Snapchat Is Testing 2 New Advertising Placements

The Snapchat ad ecosystem just expanded with two new placement options.

On Tuesday, Snap announced they started testing on two new placements:

• Sponsored Snaps
• Promoted Places

While not available to the general public yet, Snap provided information on the test, including their launch partners and more about the ad placements.

The goal of these placements are for brands to expand their reach across some of the most widely adopted parts of the platform.

Sponsored Snaps Ad Placement

Snapchat is testing a new Sponsored Snaps placement with Disney, in the announcement from October 8th.

The Sponsored Snaps placement shows a full-screen vertical video to users on Snapchat.

Users can then opt-in to opening the Snap, with options to engage with the advertiser in one of two ways:

• Sending a direct message to the advertiser by replying
• Use the call-to-action to open the link chosen by the advertiser.

Sponsored Snaps aren’t delivered via a push notification and will appear differently than other Snaps in a user’s inbox.

After a certain amount of time, any unopened Sponsored Snaps disappear from a user’s inbox.

Promoted Places Ad Placement

Snap partnered with two other brands for their Promoted Places ad placement test: McDonalds and Taco Bell.

This new ad placement shows on the Snap Map, which is meant to help users discover new places they may want to visit.

Promoted Places will highlight sponsored placements of interest within the Snap Map.

In early testing, Snap said they’ve found adding places as “Top Picks” drives a typical visitation lift of 17.6% for frequent Snapchat users.

They also mentioned the possibility of exploring ideas around customer loyalty on the Snap Map in future phases.

Summary

Snap hasn’t yet announced how long these ad placement tests will run, or when they’ll be available for broader advertisers.

Snap said the Sponsored Snaps and Promoted Places placements will evolve from feedback within the Snapchat community and the brands partnered with them at launch.

In the future, there’s possibility of integrating features like CRM systems and AI chatbot support to make communication more streamlined between brands and Snapchat users.