Facebook has today announced that they will begin placing advertisements into Messenger starting from today.
The ads will appear on the top of your ‘home tab’ and will utilise the same data sources as Facebooks advertising model for the main feed, and Instagram with a company spokesperson telling Mumbrella that users’ messages won’t be scanned for ad targeting purposes. These ads are different to sponsored posts that businesses on Messenger are already able to send to users that have messaged their business previously,
Advertisements will vary between each user and depend on how each user is engaging with the app, the size of their device and the users Facebook history.
Sophie Blachford, brand development lead at Messenger for Facebook Australia, told Mumbrella that
Messenger ads are going global but still in beta test phase for the rest of the world. We’ve been testing this product in Australia and Thailand since January so this is a global expansion.
Blanchford wasn’t able to disclose how many Australian businesses actually tested the app for Facebook Messenger, however according to the same report, Mumbrella were able to confirm that high end Australian department store, David Jones, has taken part in the beta trials.
While the new advertisement feature will continue as a beta globally, the service will be available to all Australian businesses advertising on Facebook.
When asked how users reacted to advertising in their message streams, Blanchford has said that “We’re really happy with the results we’ve seen and it being a really additive experience to Messenger and the way people use the app and consume Messenger,” and that “We made sure we aren’t impacting user experience and there were no significant changes of time to how people were spending in the Messenger app every day and they way they are using it,” Blachford explained.
Facebook Messenger ads will only feature single image and carousel advertisements at the moment, though Facebook is testing video for future releases/updates.
Facebook Messenger ads are appearing in your Facebook Messenger feed now, with international users starting to see them now. If you don’t like them, you can always try Facebook Messenger Lite which doesn’t seem to have the ads in there.
