Ever since Facebook paid a whopping $19 billion to acquire WhatsApp some years back, experts have been wondering how Facebook would monetise the messaging app. That time appears to have arrived. WhatsApp will start introducing ads within the app. The official announcement on this has come directly from Facebook during a Marketing event in the Netherlands recently.

WhatsApp is the most popular messaging app in the world and even a small figure the company collects from the advertisers on the subscriber base must add up to a sizeable revenue for the company. Right now, the intentions have been revealed. The important factor on the date from which the ads will appear on WhatsApp has not been disclosed.

"WhatsApp beta for Android 2.18.305: WhatsApp is implementing in this version ads for Status. They are not visible yet and the feature will be enabled in future," fan-site WABetaInfo that tests Whatsapp features early tweeted.

This is not the first time Facebook has talked about monetising WhatsApp; they had given an indication in October last itself. The only indication on the timeline is that it will start happening in 2020; exact dates not disclosed

Your WhatsApp status will be where the ads will be located; this is not very different from the way ads appear on Instagram Stories; Instagram too is owned by Facebook. It is gathered that the ads will occupy the whole screen when you tap on Status; you will have to swipe the screen to know more

If you don’t use any Status on your WhatsApp app, then there will not be any ad posted on it. To know more about the message behind the ad, you have to swipe the screen upward or downward

Facebook ultimately plans to integrate three of its properties, Instagram, Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp at the back-end. So if you suddenly see an ad appearing on your WhatsApp app, don’t be surprised.