Discover Channels are Snapchat’s newest way of making money

Reaching 100 million daily active users is only half the battle, the other half is finding out how to make money from them. That’s something that Snapchat knows all too well, as the company still has yet to find a way to properly monetize itself, but it’s been experimenting like crazy in order to find the best way. The latest experiment comes in the form of sponsored Discover Channels, with Sony Pictures being the first company to use it by promoting Spectre, the new James Bond film.

Snapchat is still trying to figure out the best way to make money with its 100-million-plus daily active users. On Monday, it showed off a new idea: A temporary Discover channel full of advertiser-created content. Sony Pictures Entertainment — the studio behind the new James Bond film “Spectre” — bought a “sponsored” Discover Channel on Monday, sharing multimedia content for the new film, which was released Monday in the U.K. Discover channels are common within Snapchat, but are unique to advertisers. Usually, marketers advertise within Discover by placing ads alongside publisher content. For example, a 10-second video ad might be interspersed with other stories and videos from ESPN. This model has been lucrative in the past. The sponsored channel lets brands publish content the same way a BuzzFeed or CNN might publish within Snapchat. Like those channels, the sponsored content disappears after 24 hours.