After significantly curbing its creator payout program, Snap Inc. has largely rejuvenated its Snapchat platform with the implementation of a revenue-sharing option that has lured back some top talent, according to reports. After a testing period that began last year, Snap in April opened to all eligible users a program that allows creators to earn a portion of revenue from ads appearing between their posts. Several thousand participants are said to have qualified for the program, in which those who achieve certain goals become eligible for “Snap Star” status.

The initiative, says The Wall Street Journal, “is part of a broader effort to reverse Snap’s declining sales.”

Softening user engagement and a challenged advertising environment, triggered in part by Apple’s April 2021 privacy policy changes, have negatively impacted the performance of Snap, which has seen its stock fall by nearly 23 percent this past year, according to WSJ.

In February, Markets Insider estimated that Meta Platforms, Snap, Twitter and Pinterest lost “a combined $315 billion in market value” since Apple’s privacy change went into effect.

In Q1, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel told investors the company is “working to accelerate our revenue growth” and is making “significant improvements to our advertising platform.”

Snap has not disclosed details of the ad revenue sharing with creators other than to say it is in line with what other social platforms pay. “Similar short-form video revenue-sharing programs for YouTube Shorts give certain creators 45 percent of the revenue from ads placed between their posts,” WSJ says, noting that “at TikTok, the share is up to 50 percent.”

Creators tend to get a better payout by sharing ad revenue than from platforms that simply offer flat fees.

Among those the Snap Star creator program has attracted is David Dobrik, a Slovak YouTube star with almost 18 million subscribers. Comedian Adam Waheed, who says he’s been with Snapchat since its inception but switched his focus to YouTube where he’s amassed 12 million subscribers, returned to Snapchat in February and is said to now be earning “six figures a month” posting there, per WSJ.

The new offer by Snap emphasizes the battle between competing social-media platforms fighting to attract creators that bring with them audiences large enough to boost ad performance, pleasing sponsors.

Snap has also widened activation of its Linktree link-in-bio integration, allowing anyone with a public profile to add Linktree links. “Until now, it only allowed brands and Snap Stars — the biggest creators who are part of a special program — to include links,” TechCrunch reports.