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New Delhi: Meta has introduced two new tools ‘status adds’ and ‘promoted channels’ in its latest Android beta update (version 2.25.21.11), taking a big step towards earning money from WhatsApp by testing new ad features.

According to Wabitinfo, these features are now available for some selected beta users on Android. The status ads are similar to advertisements seen on Instagram stories. Business accounts can now post sponsored content, which will appear in the status feed of users.

These ads will appear between friends and family updates, but will have a clear sponsored label on them, allowing users to easily identify them from personal posts. WhatsApp is also giving control to users what they want to see. If a user does not want to see the ads of a particular advertiser, then he can block them. By doing this, the user will not see this ad again.

The second feature, promoted channels, will help public channels to become more visible in WhatsApp’s channel directory. Like the status ads, these promoted channels will be marked as ‘sponsored’.

When a business or creator pays to promote his channel, it will appear at the top of the search results, making it easier for users to find and follow it. These changes can be very useful for those brands, creators and organizations who want to increase their number of audiences rapidly.

It also indicates the entry of WhatsApp into the world of advertisement and creator monetization, which is already on platforms such as Instagram and YouTube. Meta has assured that these ads will not affect the privacy of users.

The company says that all promotional content will be shown not on private chat but only in public areas like status and channels. Earlier, in the previous beta update (2.25.19.15), WhatsApp also launched a test of a feature that allows users to download detailed ad activity reports.