Snapchat Expands Dynamic Product Ads to Sponsored Snaps

Snapchat has rolled out a new Commerce Power Pack aimed at helping retail advertisers capture more engagement during the upcoming holiday shopping season. The centerpiece of the update is the expansion of Dynamic Product Ads (DPA) into Sponsored Snaps, giving brands the ability to push catalog products directly into users’ chat inboxes.

Bringing Products Into Chat

According to Snapchat, this move brings catalog product ads into Chat, the platform’s most active surface, used regularly by 85% of Snapchatters. The goal is to place relevant products where users are already engaging and making purchase decisions. Sponsored Snaps first launched in September 2024 and were seen as a risky format given concerns about ad intrusion in personal messaging. However, Snapchat says the format has performed well, reporting in April that Sponsored Snaps drove 22% more conversions compared to other ad formats on the platform.

Testing New Optimization Tools

Beyond the Sponsored Snaps expansion, Snapchat is also beta testing a Value Optimization tool designed to give advertisers more ways to optimize campaigns specifically for purchases. The company is additionally experimenting with third-party web optimization to incorporate more data signals, along with an alpha-stage Omnichannel optimization feature. This tool would let advertisers run a single campaign that drives purchases across both web and app, based on where a shopper is most likely to convert.

Snapchat frames these updates as part of a broader shopping journey that includes friend recommendations, Spotlight product discovery, AR try-ons, and Snap Map shopping features. While the company sees an opportunity to blend brand messaging with organic social interactions, there remains a risk that expanding branded content in personal inboxes could undermine Snapchat’s core appeal as a space for authentic, personal connection.