Facebook seeks to help businesses advertise and sell with Kustomer acquisition

 Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/30/facebook-acquires-kustomer-a-crm-start-up.html

On Monday 11/30, Facebook announced that it had acquired Kustomer, a CRM startup that leverages AI and process automation to provide an efficient platform for companies to manage sales and customer relationships.  While most of Facebooks acquisitions have been consumer-facing (Instagram, WhatsApp, Giphy, etc.), this acquisition signals Facebook's intent to provide even more services for companies who are using the platform to advertise and sell their products.  With a Kustomer integration, companies could feasibly advertise and close sales on platforms like WhatsApp and Messenger, branching beyond display advertising and Facebook's Marketplace platform, ultimately driving more conversions.  This will likely be a big revenue driver for Facebook as well, which earns 99% of its revenue from advertising.

It's unclear when we might expect changes to Facebook's core platforms; they'll want to make sure an integration with such revenue implications is done right.  However, with the resources Facebook has at its disposal, I'd be surprised if we don't start to see these options popping up for advertisers very soon.