Starting in January 2019, ads will arrive on WhatsApp, also in Italy. No ads in chats but only in the section dedicated to States
New year new life, with WhatsApp ads in addition. The famous instant messaging application has in fact made it known that starting in January 2019 it will introduce ads within its service on both iOS and Android devices.
The WhatsApp ads, as pointed out earlier, will not go to undermine our user experience within the chats, whether with a single contact or group. At least in this initial phase, in fact, advertisements will be placed by the developers of the application only and exclusively in the section dedicated to the States. As happens in Instagram, in fact, the ads will be inserted by way 'of mini commercial breaks between a story and another, without going to weigh too much the user experience. For WhatsApp this is a real "first time": never, so far, advertising had appeared within the messaging platform created by Brian Acton and Jan Koum. And it is no coincidence, most likely, that both WhatsApp creators have abandoned their roles within the company since a few months ago.
Facebook begins to monetize from the purchase of WhatsApp
After the purchase a few years ago by Facebook, the founders of WhatsApp had managed to get permission not to introduce advertisements on the messaging app for at least a few years, but now Mark Zuckerberg's social media has decided that the time has come to monetize with WhatsApp by opening the platform to advertisers and companies. In Italy it was the same Country Director of Facebook, Luca Colombo, to give the announcement of the introduction of WhatsApp ads in our country from the beginning of 2019. Colombo also explained that the ads being in the states and not in the chats will not be invasive, also specified that the ads will be inherent to our passions and tastes.
At the moment WhatsApp has chosen to test the ads in the States because with 450 million users who use the function compared to over a billion and a half people who use the chats it is the perfect alternative for a first phase of experimentation. However, it can't be ruled out that this is just WhatsApp's first step towards businesses. The introduction of ads comes after the creation of WhatsApp Business and it is conceivable that in the near future companies, from multinationals to the store under the house, will be able to use the platform to deliver a promotional message in chat to their customers. Basically as it already happens on Facebook with personalized posts.