SNAPCHAT will soon start showing ads in the chat tab – and they’ll look just like unread messages.
The “experiment” was revealed in a long post by Snap CEO Evan Spiegel that was also sent to company employees.
Snapchat users will begin to see “Sponsored Snaps”, which look like regular messages or DMs.
But they’re not actually chats from friends – they’re ads paid for by brands.
Spiegel said: “Sponsored Snaps appear in the chat inbox as a new Snap without a push notification, and opening the message is optional.”
He said it would help drive people to click ads “with an in-message call-to-action”.
It’s the first time that ads will have appeared in the messaging section of Snapchat.
The post was titled “13 Years at Snap Inc.”, and started off by thanking workers for their “extraordinary efforts”.
Spiegel also used his post to reveal that ads would soon appear in another part of Snapchat.
He described a new type of “placement” called Promoted Places.
It works using Snap Map, which lets you see what your friends are up to or track favorite spots.
And soon, Promoted Places will let brands sponsor specific locations.
You’ll see these if you’re looking for places to explore nearby on Snap Maps.
Spiegel said the company’s new strategy was inspired by US fast-food chain In-N-Out Burger.
“In-N-Out has developed a loyal following by using high quality ingredients, focusing on doing a few things exceptionally well, and obsessing over customer satisfaction to deliver an excellent customer experience,” Spiegel explained.
“Their hamburger, cheeseburger, and Double-Double are our Snapping, chatting, and watching Stories.
“You can decide which parts of our product are the milkshake, fries, and secret menu.
“We’ve learned the benefits of focusing on our core product experiences and making them truly great, and this year we intend to double-down on what is working.”
Fans reacted poorly to the news of the incoming chat ads.
On a post to Reddit about the change, one user replied: “I will delete this f***ing s***.”
Simple problems have simple solutions: don’t use Snapchat.
Reddit user
Another said: “Ads ruining everything was predicted 15 or 20 years ago in sci-fi, I never thought it would actually be that bad.
“But now I look around as I travel, or try watch anything online and bombarded with unavoidable ads multiple times through the content, even services I’ve been paying for for years like Prime.”
One added: “Simple problems have simple solutions: don’t use Snapchat.”
Another urged users to “delete the app”, while one simply added “deleted, bye”.
Spiegel said that the changes would begin rolling out “in the coming months”.
In his post, Spiegel explained why it was important for Snap to show more ads to improve the company's finances...
“As we plan for the coming year, we can’t predict the future but we can extrapolate from what we know today. Economic data shows that the United States economy is slowing, with recession indicators like the yield curve and the Sahm Indicator flashing warning signs.
“Countries around the world are grappling with high debt loads and large ongoing budget deficits. Both US presidential candidates are floating new revenue raisers including tariffs and taxes, which could further slow economic growth.
“The rapidly evolving regulatory environment continues to strain our team, and new legislation around the world may introduce further compliance burdens if we get lumped in with other tech companies despite the different design choices we made while building our service. Court proceedings on the TikTok divestment legislation loom in the coming months.
“In short, we must continue to expect the unexpected. The uncertainty we’re anticipating around the world further emphasizes the importance of diversified revenue streams including an advertising business serving a large number of advertisers bidding against lower funnel, direct response objectives, and subscription revenue from Snapchat+.
“It also means that we are investing conservatively against a baseline plan that assumes modest ad revenue growth, while we work towards higher growth rates.
“This means that in a downside scenario, we are still well positioned to generate free cash flow with our current cost structure. We’ve also taken steps to further fortify our balance sheet with more than $3 billion in cash and marketable securities and no meaningful debt maturities until 2027.
“We believe that this conservative approach allows our team to focus on driving the long term growth of our business without having to worry as much about external volatility.”
Image Credit: Getty
