Dive Brief:
- Snapchat users are in talks with publishers to serve more ads and increase sponsorships on its Discover portal media channels, sources with knowledge of the conversations told Digiday.
- The social media platform has kept a notoriously high level of control over the amount of ads served to its users, a policy that has put it at odds with its publisher partners at times in the past.
- According to sources, Snapchat is likely to increase the number of edition takeover sponsorships it sells each month, which are currently capped at five. Snapchat hasn’t officially commented on any changes to its advertising policies.
Dive Insight:
Snapchat’s publisher partners want to rewrite the social media company's rules for advertisers.
The partners want to expand their ability sell edition takeover sponsorships, which allows brands to sponsor a channel's content for a day. They also want to increase the number of ads that users will see, while simultaneously capping the frequency of ads so that users don't see the same ads over and over.
Snapchat has yet to make any official announcement on ad rule changes. Snapchat's biggest challenge is to make sure that any changes to its ad policy do not negatively affect the user experience — something that Snapchat tries to hold relatively sacred as it monetizes its product.
“I am consistently impressed with their regard for their user base and not wanting to do too much," an anonymous publishing partner told Digiday. "They are super sensitive about not overwhelming the audience with advertising.”
The changes in ad policy will affect Snapchat’s publisher partners on the Discover portal, including ESPN, BuzzFeed, Refinery29, Vice and others.
