Snapchat Introduces Mid-Roll Ads and Revenue Sharing

There is some good news coming for popular Snapchat content creators, as they’ll soon start sharing in some of those sweet, sweet advertising dollars.

The social media messaging app just announced a new service that inserts advertisements in the middle of stories, with a portion of the revenue going directly to creators, as noted in an official company press release.

The program is only available for the most popular Snapchat content creators, also known as 'Snap Stars.' If you're unfamiliar with the machinations of Snapchat, think of a Snap Star as a Twitter blue checkmark. 

Here's how it works. Advertisements will play in the middle of stories created by these super-users, and, in turn, they'll get a payout. Snapchat, however, is somewhat nebulous regarding the nature of these payouts, only noting that they're based on a payment formula that takes audience engagement and posting frequency into consideration. 

For the rest of us, this means more ads when we watch Snapchat Stories, though the company has not announced how long these ads will be or if they'll be skippable. They did, however, say to potential advertisers that "this represents a new opportunity to reach our community with a new, high-value placement."

The service is already in beta and has begun rolling out to a select number of US-based Snap Stars, with a broader rollout expected in the next few months. 

This ad-placement system joins Snapchat Spotlight, their TikTok-like feature that gave top creators $250 million in 2021. Snapchat's parent company, Snap, earned over $4 billion in 2021, according to Statista.