In 2015, six billion videos were posted every day to Snapchat from its 100 million daily users. The platform now has 190 million daily active users worldwide. According to Statista, Snapchat generated 10 billion mobile video views per day as of May 2016. Snapchat advertising is a lucrative business for advertisers using this rapidly growing social media network. Below are reasons you should consider advertising on Snapchat.
1. You Can Reach a Massive Influential Audience
I’m not talking about just any users. I’m talking about millennials, people aged 17 to 36 who make up a fourth of the US population alone, who have $600 billion in annual buying power, who are a generation of influencers, whom people look up to for the latest in food, fashion, music, culture, and tech. According to 2018 data, 94 percent of these millennials —American young adults aged 18 to 24—use Snapchat.
2. You Can Track Customer Behaviors with the Snap Pixel
Snap Pixel, a snippet of code you add to your website, tracks users’ interactions with your website after clicking your Snapchat ad. By learning more about your audience’s behaviors on your website, such as the categories they browse or the purchases they make, you can optimize your Snapchat campaign accordingly and see whether your campaign is achieving your business goals.
3. Soon It Will No Longer Be Just for Teens
Pew Research reports that 78 percent of all 18- to 24-year-old Americans use Snapchat. If history repeats itself, as it often does, Snapchat will infiltrate the older generation, adults aged 35 to 44. Get a head start now before the platform is diluted by noise from other advertisers and brands.
4. Snapchatters Are Hyper-Engaged
The average open rate of email newsletters for all industries, according to Mailchimp, is 20.81 percent. In comparison, Gary Vaynerchuk says that if you have 1,000 Snapchat followers, 900 of them will watch your story. Taco Bell once said that 80 percent of its more than 200,000 Snapchat friends open its Snaps. According to VentureBeat, of Snapchat’s 100 million daily active users in 2015, 65 percent of them contributed content—Snaps and Stories—of their own. This is incredibly high engagement for a mobile app and social network. If you’re looking for an active audience, Snapchat is the place to be.
5. It’s a Fun Way to Show Your Company Culture
Snapchat lets brands relate to their audiences by being silly, casual, or funny. You can have an authentic conversation with your audience, which, in the eyes of potential customers, is far more appealing than sending them blatant marketing messages.
6. It Offers a New Way to Break News and Trends
If you’re trying to build brand awareness, being the first to add value with fresh content is the key to your success. Snapchat offers an interactive way to do that. Next time you share an interesting statistic on Twitter, try creating a video on Snapchat first.
7. It Leverages Direct-to-Audience Video Interactions
Sending a quick and personalized in-the-moment video message to a customer can be a powerful effort. Imagine being able to solve a customer service problem, answer a question, or announce the winner of a competition within seconds. Snapchat’s video chatting feature is by design one of the fastest and most casual ways to start a video chat, making the investment in interactions minimal.
8. It’s a Powerful Vehicle for Influencer Marketing
Snapchat’s role in influencer marketing is two-fold. It’s a great place to connect with influencers,as well as celebrities. They have huge audiences and engaged fans just waiting for their next Snap or Story. Partner with celebrities to share Snaps about your product or service.
9. Your Content Will Never Be Lost During Busy Times
Unlike most social networks that you push content out to, sending a Snap is like sending an email to an inbox, except people actually open them. There’s no getting lost in the noise or worrying about the shelf life of your content. Your Snap or Story sits there until your friend or fan opens it. It’s an impactful way of building a relationship with your audience.
10. Snap Is Expanding Stories to Other Platforms
Specifically, Tinder and Houseparty now allow users to add their Snapchat Stories to their apps. This integration, although it does not yet include Stories ads, means more potential audiences you can reach. Additionally, Stories will likely soon become available for other apps. Currently, Snap is pursuing partnerships with GoFundMe, Anchor, and Netflix. If you want to expand your audience reach with the Stories format, Snapchat is the way to go because it offers cross-platform reach.
11. Snap Audience Network Will Make It Easy to Advertise in Your Own App
According to The Verge, Snap recently rolled out a new advertising product called Snap Audience Network. Snap Audience Network, which will launch later this year, will allow developers to include Snap’s vertical ads in their own products. Although Snap hasn’t yet explained how this partnership will work, if you like the Snap ad format but have your own app you’d like to distribute it to, you can take advantage of the Snap Audience Network.
12. It’s a Great Way to Reach Mobile Gamers
Snap has been working on a mobile-app gaming platform that will feature games by third-party developers. If you’re a game developer, you can reach Snapchat users with mobile games designed specifically for the Snapchat app. Because Snapchatters are already using Snapchat regularly to socialize, bringing your game to them through the app increases the likelihood that they’ll play it. It’s a seamless way to reach the younger demographics.
13. You Can Benefit from Snap’s Partnership with Amazon
If Snapchatters see a product they like, such as, for example, a pair of shoes, they can use the Amazon product search tool to search for that product online. When Snapchatters point their cameras at a product or barcode and long-press on the camera screen, a card with a link to the item listed on Amazon will appear.
14. You Can Feature Multiple Products with Collection Ads
Have multiple products you want to promote all at once? You can easily advertise them with Snapchat’s Collection Ad format. Collection Ads allow you to feature multiple products in a visually pleasing, shoppable format. If users want to learn more about a product, they can easily tap on it within the ad.
15. You Can Upload Existing Product Feeds to Automatically Generate Ads
If you’re overwhelmed with multiple advertising projects, anything that helps you improve your workflow is welcome. This past October, Snap announced a product catalog enhancement that lets you upload existing product feeds to automatically generate ads. Snapchat’s Ads Manager has templates for Stories Ads, Snap Ads, and Collection Ads that can be automatically created when you upload your product information. If you don’t have a lot of time to spend on coming up with new ad creative, Snapchat has your back!
There are a lot of benefits to advertising on Snapchat, but you cannot do it alone. Hiring a Snapchat advertising agency can make your campaigns more successful in reach, conversions, and engagement. You must choose an advertising agency that doesn’t shy away from campaign performance, understands and improves data outcomes, possesses insights about new audience segments, and identifies ways to take your program to the next level.
