Whatsapp wants to start earning big with monetization
Recently, Whatsapp (owned by Facebook) announced that it will start serving ads within the (also new) ‘Status’ feature. Although Whatsapp once promised it’s users that they will ‘never’ start/allow advertisement within the popular chat/communication tool – now they will. It’s very likely that Location Based Advertising (as a targeting option) will also come to life. This means that business can reach their audiences on a local scale. Furthermore it’s also likely Whatsapp will either include the option within Facebooks’ Ads Manager (essentially a DSP just exclusively trading/selling Facebook inventory), or launch a standalone platform (f.e. Whatsapp Ads Manager). Either way; the pricing in regards to results (on- and offline; branding, store traffic and conversions) will be a deciding factor regarding it’s success.
The recently introduced and popular status function gives users the option to share a (combination of) video, text or audio message. These ‘status updates’ disappear after 24 hours. Until now, it’s unknown what options will become available for advertisers. We will keep you updated.