In a statement on what’s new for advertising, Meta subtly announces that WhatsApp Business has now surpassed 200 million users.

Meta is making some changes to its advertising policies for WhatsApp Business users. In the same breath, the company of future cage fighter Mark Zuckerberg also announces that the platform now has over 200 million accounts.

No Facebook, no problem

Until recently, WhatsApp Business users were not able to create ads for Facebook and Instagram without having an account on WhatsApp. Meta is changing that now.

You will soon be able to purchase such ads directly in the WhatsApp Business app. All you need is an email address and a payment method. When people click on such an ad, they immediately land on WhatsApp to ask a question, make a purchase, or view products.

The personal approach

Since WhatsApp can be a very personal way for (smaller) businesses to communicate with customers, Meta is working on a new feature in this area. The company will test a feature that allows accounts to send personal messages, such as birthday wishes or reminders of an appointment. Announcements about special promotions, such as a sale, are also possible.

There is no longer a need to manually personalize something every time. The new feature allows you to send messages by name to people from a specific list, for example “customers with a loyalty card”. You can also add call-to-action buttons. Just like posts on Facebook or Instagram, these posts can also be scheduled for a specific day and time.

However, the feature is not free, you have to pay extra for it within the WhatsApp Business app. Meta will soon share more details on exactly how this will work.

After the introduction of channels, this is a further extension of WhatsApp’s business side to communicate with private users. Meta has recently added additional options to WhatsApp Business, such as the recent status archive.