Snapchat, the new(ish) paid-for platform brands shouldn’t be ignoring…

The Brazen social team recently attended a Snapchat event at Victoria Warehouse, Manchester. We’re always keen to learn about platform updates, and test how we can weave the latest tactics into our social strategies.

I think it’s safe to say before we attended the event, a lot of us had written Snapchat off as a viable platform for brands. Brands with smaller budgets struggle to keep up with inflated minimum bid cost for ads, and a minimum spend of £50K+ for a lens. Not all brands can pay to play on these terms, and lack of support for smaller or even medium sized brands has become a barrier for uptake. However, according to the network, they’re working hard to lower the min cost per day for ads in the near future…

Admittedly, the team and I were somewhat surprised at just how far Snapchat has come since it first launched back in 2012. Data from 2017, shows that there’s over 187M people using Snapchat a day, worldwide with 60M+ users situated in Europe. According to the platform, Snapchatters spend on average 30+ mins engaging daily, and send on average, 20+ snaps a day.

Some pretty impressive stats, but who actually uses Snapchat? UK data from Q4 2017, shows 37% of users fall into the 18-24 YO bracket, here’s us thinking most Snapchatters are young teens, using the Puppy Dog filter… we’re actually not far off, as 26% of users also tick the 13-17 YO bracket too.

According to Snapchat’s speaker, those who signed up to the platform some six years ago, have grown up and remained engaged. Plus Snapchat has continued to gain interest and sign-ups from that all-important Gen Z bracket… but why is this important for brands? Brands notoriously find it difficult to target both millennials and Gen Z in a native and engaging way – Snapchat offers a solution to this.

Snapchat’s ad platform has come a long way since it first launched, the network now offers three different ad types; App Install, Deep Link, & Autofill.

Each ad type helps advertiser fulfil a different deliverable; App downloads (App Install), session & conversions (Deep Link) & leads (autofill). Pretty handy stuff considering most of us had disregarded it…

Snapchat also gave insight on best practice for ads, suggesting advertisers stuck to three main best practices; create a single CTA, keep it short and sweet (no more than 3-5 seconds) and create for sound on.

Snapchat recently introduced its own pixel, meaning the ad platform can now track; conversion data, cross-platform metrics & in-store foot traffic. Great news for e-commerce brands & those with brick and mortar stores, this type of analysis is fundamental in proving ROI.

Although costs are still the same for using ads, and the platform may not be right for all campaigns or audiences, if you’re creating a campaign aimed at Millennials & Z Gens, consider this ad spend well spent.

We can safely say that Snapchat has certainly upped its game, and it’s now definitely a contender with the big four… watch this space.

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