Snapchat will now be joining social media giants Facebook and Twitter in online paid advertising. Just announced this morning in a blog post, Snapchat will be rolling out their ads this weekend. The ads are going to work a bit differently though. Unlike Facebook and Twitter, Snapchat will not be collecting data from its users. Instead, “An advertisement will appear in your Recent Updates from time to time, and you can choose if you want to watch it. No biggie.” In fact, the ad goes away after 24 hours, just like how a regular “Snapchat story” from an actual user would.

Image Source: Jefferson Graham, USAT

There’s no doubt Snapchat is a pretty popular social media platform. It’s no bigger surprise they decided to dive into paid advertising because they haven’t really been making money since their founding.

However, Snapchat has always been an aversive advertising platform for big brands due the app’s infamous reputation as a sexting channel for teenagers. Additionally, if Snapchat can not put out “targeted ads,” will it be an effective use of advertising dollars? For the bigger picture, how can marketers quantify/measure their success? Will it spark any user-ad interaction, not to mention, user engagement if the ad disappears after 24 hours? Lastly, marketers who want to advertise on Snapchat have a very niche market to work with, with half of users being ages 13-17. These are the individuals who grew up with the web at their disposal, and advertisements are something they have been tuned to glaze over or habituated to ignore. I guess only time will tell, but I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on Snapchat.