Facebook Messenger is introducing adverts

Facebook Messenger has announced that it's bringing advertisements into its hugely successful messaging platform. It's been trialing the ads as a feature in Australia and Thailand, and off the back of these “promising tests” is expanding worldwide.

But if you’re worried that the ads are going to pop up in the middle of your chats, don’t worry – it’s not that invasive. The ads will appear in your inbox between chats.

They'll give you the option to connect with either the company's website or its Messenger chat account – a large number of companies are now using chatbots on Messenger to foster stronger customer relationships.

Show me the money

When we sat down with Facebook’s head of Messenger David Marcus recently he was reluctant to discuss exactly how many of the company's chat interactions happening on Messenger were run by chatbots.

But he did tell us: “There are about two billion messages a month exchanged between businesses/services on Messenger. That number has doubled in a year, and that includes automation and human interaction.”

It does make sense for Facebook to try and monetize its Messenger platform, which with its 1.2 billion users is currently an untapped pool for ad revenue.

This becomes even more significant when you consider the fact that Facebook CFO Dave Wehner admitted the company is starting to hit the limit of how many ads it can push into users' news feeds.