Facebook has begun the process of introducing paid ads in Messenger, which should start appearing in the popular messaging platform by the second quarter of the year.
However, Facebook has stated they will be extremely careful not to meddle with the clean environment that the Messenger has come to be known for so far, let alone spamming the users.
Instead, Facebook is believed to be taking a different approach, that of letting only those businesses send ad messages to the users that have had mutual interactions before. That is not a bad idea as it cuts off a lot of other potential ad sources, such as those businesses whose pages or products the user might have liked or commented on and such.
Towards that, Facebook has also started a new short URL for the businesses, which when tapped will reveal the new message.
However, it’s not known as of now what the new Messenger ads will be like. Experts though believe it could be in the form of sales promotions or new product launches and so on. The ads could also serve as a reminder for the users to consider any product or service that they might have inquired about earlier but didn’t pursue any further.
Facebook Messenger has grown to now have more than 800 million monthly active users worldwide. However, the social media company has been playing it safe so far as monetizing the service is concerned. Not only is access to the Messenger free for users, but the service is also devoid of annoying ads as well.
Messenger happens to be among the most sought after and fastest growing of Facebook’s product portfolio that also includes WhatsApp, another extremely popular messaging app. Interestingly, WhatsApp too has been made free just some time back which makes one wonder if a similar thought process of monetizing WhatsApp is also in the works.
WhatsApp hits 1 billion user mark, but Next 6 billion people theory unlikely
Zuckerberg had earlier hinted he plans to introduce ads in WhatsApp though in the most unobtrusive manner while at the same time giving maximum possible exposure to the businesses. This, however, goes against WhatsApp founder Jan Koum who had steadfastly refused introducing ads to the messaging platform. However, with over 900 million active users worldwide, it might be too compelling not to let businesses reach to the huge user base via WhatsApp.
