WhatsApp has announced it will soon begin to include ads in stories. This information was shared by WhatsApp vice president Chris Daniels.
He said: “We are going to be putting ads in ‘Status’. That is going to be primary monetization mode for the company as well as an opportunity for businesses to reach people on WhatsApp.”
‘Status’ is WhatsApp’s version of Snapchat, Facebook or Instagram Stories, consisting of quick posts and videos that disappear after 24 hours. Snapchat already allows for ads to play between its stories while Instagram allows companies to sponsor stories with those posts featuring a line of text saying they are part of a “paid partnership” with the sponsor.
Facebook revealed in January that WhatsApp had 1.5 billion monthly users. The service had been free for everyone since 2016 when it dropped its $1 annual fee for users after their first year of using the service.
Facebook’s move to monetise WhatsApp was apparently one of the reasons one of the company’s co-founders, Brian Acton, left Facebook in 2017.
