WhatsApp is rolling out new ad features including a subscription model that will allow channels to offer exclusive content for a monthly fee.

But people who have chosen to link their WhatsApp account to Facebook or Instagram will see more personalised ads. The new ad features will appear in a section called Updates, which is a separate tab at the bottom of the app. WhatsApp claims to have 1.5 billion users globally.

The Status tab is valuable screen real estate. Meta says more than 1.5 billion people use it every day. Advertising is still by far the company's largest stream of revenue so the only really surprising thing about Meta starting to show ads in WhatsApp is that it took so long.