Strategy question
How would you monetize Facebook messenger?
- Meta
- Strategy
- Medium
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What this question tests
Monetization strategy for a large free messaging product without breaking the core user experience.
How to approach it
- State the constraint: Messenger is used for personal communication, so intrusive ads risk hurting trust and usage.
- List monetization levers: business messaging (click to message ads), in-chat commerce, stickers or premium features, and API fees for businesses.
- Prioritize business messaging, since Facebook already drives click to Messenger ad traffic and businesses will pay to respond.
- Propose charging businesses per conversation or per resolved query through the Messenger Business Platform.
- Address the risk: keep person to person chats ad free to protect user trust.
- Define success as revenue per business account and no drop in personal message volume.
What a strong answer includes
- Separates business monetization from person to person chat, protecting the core experience users actually value.
- Names a real, existing lever, click to Messenger ads and the Business Platform, showing awareness of what already exists.
- Gives an illustrative number, e.g. assumes charging $0.01 to $0.05 per business initiated conversation resolved.
- States the guardrail explicitly: personal chat engagement must not decline as a result of monetization changes.
Common mistakes
- Proposing intrusive ads inside personal chat threads, which would damage trust and usage.
- Listing monetization ideas with no sense of priority or feasibility.
- No guardrail to protect the core personal messaging experience.
Likely follow-up questions
- How do you keep personal chats free of ads?
- What would businesses be willing to pay for?
- How would you measure if monetization hurt engagement?
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Learn the skill behind it
Chapters of the AI PM course that teach what this question tests.
- Chapter 4: Discovery and strategy for AI products
- Chapter 9: Prove it paid off: outcomes, economics, and pricing
- Chapter 14: Get the job: the AI PM interview loop