Snapchat's Newfound Focus on Data
When it comes to features Facebook’s been playing in Snapchat’s territory left and right, but Snapchat’s starting to show that it can play that game, too. It’s going after Facebook’s key focus—data and ad targeting.
Snapchat just launched a new dashboard called Snap to Store. Snap to Store shows advertisers the direct effect Snapchat ads (e.g. geofilters, Snap Ads, lenses) have had on in-store traffic. Advertisers will be able to see how their ads drove in-store visits broken down by demographics.
Snap to Store is just part of a larger shift by Snapchat to deliver to data-hungry marketers. It’s launched direct response ads that allow developers to to pay on a cost-per-action basis on app-install ads. Beyond that, marketers can now retarget users who have interacted with their ads in the past, creating opportunities to deliver more and more specific messaging as users move from awareness to consideration to purchase.
Ultimately, advertisers will go where the results direct them, so Snapchat’s betting on itself here. It’s saying that it is not only a unique, creative canvas for brands to engage with mobile users. It can also deliver results, and it has the data to prove it. If it can indeed prove its value more than it has in the past, that could satisfy marketers’ appetites to continue or start to use the platform.
Becoming More Responsive
Up until this point, Snapchat’s put its key proposition on its unique user base of young, mobile-focused users and its creative opportunity—full-screen Snap Ads, geofilters and lenses. Snapchat has been firmly relegated by most brands to the test-and-learn or wait-and-see bucket. Once Facebook started copying Snapchat features across its suite of products, that creative canvas opportunity was tarnished. Marketers could try these new experiences on platforms they were already active in.
Now, as a public company, test-and-learn or wait-and-see status won’t do for Snapchat. It wants and needs to be a default partner when it comes to marketing campaigns. Or it risks becoming the next Twitter.
It still has the audience. It doesn’t boast anything near Facebook’s massive user base, but for what it lacks in mass numbers, it makes up for in its focus. That’s why advertisers for the foreseeable future will continue to look at it, but it will ultimately be data brings more advertisers into the fold and keeps them using the platform.