Snapchat’s New Ads Will Allow Marketers To Purchase Untargeted, Vanishing Placements

Stock photo by 360b / Shutterstock

The insanely popular temporary photo and video sharing network Snapchat is on the verge of monetizing the service according to CEO Evan Spiegel. Since turning down Facebook’s roughly $3 billion dollar offer, the social network has been valued near $10 billion dollars, but has yet to capitalize through advertising.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the ads will be untargeted, disappearing ads, something that may be a challenge to advertisers. These ads will appear directly within the Snapchat Stories section, between photos and videos from users and won’t be targeted individually. The ads don’t have a set time release, but Mr. Speigel said that the ads would arrive “soon.”

[blockquote cite=”Evan Spiegel, Snapchat CEO”]“They’re [the ads] not fancy. You just look at it if you want to look at it, and you don’t if you don’t.”[/blockquote]

The power of social ads for many marketers has been the demographic and psychographic targeting capabilities, not just the branding capabilities. Of course, an ad that disappears poses its own set of problems, but could be leveraged successfully for general branding campaigns.

A few months back, Snapchat discussed the advertising opportunity in a “Snapchat Discovery” feature that was planned on a November launch, but these untargeted ads in Snapchat Stories sprinkled between media are a new and different opportunity.

For more information see the post from the Wall Street Journal.