The latest Snapchat update brought lenses aka filters that were instant hits among the app's users. Apparently, new sponsored filters will roll out soon to help the company make money not from its users but from big businesses.
"Snapchat will begin selling advertisement space to large brands and companies, and those ads will surface on the app as their own filters," E! Online said.
With the new sponsored filters, users will essentially wear brands on their faces but there is an upside to the whole thing, according to the website.
Citing a Financial Times report, E! Online said Snapchat could make anywhere between $450,000 and $750,000 for each sponsored lens per day. Reportedly, this would allow the company to make money while keeping the app free for its users.
And that's important because as TechCrunch noted, a good number of Snapchat users are kids with not a lot of cash to spare.
"But what they do have is plenty of friends and plenty of time."
According to the website, "the Sponsored Lenses inherently depend on the sender's face, making them always unique and intimate" which are "great qualities for ads to have."
Getting one from a friend may in turn entice others to send one of their own. The sponsored filters could then direct users to more content from the brand - similar to how Snapchat Discover clips link bank to the original story, according to TechCrunch.
"There's no detail on how different or similar they will be to the existing lenses, but Snapchat will be creating them in-house and the [Financial Times] report says that the first buyers will likely be Hollywood studios," The Verge said.
As the website pointed out, this would be the fourth revenue stream for the company after Discover, ads in daily stories and paid replays.
Expect Snapchat sponsored filters to come out around Halloween.
