Snapchat may have finally found a way to monetize that its users will actually like. The company is now extending its custom geofilters to businesses as a monetization strategy.
On Monday, McDonald’s became the first company to pay Snapchat to run a geofilter advertising campaign. Now, McDonald’s branded geofilters will be available for users to use at any of the over 14,000 McDonald’s stores in the U.S.
Added as a feature in 2014, geofilters allow Snapchat users to add a location-specific filter to photos or videos. These filters quickly became a popular way to tell friends where a snapchat was taken, and now over one million snapchats a day are decorated with a geofilter.
While users have been able to propose and submit potential geofilters since December, the company says only about one-third of submissions are approved. This new program will allow companies to bypass the user submission process, as well as add geofilters to thousands of locations at once.
While geofilters paid for by companies will be denoted with a tiny “Sponsored” imprint, they otherwise will function exactly the same as existing filters.