Discord gives more advertisers more tools to target its users

Discord has announced tools aimed at expanding the number and types of companies that advertise on the platform.

This week, the social media firm announced Discord Ads Manager, an ad campaign management platform that lets companies manage ads shown on Discord in one place. The tool can be used to perform forecasting, build “a campaign with objective-based bidding,” and monitor an ad campaign’s performance, according to the announcement.

“Self-service access extends Discord advertising to smaller studios and marketers that previously needed a direct sales relationship to run campaigns, opening the platform to advertisers, regardless of their budget,” Discord said.

The ads manager is currently available to select advertisers, but self-service access won’t come until “early 2027,” Discord said.

The company is also expanding Video Quests, video ads Discord users can watch to get in-game rewards. Discord has been showing these ads to browsers in a beta format, with limited testing on Discord’s mobile apps. The company announced that the ad format is now called Video Quests Reserve and will serve as “a premium, reservation-based offering designed for high-impact brand moments.” The ads will give “advertisers a scalable, always-on way to drive outcomes, such as impressions and clicks.” Discord will offer advertisers additional objectives to track “soon.”

The updated video ads and Discord Ads Manager will lead to “expanded [user] targeting,” Discord said.

Discord’s ad ventures

Discord debuted in 2015 and didn’t have ads until 2024, when it launched Quests. The social media company’s ad ventures relate to its confidential IPO filing in January, according to a Bloomberg report at the time that cited anonymous “people familiar with the matter.” The advertising push is seen as a way to drive Discord’s value beyond premium subscription offerings and game sales.