Meta has announced that it will be introducing three new ad features in its messaging app, WhatsApp.
The new ads won’t be shown in the same place as people’s private conversations, according to the tech giant that’s also behind Facebook and Instagram.
Instead, the new ad features will be displayed in a new section called ‘Updates’, arranged in a separate tab at the bottom of the app, alongside ‘Communities’ and ‘Calls’.
Businesses will be able to promote ads in this space to appeal ot new followers for their channels, as well as charge a subscription for extra content, in a similar way to membership-only platforms like Patreon.
WhatsApp eventually plans to take a 10% commission of that fee, with the possibility of further costs to be taken depending on the size of the business.
Other ad formats include ones similar to status updates, which look similar to an Instagram story. When clicked on, this would take users to start a chat.
With WhatsApp being free to use for consumers, advertising is one way for Meta to generate income on the messaging app, which it acquired in 2014.
The move towards advertising takes it one step closer to functioning more like Instagram and Facebook, both of which have a wide variety of ad possibilities.
"Obviously there's overlap," said WhatsApp boss Will Cathcart, as reported by the BBC. "We have Stories on Instagram and Stories on WhatsApp, and we now have a way for businesses to promote themselves in both, and we think that's a good thing."
How will ads be shown to users?
Mr Cathcart went on to explain that users who don’t want to see ads or follow business-led channels would not be forced to.
"I want to stress this won't affect your inbox," he said. "If you're only using WhatsApp for messaging, you're not going to see this."
The ‘Updates’ section is already live in the UK and Mr Cathcart described it as “not particularly popular” here, although it’s picking up in other parts of the world.
Although you can’t delete the ‘Channels’ or ‘Updates’ buttons, the WhatsApp team doesn’t see it as obstructive.
"You can't delete the Channels button, you can't delete the Updates button, you can't delete the calls button," he said. "I mean, we also don't want to have a service that has lots of settings… that's complexity too."
The contents of messages won’t be used to influence what ads are shown, with no change coming to the way that private messages are encrypted.
However, personal information like the country, city, and language of the user, as well as what ads they interact with and what channels they follow, will be used to inform what ads they see.
If you have your WhatsApp account connected to Facebook or Instagram will see more personalised ads, presumably in line with the personalisation options that apply to other social media accounts.
This comes after WhatsApp introducing a mandatory AI feature was met with strong backlash in the UK.
