BENGALURU: For Meta, Click-to-Messaging ads is now the fastest-growing ad product with a $9 billion annual run rate. Also, click-to-WhatsApp has crossed a $1.5 billion run rate, growing over 80 % year-on-year (YoY).
Click-to-Messaging ads let businesses run ads on Facebook and Instagram that start a thread on Messenger, WhatsApp or Instagram Direct so they can communicate with customers directly.
In Meta’s earnings call, Mark Zuckerberg, Meta Founder and CEO said, “Paid messaging is another opportunity that we’re starting to tap into, and it continues to grow quickly but from a smaller base.” “We’re putting the foundation in place now to scale this (paid messaging) with key partnerships like Salesforce.”
“We also launched JioMart on WhatsApp in India and it’s our first end-to-end shopping experience that shows the potential for chatbased commerce through messaging,” he added. The company reported third quarter revenue of $27.7 billion, down 4% YoY compared to the year-ago period. It missed analysts estimates and its net income halved to $ 4.4 billion from $9.2 billion in the same quarter last year.
It expects fourth quarter total revenue to be in the range of $30-32.5 billion. Meta is also betting big on metaverse. “Between the AI discovery engine, our ads and business messaging platforms, and our future vision for the metaverse, those are three of the areas that we’re very focused on,” the CEO said.
Meta’s pace of hiring also slowed in the third quarter. It added 3,700 net new hires in Q3, down from Q2 net additions of 5,700. The company expects hiring to slow dramatically going forward.
“We are making significant changes across the board to operate more efficiently. We are holding some teams flat in terms of headcount, shrinking others and investing headcount growth only in our highest priorities. As a result, we expect headcount at the end of 2023 will be approximately in-line with third quarter 2022 levels,” CFO Dave Wehner said.
Reels continues to grow quickly across its apps. There are now more than 140 billion Reels plays across Facebook and Instagram each day. That’s a 50% increase from six months ago, Meta said.
Zuckerberg also said that the number of people using Facebook has reached nearly 2 million. Instagram has more than 2 billion monthly actives, and WhatsApp has more than 2 billion daily actives.
Click-to-Messaging lets businesses run ads
Click-to-Messaging ads let businesses run ads on Facebook and Instagram that start a thread on Messenger, WhatsApp or Instagram Direct so they can communicate with customers directly.