BBM Advertising by Zoosk

When BBM opened up to Android and iOS users, it was known that it would come along with advertising. For example, in Android, your “Invite” notification may light up and it will be a “Sponsored Invite” – i.e. an ad that most likely leads you to an app download. You simply “Accept” or “Ignore” the “Invite”. If you accept it, you’re eventually led to the app download.

At least one online dating site is taking advantage of this ad method to drive app sign ups. Below is the flow Android BBM users experience when they’re “invited” by Zoosk:

How does this all work?

From the Blackberry blog:

By defining certain characteristics like age, location and interests, channel owners can ‘invite’ select BBM users to join their channel. These invites will appear in the invites tab of BBM, clearly marked as sponsored invites. As with invites from contacts, BBM users will have the control to accept the invite from the channel owner (subscribing them to that channel) or decline the invite.

If a BBM user declines an invite they will not receive invites from that channel in the future. BBM will be tightly controlling the number of sponsored invites a given BBM user will receive. We anticipate that we will limit these to a maximum of three per month. We will also control which brands/businesses are able to utilize Sponsored Invites; we want our ecosystem to be populated with high-value content that our users will find engaging.

In terms of whether this is priced on a CPA (pay per install) basis or per “Accept” I don’t know. It could, of course, be a CPM based on the number of people who are “invited”.

I can’t seem to find any information on how a company can even purchase BBM advertising. Possibly the entire idea is in beta and open only to select advertisers. If you have the scoop on how to purchase BBM ads, please let us know in the comments below. Thanks!