Facebook is testing News Feed-style ads inside Messenger – Recode (Jan 25, 2017)
It looks like Facebook has finally caved and started testing what are effectively banner ads within Messenger on a limited scale. The closest parallel is the right rail ads on Facebook’s desktop site, because almost all the other ads Facebook shows across both the core product and Instagram are essentially native – that is, they borrow the format of the content itself, and Facebook has never done plain old banner ads on mobile at all. This is just a test, but it’s certainly starting to feel like Facebook is pushing up against the limits of what consumers will bear when it comes to ad load. Though it’s been warning that ad load was going to near saturation in 2017, it doesn’t seem to have quite given up on finding yet more places to show ads, and this feels like one of the least inspired efforts we’ve seen from Facebook so far. I’m very curious to see if the test ends up making it into the finished product, but ads in communication services are notoriously tough – they get in the way of the user, and feel far more invasive than in other settings, especially on mobile. I’d hope that Facebook would think long and hard before pulling the trigger on releasing this to its broader base.
via Recode
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