WhatsApp Confirms that Status Ads Will be Rolled Out in 2020

WhatsApp parent company, Facebook has announced that it will be rolling out ads to the messaging platform’s status section in 2020.

Sometime in November last year, WhatsApp confirmed it will be rolling out ads to its status section, but when this will happen was not made known.

But at a Facebook Marketing Summit in Netherlands, the company had revealed the time for the roll out. This will see the messaging platform join sister platforms – Facebook and Instagram, in offering ads via its status section.

WhatsApp will bring Stories Ads in its status product in 2020. #FMS19 pic.twitter.com/OI3TWMmfKj

— Olivier Ponteville (@Olivier_Ptv) May 21, 2019

Also, from the pictures shared, one can deduce how the WhatsAp status ads will look like. Apparently, the ads will appear full screeen between WhatsApp status like they do on Facebook. Users will be able to click on the ads to be directed to the advertiser’s website.

This method means that the ads won’t appear if you don’t view status updates. This seems pretty fair compared to other methods of popups which is common for regular android apps.

Monetising Whatsapp has been top of the agenda since Mark Zuckerberg bought the company for $19 billion in 2014. And that has caused a rift between Facebook and the social media messaging service’s co-founders, which eventually resulted in their exit.

But soon after rolling out its status feature last year, Facebook announced its plans to roll out adverts on WhatsApp’s status section.

And Whatsapp Status seems like the perfect place to begin monetising. With over a billion active users daily and over 450 million using its status feature, the platform seems ripe for monetisation.

However, several concerns have been raised about allowing adverts on the platform as this will mean that user data might be mined for targeted advertising. And Facebook is not really in the good books when it comes to user data since it came under heavy fire for data breaches and several other issues.

Facebook also made it known that the advertisements will be powered by Facebook’s native advertising system.