Snapchat is bringing ads to the app’s main Chat tab, the company announced on Tuesday. Up until now, Snapchat has kept the Chat tab free from ads, but users will now start to see “Sponsored Snaps” from advertisers alongside messages from their friends.
Users won’t be notified about Sponsored Snaps and will be able to tell them apart from regular messages, the company says. If a person decides to leave a Sponsored Snap unopened, it will eventually be removed from their inbox. If a user decides to open a Sponsored Snap, they can reply to the ad or click on a link to learn more.
Snapchat’s launch partner for Sponsored Snaps is Disney.
The app is also launching “Promoted Places” on Snap Map as a way for users to discover new places. Although local businesses have already been able to advertise on Snap Map, Promoted Places appears to be a way for national brands to advertise and showcase all of their locations on Snap Map.
Snapchat’s launch partners for this new ad placement include McDonald’s and Taco Bell.
The arrival of the two new ad placements doesn’t come as a surprise, as Snap CEO Evan Spiegel told employees last month that the company would roll out Sponsored Snaps and Promoted Places.
“These placements will help us meet the goals of our advertising partners by aligning our unique insights with differentiated solutions to drive return on investment across Snapchat,” Spiegel wrote in the memo.
Snapchat now has more than 850 million users, and although the social network has been able to grow its user base over the years, its digital advertising business has been struggling and lagging behind its competitors.
“You may be wondering why, with all of the progress we’ve made in our business over the last year, our share price performance has lagged the overall market,” Spiegel wrote in the memo. “The answer is simple: our advertising business is growing slower than our competitors. The growth of our digital advertising business is one of the most important inputs to our long term revenue potential, and investors are concerned that we aren’t growing faster.”
The company’s advertising struggles explain why Snapchat is bringing ads to the most popular part of its platform, despite previously leaving it untouched.