Snapchat · Data Usage

What This Policy Is About

This is Snapchat's explanation of how it uses your data to show you ads. Snapchat is free because it sells advertising, and advertisers pay more to reach people who are likely interested in their products. This page explains what information Snapchat collects, how it decides which ads to show you, and what controls you have.

How Snapchat Decides Which Ads to Show You

Snapchat builds a picture of you from several sources:

• What you tell it directly: your age (birthday), country, and language when you sign up.
• What you do on the app: the Stories, Spotlight videos, Lenses, and content you watch or create. For example, watching a lot of basketball videos may get you ads for basketball tickets.
• Inferences Snapchat makes: it guesses your age more precisely, assigns you a "gender cohort," and labels your interests with "Lifestyle Categories" (like "Automotive Enthusiast"). You can view and clear these labels in the app.
• Your friends' behavior: if your friends clicked an ad for shoes, Snapchat may show you that same ad.
• Data from advertisers and third-party websites: if you searched for a movie on a website that shares data with Snap, you might see related movie ads on Snapchat. This tracking happens via the "Snap Pixel" and Snap's "Conversion API" — small bits of code embedded in other apps and websites.
• Advertiser customer lists: businesses can upload lists of their customers (matched by hashed phone number or email) so Snapchat can target those people — or people similar to them — directly.

My AI and Sponsored Snaps

If you use My AI (Snapchat's chatbot), your conversation messages are shared with Snap's advertising partners when Snap detects "commercial intent" — for example, asking for product recommendations. These partners also receive your age range, country, language, device type, and IP address. Ads can also appear in your Chat feed as "Sponsored Snaps," though Snapchat says it does not use the contents of private messages between friends to target these ads.

What Controls You Have

You can opt out of several ad types in Snapchat's settings: ads based on your activity on third-party sites, ads based on advertiser customer lists, and ads from third-party ad networks. You can also edit the Lifestyle Categories Snapchat has assigned to you, and turn off certain sensitive ad topics (like political or gambling ads). iOS users can use Apple's tracking controls to stop Snapchat from linking your off-app activity to your Snapchat profile. Users in the EU, UK, Norway, and Switzerland can opt out of personalized content and advertising entirely. Teen accounts (ages 13–17) in those regions get additional automatic protections.