Dive Brief:
- Viber with its almost 800 million users is testing native advertising with select partners over the next three months with a mind to offer an organic and unobtrusive user experience.
- According to Digiday, Viber has had success with brands, but mostly music-related ones, but the chat app ranks only fourth behind WhatsApp, Messenger and Skype in iOS downloads.
- In other chat app news, a separate Digiday report said that Facebook is no longer allowing mobile users to chat on the mobile website and is now forcing those users to download its Messenger chat app.
Dive Insight:
As chat apps continue to gain traction and attract marketers' attentions, what they will need to do to actually lure ad dollars is set themselves apart from the competition. In doing so, they help provide clear incentive to brands looking to advertise on their platform.
For Viber, beyond its branded stickers, native ads are a way to differentiate itself among messaging rivals. Adrian Lee, director of innovation and strategy for Vizeum Global, told Digiday that though he hasn't worked with Viber directly, he thinks "native content will only help Viber grow its user base, which, in turn, will attract more advertisers."
Facebook, on the other hand, has been slowly looking at ways to monetize its Messenger app as well as its WhatsApp chat app acquisition. The first stage has been making it easier for brands to reach app users. Though Facebook received pushback from users after spinning off the Messenger app from the main mobile app, the social network maintains that in this way they are better able to serve their users. In fact, Digiday reports that per Facebook, Messenger messages now load about 20% faster and "enables richer interactions."
Messenger currently has 900 million monthly users and part of its recent F8 conference was introducing how marketers can take advantage of chatbots on the app to reach users.
As marketers look to build out their chat app campaigns, the messaging apps that can best explain the unique value they can provide through pricing and metrics will stand to benefit most.