Facebook shelves WhatsApp ads, shifts focus to WhatsApp Business, reports say

Facebook has shelved its plans of introducing WhatsApp ads, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

The tech giant has also disbanded the team in charge of planning out the best ways to integrate ads into the popular messaging service, said the report.

“The team’s work was then deleted from WhatsApp’s code,” said people familiar with the matter as quoted in the WSJ report.

Facebook acquired the messaging service in 2014 for $22 billion. The company announced its plan to introduce targeted ads for WhatsApp back in 2018. Facebook had even previewed the ad format that the social media giant had been working on at the Facebook Marketing Summit last year.