Plan for advertising on WhatsApp remains in place
Facebook is still planning to add advertising to its WhatsApp subsidiary. The company is currently working on unifying its messaging apps. Once this plan comes to fruition, WhatsApp users will have to face ads, The Information reports.
"Advertising on WhatsApp would be worthwhile for marketers and Facebook. The only question is how high user acceptance would be. WhatsApp has basically replaced SMS, and SMS advertising was not very popular before. It is important that the ads are designed properly. For example, it would be acceptable if ads came from companies that users had contact with on WhatsApp," says social media expert Björn Tantau in an interview with news portal Press release.
Facebook wants to use users' phone numbers to link their WhatsApp and Facebook accounts. This should enable the algorithm to recognize which ads suit which WhatsApp users. However, this plan is controversial within the company. Some executives are concerned that WhatsApp users will delete their Facebook account because of this measure.
Implementation takes years
Facebook first formulated its intention to implement ads on WhatsApp back in 2018. In January 2020, however, the company announced that it was putting these plans on hold for the time being (Werbewoche.ch reported). Although Facebook is still holding on to the idea, according to the report, it could be years before it actually becomes real, as it would be particularly difficult to unify WhatsApp with the other messaging apps. (pte)
