There has been a lot of talk lately about the opportunity that messaging apps represent for brands and businesses, and in fact, since the creation last year of Indonesia Email List the Businesses on Messenger program, which allows online store customers to receive their tickets or access the customer service via chat, many steps have been taken in that direction.

However, Mark Zuckerberg has always categorically denied the possibility of including ads in these types of services, literally saying that “I don’t think that ads are the right way to monetize messaging.” Now Techcrunch reports that you have probably changed your mind.

And they have had access to a document that Facebook sent to some of the large advertisers where the company’s plans to include ads in Messenger during the second quarter of this year are revealed. Specifically, it is explained that companies will only be able to send promotional messages to those consumers who have previously started a conversation thread with them, and that is why it is recommended that businesses promote this means of communication with customers, so that they have more accounts to send announcements to in the future. At the moment it is not known exactly how these promotional messages will work, or what type of formats they will be able to execute.

From Facebook they have not wanted to confirm the news to Techcrunch and have simply stated: “We do not comment on rumors or speculation. That said, our goal with Messenger is to create a quality experience that generates engagement for the 800 million users that exist, And that includes assuring them that they are not going to receive spam of any kind. ”

This does not mean, of course, that you will not receive ads, but that they will not be completely unwanted. It’s nice to know that at least brands won’t be able to send such messages to anyone who uses Facebook or who follows their page, but even so, being able to send a promotional message that is not a direct response to a user question, still seems potentially intrusive. . In any case, we will have to wait a few months to see how this first attempt by Facebook Messenger to monetize directly turns out.

A proof that the advertising plans for Facebook Messenger are already underway is the implementation of a short url, available for all pages under the format fb.com/msg/ plus the name of the page. Brands can already share and promote said link, which when clicked by a user will take them directly to a communication thread with the brand, either through the Messenger app or the website.

The commitment of social networks to become the new customer service channel is clear, and both Facebook – through Messenger chat – and Twitter – which yesterday launched new tools for this purpose – seem very interested in promoting this channel of communication