the messaging service long defined by its ad-free experience.
Alongside ads, WhatsApp is also introducing paid channel subscriptions and allowing businesses and creators to promote their channels to new users. The updates will roll out globally over the coming months.
According to the Meta statement, the ads will appear in the app’s Status feature, which lives in the Updates tab and is used by around 1.5 billion people a day.
WhatsApp said the ads won’t appear in personal chats, calls or groups and that messages will remain end-to-end encrypted.
The context: The move comes years after WhatsApp’s founders opposed advertising on the platform. Though Meta dropped plans for in-app ads in 2020, the company said in 2023 it was still working on an approach.
“We’ve been talking about our plans to build a business that does not interrupt your personal chats for years,” Meta said in the statement.
What they said: “To show ads in Status or Channels you might care about, we’ll use limited info like your country or city, language, the Channels you’re following and how you interact with the ads you see,” the company said.
“For people that have chosen to add WhatsApp to Accounts Center, we’ll also use your ad preferences and info from across your Meta accounts.”
The sources: Meta blog post, The Verge
