Snapchat’s New Money Maker, Sponsored Lenses, Debut on Halloween

Last month, Snapchat debuted a bunch of new “lenses” – animated filters for photos and videos. If you use Snapchat, you’ve likely used one of these lenses. They’re kind of ad...
Snapchat’s New Money Maker, Sponsored Lenses, Debut on Halloween
Written by Josh Wolford
  • Last month, Snapchat debuted a bunch of new “lenses” – animated filters for photos and videos. If you use Snapchat, you’ve likely used one of these lenses. They’re kind of addicting. Have you seen videos of your googly-eyed friends puking rainbows? How about a blue-flamed skull face where their head should be? A sharp-toothed demon? Yeah, those are all from Snapchat lenses.

    While these lenses are all fun and games for users, for Snapchat they’re a novel way to monetize.

    We’ve known this was coming, and now it’s here. Sponsored lenses arrive this weekend.

    Just in time for Halloween, the first Sponsored Lens that will run on Snapchat is for the Peanuts movie. It features Snoopy, pumpkins, and candy corn.

    The filter will be available for your Snapchat selfies for 24 hours on Saturday.

    So, just how much will Fox pay Snapchat for the prime placement? Quite a bit, according to Re/code:

    Sponsored lenses should help with that. Like most of Snapchat’s other ad units, these lenses will be pretty pricey at launch. Snapchat is selling the lenses for nearly $500,000 on weekdays, with that number jumping to close to $550,000 on Fridays and Saturdays, according to a source. For holidays, like Halloween, advertisers are looking at costs closer to $750,000 for lenses, which Snapchat predicts 12 million to 16 million people will use, this source says. A company spokesperson did not respond when asked about ad costs.

    In a purely anecdotal footnote, these lenses are absolutely huge on Snapchat. Everyone I know is using them, and it seems like everyone on Twitter is talking about them. This is a smart move from Snapchat, and depending on how much exposure these Sponsored Lenses get, the company could probably wind up making a lot more from them over the next few months.

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