Snapchat will begin rolling out ads in its messaging app, where they will appear in the "Recent Updates" and will only be seen by users in the U.S.
The company said the ads can be ignored and that users will not be forced to watch them. It goes away after it is viewed or, if an ad is ignored, it goes away after 24 hours, like Stories.
"We won't put advertisements in your personal communication -- things like Snaps or Chats. That would be totally rude," said the company in a statement. "We want to see if we can deliver an experience that's fun and informative, the way ads used to be, before they got creepy and targeted. It's nice when all of the brilliant creative minds out there get our attention with terrific content."
It is unclear what kinds of customers will be running ads through Snapchat, and it's unclear as to how frequently the company will be pushing out ads. The company used the words "from time to time," which is about as vague as it gets.
The company has said it will not target users in ad serving, but it will have to do at least some level of targeting based on things like language and location if it does not want to serve completely irrelevant ads.
The company did have the guts to admit why it was starting to serve ads in its service.
"Understandably, a lot of folks want to know why we're introducing advertisements to our service. The answer is probably unsurprising -- we need to make money," continued Snapchat in its statement.
"Advertising allows us to support our service while delivering neat content to Snapchatters. We promise that we'll use the money we make to continue to surprise the Snapchat community with more terrific products -- that's what we love to do!"
It will be interesting to see exactly what Snapchat does with advertising on its photo messenger app. It is highly likely ads will start to be integrated more with it over time, but we don't yet know to what extent. Snapchat has said it will not be targeting users in the way that other companies such as Facebook or Google do, although it is possible that the service will not be making enough money unless it does start targeting users.
