Facebook Will Soon Test Ads Displayed Right On The Messenger App's Home Screen

Facebook has announced that it will soon test out ads right on the Messenger app’s home screen. The social media company says that testing will commence “in the coming weeks” to a small group of users in Thailand and Australia.

“This means that a business is able to place an ad in an area of Messenger below your recent conversations, similar to how we surface birthday notifications or where we let you know if a friend is currently active on Messenger,” Facebook said in its blog post.

The company further explained that advertisements won’t be seen inside a conversation. Ads may only appear in conversations if a user taps on one of the ads on the Messenger app’s home screen. Ads may also appear in conversations if a user chats with a brand. Facebook further clarified that the test ads “won’t originate in your conversations.”

Facebook already has ads on the Messenger app in the form of sponsored messages. These are sent to users that have already had past interactions with brands.

These new form of ads on the other hand are a lot more similar to how ads are displayed on the Facebook News Feed. Advertisers will also be using the same method in targeting users as well and not based on the users’ private messages, according to Recode. Simply put, conversation data on Messenger will not be used for targeting.

Facebook also said that the small group of testers in Thailand and Australia will still have control over their experience. Messenger users will be able to hide or report ads by tapping on the dropdown menu on the app.

As of now, it’s still too early to tell when these ads will be available globally as Facebook is just about to start testing it. There’s also no guarantee of a public rollout of these types of ads on Messenger especially if the tests aren’t successful.

The company also shared that Messenger has 1 billion monthly active users, with over a billion messages being exchanged between users and businesses every month.