Snapchat Will Be Filled With Ads, Content Creators Will Potentially Earn More

Snap Stars, users with verified accounts who have a large following. (photo doc. snapchat)

JAKARTA - Snapchat is introducing a new way for some of its most popular users to earn money. Starting today, users will start seeing mid-roll ads in public Stories from Snap Stars.

Snap Stars are users with verified accounts who have a large following. How much someone will earn from their Stories will depend on a formula that takes into account factors, such as how often someone posts and the engagement of their content.

A Snapchat spokesperson said that the feature is already in very early beta for a small group of content creators in the United States (US), but the platform plans to roll it out more broadly to Snap Stars in the coming months.

"Stories lowers the barrier to content creation and engagement, and we believe placing ads in Snap Star's public Stories will enable an easier path to financial success," said Snap.

These ads will appear as mid-roll ads within their Stories, and the creators will get a share of the ad revenue. Incidentally, the introduction of mid-roll ads to some Stories follows a period in which Snap saw a decline in popularity.

"We're seeing people posting fewer Stories to their friends, (and) seeing fewer Stories from their friends," Snap CEO Evan Spiegel said during a recent fourth-quarter earnings announcement.

"But at the same time, we've seen people watch more premium content, watch more content in Spotlight."

Cited from TechCrunch, Tuesday, February 15, through its TikTok clone, Spotlight only, Snapchat paid content creators $250 million last year. Content creators can also benefit from Spotlight through in-app rewards and the Snap creator marketplace, allowing brands to more easily collaborate with AR developers and influencers.

Meanwhile, YouTube paid 10 billion US dollars from ad revenue sharing over the last three years. But at the same time, short-form video platforms like TikTok and Snapchat Spotlight would feel unusable if they had as many ads as YouTube.

With this trial, Snapchat tried to combine creator-funding and revenue-sharing models. However, it's hard to say how profitable this product will be for content creators when the payout formula remains a mystery.