As with all things Facebook-owned, WhatsApp will soon be fully monetised with ads embedded into its Status function.
The news was revealed by social media industry commentator Matt Navarra, who said the ads will take up the entire screen and the name of the company will be displayed at the top within the Status section, similar to how ads display themselves on Instagram Stories.
It’s no secret that Mark Zuckerberg has been planning to monetise the app ever since he acquired the company in 2014, but due to an initial agreement with company founders Brian Acton and Jan Koum, he was unable to for at least 5 years. Now that 2020 is just around the corner, changes are afoot…
Coming Soon to @WhatsApp…
– WhatsApp Status (Stories) to get Ads in 2020
– WhatsApp for Businesses to get richer messaging format options
– WhatsApp product catalog to be integrated with existing Facebook Business Manager catalog
h/t + 📸 @Olivier_Ptv
at #FMS19 pic.twitter.com/Z5LsbADNbP— Matt Navarra (@MattNavarra) May 21, 2019
Another worry is that WhatsApp’s end-to-end encryption will also be removed to give advertisers greater freedoms and targeting methods. When questioned, Facebook’s COO Sheryl Sandberg simply commented “We are strong believers in encryption”. That sounds relatively hopeful as far as our security is concerned, but only time will tell.