Meta’s Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram ad revenue has dramatically decreased ever since Apple revised its privacy policy and added the App Tracking Transparency feature for iOS devices. According to a Bloomberg estimate, the company’s year will only get worse. Now it appears like Meta will use a strategy for “premium” features across its primary products to partially offset this decline.
An internal memo distributed to staff members suggests that the corporation has started integrating the functionalities. According to the report, CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated in June of this year that the company won’t start making money from paid services until 2024.
According to the article, Meta has founded a new product organisation called “New Monetization Experiences.” “I think we definitely see potential to offer new types of products, features, and experiences that people would be ready to pay for and be eager to pay for,” said John Hegeman, vice president of monetisation at Meta, in an interview.
He said that adverts would still be present in all of the core apps but did not specify when these premium services would launch.
Of course, the emphasis on ads still makes sense given that they generate the majority of Meta’s revenue, even though this year’s sharp decline in the digital advertising market has severely hurt it. But it’s intriguing to see how Meta is approaching the notion of paid features in its flagship products.
Before Apple implemented “App Tracking Transparency,” as was previously reported by WSJ, Facebook was in discussions with the iPhone manufacturer regarding the possibility of a premium version of the app on the App Store. We are aware that did not occur.
The idea of social media businesses adopting a membership model is not new, but it seems to be gaining more traction as advertising revenue drops. For instance, Twitter offers a “Twitter Blue” paid subscription service, which entitles subscribers to exclusive features.
Twitter hasn’t yet made it accessible worldwide. Paid features could prove to be a new reliable source of income for Meta and its apps, which have billions of users, so it is not surprising if the business finally rolls them out.
