Blackberry recently started to push sponsored contents on its instant messaging platform via featured channel placements, sponsored invites and sponsored post. This move was a monetization strategy for the company to increase sales revenue which has dwindled over years.
Moving on, more monetization strategies like sale of sticker, ad free subscription were also developed but it seems those are not commanding enough revenues as projected by the company.
Now Blackberry seem to have opened up the messaging platform to allow Google serve ads into its update stream through the Google adsense program. A move that is not so surprising.
As I scrolled through my BBM feeds this morning I noticed Google ads now appear in stream alongside my contact updates and BBM native ads.
We are not certain if this has rolled out globally or it’s still been tested but there is every likelihood that this will come to stay. If this plays out as seen, it means that BBM has officially become an adsense host partner platform which serves Google ads. I use an Android device and we still can’t tell whether the ads will be served via BBM on iOS devices
Why the partnership?
For obvious reasons, the essence of this partnership is to make more money and more money hence the reason for expanding the ad sale network. Blackberry has an estimated 90 Million active users and these numbers look enticing for advertisers to jump on. These numbers provide more advertising space for Google to expand and serve more ads while Blackberry also makes money from Google utilizing its platform.
The ads served by Google are also clearly labelled as “Sponsored post” but noticeably different from BBM native ads.
BBM now has over 1.1 million channels used by BBM users, brands and businesses and these has been a source of revenue for Blackberry. As it turns out, the revenues are bound to increase as BBM opens up to serve Google ads.
It is on iOS, I saw it last week on my iPhone.