Snap: From Camera to Commerce Company
Snap has certainly made a name for itself as a camera company, but its latest push in the marketplace is all about commerce as the company looks to give advertisers more ways to use Snapchat to drive online purchases.
Snapchat launched Shoppable Snap ads, which let advertisers feature multiple products within a single ad unit. The ads have been cited by some advertisers as delivering anywhere from four to five times the engagement rate with Shoppable Snap Ads featuring multiple products as they do standard Snap Ads featuring one.
Speaking of Snap Ads, retailers now have the ability to sync their product catalogs up with Snapchat to automatically create and deploy Snap Ads, Shppable Snap Ads and Story ads featuring products in the catalogue. Advertisers can then use pixel targeting to track what actions people take on their websites after seeing the ads, as well as create audiences to be targeted in future campaigns.
Perhaps the most notable feature though is the partnership Snap has made with Amazon, which uses visual search technology to drive commerce. Snap users can hold up their phones to an object. Snapchat will then display a card over objects that are recognized to link users to Amazon to make a purchase.
Commerce Rooted in DNA
Snapchat is up against some pretty fierce competition when it comes to commerce from the likes of Facebook-owned Instagram, which has been testing shopping links in product ads that display in both user feeds and Stories. But what’s interesting about what Snap is doing is it’s leaning into its DNA as a camera company and using the camera as a portal into commerce.
Snap has not been a big success since going public, but commerce is a significant opportunity. It has more teen users than any other social platform, and that’s an audience that’s incredibly hard to reach. If Snap can position itself to those users as both a place to communicate with friends and look for products, it could allow Snap to differentiate itself from the other major social players.