Snap is expanding its ads business by introducing new ways for brands to show ads or sponsored content on Snapchat. At the IAB NewFronts, Snap announced that it’s testing sponsored links in its MyAI chatbot and adding ads in Spotlight and Stories.
The announcement comes soon after the company held its Partner Summit last month and shortly after its sales fall for the first time as a public company.
Let’s delve deeper into some of the notable announcements by Snap at IAB NewFronts.
Sponsored links in MyAI
Snap opened up its My AI chatbot to everyone for free last month. Until last month, users had to pay for a Snapchat+ subscription to access the chatbot.
For the unversed, My AI was made in collaboration with OpenAI’s GPT technology.
As you’d expect, the AI chatbot solves your queries, helps you get answers to different questions, and also snaps you back.
Now, Snap is testing sponsored links in the My AI chatbot. What this simply means is that, if you ask for hotel recommendations, My AI may show a sponsored link to a hotel.
Furthermore, if you are talking to My AI about a particular game, you may receive a sponsored link to a similar game.
While the feature appears to be good for businesses, it remains to be seen how often it shows sponsored content. We hope it doesn’t spam.
Nonetheless, the feature is still in the experimental stage, so we’ll only know how it performs once it’s fully available.
First Story
Snapchat is introducing ads in between Stories. First Stories allows advertisers to reserve the first video ad between Friend Stories that Snapchatters see.
This feature pretty much means that there will be more ads on the platform. Some of the early partners running First Story ads are Louis Vuitton, Warner Brothers, and others.
Ads in Spotlight
Spotlight, Snapchat’s short video alternative, will now show ads. Initially, Spotlight ads will be automatically placed and advertisers can manage those in Snapchat Ads Manager.
Snap claims that over 350 million Snapchatters consume Spotlight content every month. That said, placing ads in between the Spotlight content makes sense for Snap as well for the advertisers.
Apart from this, Snapchat also announced Snap Star Collab Studio. The new feature is a turn-key end-to-end service for brands to source, partner, and drive results with Snap Starts.
The feature is currently exclusive to the US, but we can expect it to arrive in more regions soon.