The rise of WhatsApp marketing: why the world's biggest chat app became a marketing channel

During the 2026 World Cup Final, WhatsApp peaked at 30 million messages sent every second, an all-time record, according to Mark Zuckerberg on Meta's Q2 2026 earnings call. Most of those messages were between friends and family. But a fast-growing share of what happens on WhatsApp now happens between people and businesses, and that shift is reshaping how brands reach their customers.

This article looks at how WhatsApp went from a personal messenger to one of the most important marketing channels in the world: the numbers behind it, the rules that govern it, what Meta has shipped, and what it means for any business that wants to reach customers there.

From chat app to marketing channel

WhatsApp spent its first decade as a place for personal conversations. Businesses showed up anyway, first through ordinary accounts, then through the WhatsApp Business app, which had passed 200 million monthly users by 2023, TechCrunch reported. For larger companies, Meta built the WhatsApp Business Platform: an official API that lets software send messages, manage templates and handle replies at scale.

The real signal, though, is how Meta now talks about it. On its Q1 2025 earnings call, Zuckerberg put it plainly:

On the same call he pointed to Thailand and Vietnam, where so much commerce already runs through messaging that both countries sit in Meta's top 10 or 11 markets by revenue, despite ranking in the 30s by GDP. Where messaging-first commerce takes hold, it becomes a very large business.

Why customers moved into messaging

Businesses followed their customers. In a Kantar study commissioned by Meta, covering 11,056 adults in 22 markets in 2025, 73.3% of consumers said they prefer messaging when communicating with a business, and 72.4% said they are more likely to buy from a brand that offers messaging (State of Business Messaging). Because Meta paid for that research, it's worth reading next to independent data.

Independent research tells a more nuanced story. Sinch's State of Customer Communications 2025, which surveyed 2,800 consumers, found email is still the channel most people want promotions on, at nearly 77%. But geography matters enormously. In markets where WhatsApp is the default, including India, Brazil, the UK, Germany, Mexico, Singapore and Spain, nearly 30% of consumers picked messaging apps as a preferred channel for promotions. In the US, the figure was just over 3%.

That matches what Meta says about its own footprint. WhatsApp has more than 100 million users in the US, but Zuckerberg acknowledged on the Q1 2025 call that "iMessage is" the primary messaging app there. Globally, DataReportal's Digital 2026 Mid-Year Global Update found that 54.4% of internet users use WhatsApp each month, rising to 69.8% once China and Russia are excluded.

The money follows the attention

The clearest evidence that WhatsApp marketing works is that businesses keep paying more for it. Meta reports WhatsApp's paid messaging inside a line called "Family of Apps other revenue". In the second quarter of 2026 that line reached $1 billion in a single quarter for the first time, up 73% year over year, "driven primarily by WhatsApp paid messaging and subscriptions revenue" (Q2 2026 earnings call).

Advertising tells the same story. Revenue from Click-to-WhatsApp ads, which open a chat instead of a website, grew 60% year over year in Q3 2025. In the US, click-to-message ad revenue grew more than 50% in Q4 2025 (Q3 and Q4 2025 earnings calls). Analysts expect more: Juniper Research forecasts global revenue from business messaging on over-the-top apps will rise from $3.6 billion in 2025 to $9.8 billion in 2029, driven mainly by WhatsApp.

What Meta has shipped for businesses

Meta has rebuilt WhatsApp's business tools in less than two years. The milestones that matter most for marketers:

Put together, these point in one direction. WhatsApp is becoming a full commercial stack: ads that start conversations, AI that answers them, calls and payments inside the chat, and pricing that charges for each message delivered.

The rules: permission comes first

Unlike email, WhatsApp doesn't tolerate cold outreach. Meta's WhatsApp Business Messaging Policy sets a clear bar:

The same policy requires businesses to honour every request to stop, whether it arrives on WhatsApp or anywhere else. Three more rules shape every campaign:

• The 24-hour window. After a customer messages you, you can reply freely for 24 hours. Outside that window you must use a template Meta has approved.
• Templates have categories. Marketing, utility and authentication templates are priced differently and reviewed differently. A promotion dressed up as a utility update gets recategorised.
• Quality is measured. When people block or report a business, its number's quality rating drops, and Meta only raises a business's messaging limit while quality stays high. Irrelevant messages cost more than money.

What good WhatsApp marketing looks like

The brands getting results treat WhatsApp as a relationship, not a broadcast list. In practice that means five habits.

1. 1Earn the opt-in on purpose. Tell people what they'll get and how often, then record when and where they agreed. A smaller list that asked to hear from you beats a big one that didn't.
2. 2Send less, but make it matter. Segment by interest, purchase history and lifecycle stage, so every message is relevant to the person who gets it. With per-message pricing, relevance also saves money.
3. 3Expect replies. WhatsApp is a conversation. Plan who answers, how fast, and what happens to the questions a campaign brings in.
4. 4Automate the predictable. Welcome messages, order updates, reminders and follow-ups should run on their own, so people can focus on conversations that need them.
5. 5Measure beyond sends. Track delivery, reads, clicks, replies, opt-outs and revenue, and let them decide what you send next.

How Buddy is changing WhatsApp marketing

For most of its history, "WhatsApp marketing" meant either a phone full of broadcast lists or an enterprise messaging contract that only large companies could afford. Neither was built for the way people actually want to hear from businesses.

We built Buddy to close that gap. Buddy treats a WhatsApp audience as something you earn and keep, not a list you blast. People subscribe through your own opt-in page with their consent recorded. You send them WhatsNews, launches, offers and updates they chose to receive, through Meta-approved templates on your own number. Replies land in one inbox, sorted by intent. Automations handle welcomes and follow-ups. And every send reports what happened next, so the channel gets better with use.

The other change is who gets to do this. Buddy is an approved Meta Tech Provider, so a creator, a shop or a SaaS team can connect its own number in minutes and run the same permission-first playbook large brands use, without a developer or an enterprise contract. Our complete guide to Buddy covers every feature.

What comes next

Three shifts will define the next phase. AI in the conversation: Meta reported more than 10 million conversations a week running through business AIs by April 2026, up from 1 million at the start of the year (Q1 2026 earnings call), and Meta Business Agent is now available globally. Paid discovery: Status ads and Click-to-WhatsApp ads are turning WhatsApp into a place customers find businesses, not just talk to them. Cost discipline: with every message now priced, the businesses that win will be the ones whose messages people actually want.

The common thread is trust. WhatsApp works as a marketing channel because it's personal, and it only stays that way for brands that respect it. Earn the permission, send what's relevant, answer when people reply, and WhatsApp becomes the most valuable relationship you have with your customers.

Sources

• Meta earnings call transcripts: Q1 2025, Q3 2025, Q4 2025, Q1 2026, Q2 2026
• Meta for Developers: WhatsApp Business Platform pricing and pricing for non-template messages
• WhatsApp Business Messaging Policy
• Kantar, commissioned by Meta: State of Business Messaging
• Sinch: The State of Customer Communications 2025
• Juniper Research: OTT business messaging revenue forecast
• Meta Newsroom: Conversations 2025, Updates tab and Status ads, Meta Business Agent
• DataReportal: Digital 2026 Mid-Year Global Update
• Mailchimp: Email marketing benchmarks
• TechCrunch: WhatsApp Business crosses 200M monthly users