By Mohammad Owais
November 29, 2025
Google Ads is expanding the scope of its Message Asset capabilities to include Facebook Messenger and Zalo, doubling down on conversational lead generation while further minimizing reliance on traditional landing pages. The update was first spotted by performance marketer Aleksejus Podpruginas, who pointed out the significant impact across the global advertiser ecosystem.
Introduced with WhatsApp integration in 2024, Message Assets enable a user to initiate a direct chat with a business from within a Google ad. Adding Messenger and Zalo is a major shift in Google’s cross-platform strategy and underlines the increasing importance of fast, low-friction conversations in today’s lead funnels.
A Big Step Toward Conversation-First Lead Generation
With the Message Assets’ expansion, Google continues deeper toward a model in which chat is a primary conversion event, rather than a secondary follow-up.
Instead of clicking through
- Slow landing pages
- Multi-step forms
- Poor mobile experiences
Users can now jump right into a messaging conversation where intent is highest, and response time is within the business’s control.
Marketing analysts say this is Google’s strongest signal yet that real-time conversation is outperforming classical web-form leads in speed, efficiency and conversion rate.
Three strategic advantages of the update
Industry observers believe that this move strengthens Google’s ecosystem on three key aspects:
1. Greater Reach across User Habits
Adding Facebook Messenger and Zalo opens Google Ads to regions where these platforms dominate everyday communication — most especially in Southeast Asia, where Zalo is widely used.
- Better alignment with local messaging preferences
Different messaging applications are used in various markets.
By supporting WhatsApp, Messenger, and Zalo, Google now covers most of the global messaging preferences.
3. Cleaner, Faster Lead Funnels
Direct messaging eliminates:
- Load times
- Form drop-offs
- UX complications
This smooth flow increases conversion rates but also puts new pressure on advertisers to keep the responses of high quality and fast inside the chat.
Why This Matters for Advertisers
Google’s move reflects a broader industry trend:
Consumers want to talk, not click.
Chat-based funnels tend to:
- Convert faster
- Capture more intents with greater accuracy
- Offer instant qualification opportunities
- Allow businesses to automate follow-up via AI or CRM integrations.
The shift to messaging is outperforming both traditional landing pages and lead-gen forms for many brands.
Quality Controls Become More Important Than Ever
While the update simplifies conversions, marketers warn that:
- Lead quality has to be closely watched.
- Response times must remain constantly high.
- CRM systems and chat automation should be well integrated.
- Each messaging strategy must be tailored to a particular platform.
As the conversational leads increase, the bottleneck shifts from the website to the chat inbox. A Major Step in Google’s Conversational Strategy That’s a big deal, since with this expansion, Google is effectively making messaging a core ad objective, rather than an optional add-on.
And in adding the world’s most-used chat apps into the fold, it’s building a funnel that follows actual user behavior-not outdated web structures. With marketers currently testing the update, many predict conversational lead generation will be one of the dominant performance channels in 2026.
