Facebook’s Messenger ads go global

The expanded beta program includes single image and carousel ad units.

Facebook has begun expanding its Messenger ads beta program globally.

The new format is a single ad placement in the home tab of the Messenger mobile app. The beta expansion, which began Tuesday, will include single image and carousel formats, with additional formats to come.

The ads will be available in Ad Manager and Power Editor to a subset of advertisers at first and will roll out to all advertisers globally. Ads will appear to consumers sometime in July.

Existing Messenger ad products in market include Sponsored Messages and Click to Messenger ads (which occur within Facebook and Instagram and direct users to Messenger).

Messenger Ads had been testing in Australia and Thailand since January. Ted Helwick, product manager, messenger, Facebook, couldn’t disclose any results from the tests, but said that the addition of ads in Messenger didn’t change the amount of time people were using the app.

“In Messenger, the way we look at any product is a focus on consumers and making sure we’re delivering a great experience on consumers, and then we shift our focus to monetization,” he said. “Those test results gave us the confidence to expand to advertisers globally.”

Facebook currently has 1.2 billion monthly active people using Messenger and two billion people-to-business messages a month, said Helwick.