The numbers are huge, staggering. Why is Facebook paying 16 Billion for a messaging app. Before I go on I must admit I did not even have it installed on my mobile, wrong side of 40 I suppose :-(. Anyway I now do. I assumed Facebook would want to run ads on it. I do Facebook Marketing for clients and over the last year its pay per click engine for ads has really started to produce great results for clients.
When I looked at WhatsApp it was not apparent how Facebook might run ads but was I actually missing the point, they do not need to , all they need to do is link the data on WhatsApp with Facebook data and bang their data on users of both applications sky rockets from a quality point of view. The data will be linked by your phone number , All Facebook has to do is, make users verify their phone numbers if they list one in facebook. Thats it.
Perry Marshall gave some great examples of how that might be useful from an on-line marketing point of view
When i Whatsapp my friend Amy ” Hey ! how about a movie and dinner tonight” .. boom.. the data is right in there..
I log in to FB and see the ads for “About last night” movie, and the restaurant advertisement for an Indian Bistro.
Yes. Facebook can make all this advertisement decisions based on
- Facebook knows which part of the world I am from (home town in Facebook)
- Facebook knows which part of the world actually in right now ( location and mobile number)
- It also knows my interests (my Facebook posts, likes, data mining my whatsapp and FB messenger conversations)
- What I am currently looking into (browser cookies)
And the best of all, till now, they serve advertisements based on your past. but with whatsapp messaging data they can use the context and even serve ads anticipating what I an going to do next.
Poor me I am going to have to rewrite my Facebook Marketing page as I state boldly that Facebook marketing is not based on what you want but who you are , it’s how I differentiate between it and Google for pay per click marketing etc. Now Facebook marketing will also be based on what you want. Bet Google is a tad nervous.
Will Facebook start running ads on the web and not just in Facebook, why not, it has the contextual data to provide bullseye targeting options for marketeers.
Lets look at another scenario of whatsapp message ” Hey John, tomorrow i am busy. going to get my taxes done “ and I get Advertisement in the web – ” O Reilly Accountant gives 20% discount on new clients registering tomorrow”.
This can go on and on.
Facebook now has got more data to do data analytics on my relationships. the moment it figures out that my relationship is going on the rocks or at least heading that way, all those dating app advertisements come to me across the entire web.
If I had money I would be buying FB shares.