WhatsApp is gearing up to finally monetize its messaging app
by charging large enterprise businesses for tools to better communicate with
customers. WhatsApp will also offer a free app to small-to-medium sized
businesses, though it hasn’t outlined the specific functionality of the app.
The enterprise solution will allow global companies “to provide customers with
useful notifications like flight times, delivery confirmations, and other
updates”.
“We do intend on charging businesses in the future,”
WhatsApp’s Chief Operating Officer Matt Idema told the Wall Street Journal. “We
don’t have the details of monetization figured out.”
The company did write that it wants to facilitate “someone
placing an order with a local bakery or looking at new styles from a clothing
store” and “shopkeepers who use WhatsApp to stay in touch with hundreds of
customers from a single smartphone”, plus offer “an easier way to respond to
messages.”
Perhaps WhatsApp could charge enterprises like “airlines,
e-commerce sites, and banks” to have multiple representatives managing an
account or sending high volumes of messages. It could also charge for
artificial intelligence bot functionality or ecommerce transactions.
WhatsApp also officially announced its closed pilot program
for verifying business accounts with a green checkmark to distinguish them from
personal accounts and fakes.
WhatsApp began testing verified accounts for businesses a
week ago. Conversations with businesses are encrypted and they can be blocked.
Interestingly, if a business isn’t already in your phone number contacts, its
name will appear as whatever they register themselves as instead of their
number. This could allow WhatsApp to create a business search engine with
optional sponsored results, or let businesses cold-message people, possibly for
a fee.
Alternatively, businesses on WhatsApp may need to be
contacted by a user first before they can respond with organic or sponsored
messages. That’s how Facebook Messenger works, and it’s led to businesses
buying “tap-to-message” ads on Facebook’s News Feed to get people to initiate
conversations so the business can follow up with sponsored messages. Not
allowing cold-message ads meshes with WhatsApp writing that it plans to “make
it easier for people to communicate with the businesses they want to reach on
WhatsApp”, emphasis mine.
WhatsApp began testing verified accounts for businesses a
week ago. Conversations with businesses are encrypted and they can be blocked.
Interestingly, if a business isn’t already in your phone number contacts, its
name will appear as whatever they register themselves as instead of their
number. This could allow WhatsApp to create a business search engine with
optional sponsored results, or let businesses cold-message people, possibly for
a fee.
Alternatively, businesses on WhatsApp may need to be
contacted by a user first before they can respond with organic or sponsored
messages. That’s how Facebook Messenger works, and it’s led to businesses
buying “tap-to-message” ads on Facebook’s News Feed to get people to initiate
conversations so the business can follow up with sponsored messages. Not
allowing cold-message ads meshes with WhatsApp writing that it plans to “make
it easier for people to communicate with the businesses they want to reach on
WhatsApp”, emphasis mine.
When Facebook acquired WhatsApp for $19 billion in 2014, the
companies said they wouldn’t put ads in WhatsApp because it would degrade the
experience. But it also ditched its $1 annual subscription fee, leaving few
monetization options beyond charging businesses for tools. The introduction of
display ads and sponsored messages to Facebook Messenger may indicate a
relaxation of WhatsApp’s stance against ads.
With over 1.3 billion monthly users and 1 billion daily
users, WhatsApp has reached the massive scale necessary for it to earn
significant revenue even from light advertising. Its Snapchat Stories clone
WhatsApp Status now has 250 million daily users, and could host vertical video
ads between friends’ content the way Instagram does. It could also insert
display ads into the inbox like Facebook Messenger.
After being one of tech’s biggest startup acquisitions,
WhatsApp has tripled in size under relatively hands-off management by Facebook.
Now it’s time to earn its keep.
