Snapchat announced that it will be introducing a new opportunity to support creators: mid-roll advertisements in Snap Star Stories. It appears that Snapchat feels that this will help the Snap Star creators to earn money.
In beta testing now with an early set of U.S. Snap Stars, Snap Stars will receive a share of the revenue generated from ads within their public Story. Stories lower the barrier to content creation and engagement, and we believe placing ads within a Snap Star’s public Story will allow an easier path to financial success.
According to Snapchat, this represents a new opportunity to reach Snapchat’s community with a new, high-value placement. Mid-roll advertisements in Snap Star Stories will be available later this year.
TechCrunch reported that a Snapchat spokesperson told them that these advertisements will appear as mid-roll ads inside their stories, and the creator will earn a share of the ad revenue. The payout is determined by a payment formula, which weighs factors like posting frequency and audience engagement. According to TechCrunch, Snapchat declined to comment further on the nature of these payouts.
The Verge reported that the revenue sharing is only being made available to Snap Stars. If you use Snapchat, but are not a Snap Star – you won’t receive any revenue from your stories.
According to The Verge, Snap CEO Evan Spiegal told investors that users are spending less time posting and viewing stories and instead watching content on Spotlight (Snapchat’s TikTok equivalent). It seems to me that Snapchat wants to pull those users away from their TikTok clone in favor of pushing them over to Snap Star Stories.
Will this work? It’s hard to say. I think some Snap Stars will give it a try, in the hopes of earning some money. It is unclear how much they could potentially earn, and that could be a problem if the revenue is too low to be worth it for the creator.
Another potential problem for Snapchat is that most people don’t enjoy watching ads. If Snap Star Stories becomes too cluttered with ads, I suspect that users will lose interest in them… and focus on the more popular Spotlight content.