Snapchat, notorious for not making money, may now finally make some

NEW YORK: Snapchat, the popular visual messaging platform, is notorious for not making money. That could change soon thanks to a former Credit Suisse banker.

Imran Khan, who worked on Alibaba's IPO while an investment banker at Credit Suisse, was hired as Snapchat's chief strategy officer in 2014, and had only loose instructions for growth, according to Adweek.

The messaging company recently announced that it will be opening the floodgates for advertisers who want to capture the attention of Snapchat's young users by creating an application programming interface (API) for outside advertisers. The API allows ads on Snapchat to be sold automatically by software.

This is incredibly valuable for advertisers, as 41% of all 18 to 34-year-olds in the US are reached by Snapchat each day, according to Nielson data reported by the messag ing company. Snapchat offers sponsored filters and vertical video ads on its platform now.

“Different marketers have different objectives, and we just want to make it easier for them to buy ads on the platform,“ Khan told Adweek. “We want [brands] to have a place where they can tell their stories, you know, in a better way.“ Khan says the millennial audience Snapchat targets so well isn't the only group of people advertisers could hit.People of all ages use the platform because they love seeing their friends' stories.