Click-to-WhatsApp messaging buttons are now rolling out in Facebook ads

WhatsApp has always said that it has no plans to put ads into its own app, but this is not stopping Facebook, which now owns WhatsApp, from figuring out other ways of monetizing the hugely popular messaging service, which has around 1 billion daily users.


Today, Facebook is launching a new ad unit that will let businesses create a link between the two platforms: advertisers can now include a button on their ads so that people can call or message via WhatsApp with the click of a button.

From what we understand, the plan is to introduce Europe at a later date, but Facebook is going to first observe how the feature is used elsewhere, and is also still working through questions from outside the company about how WhatsApp and Facebook will work together.

(Those outside the company may well include consumers, but also regulators.)

The new feature getting announced today, more generally, follows on from some bigger developments for how WhatsApp is already being used by businesses.