Snapchat finally snags a little something from Facebook, in announcing the release of new insight tools for advertisers and retailers. One of Snapchat’s setbacks on the marketing frontier compared to Facebook is that Facebook has extensive data tools for advertisers, and Snapchat doesn’t have much…until now. Yep, after much anticipation, there is a new set of Snapchat advertising tools.
What capabilities can you expect to have with these data tools? For starters, the digital dashboard allows you to view how your campaign is doing in a specific location and demographic. And, let’s not forget the updates to the targeting tools. Yes, Snap has some new targeting and retargeting tools, too.
Snap Inc. has been pretty hesitant in the past about releasing extensive insight tools. Maybe because when Snapchat first started featuring ads in 2014, CEO Evan Spiegel explicitly said that these ads would not be “creepy and targeted.” But, come on Spiegs. If you’re showing people ads, why wouldn’t you at least show them ads that are relevant to them?
Plus, in order to generate a greater appeal to businesses, and continue to compete with Facebook, Snapchat had to provide better marketing insight.
And so, here’s the rundown on what Snap has to offer…
Snapchat Advertising Tools
1) Snap to Store
Advertising on Snapchat has already been driving sales. But, now you can know just how much business it’s bringing you. The dashboard will allow you to see the number of people who viewed a campaign and then went to the desired location. This is called Snap to Store.
Wendy’s was one of Snap to Store’s Beta testers, and they were definitely not disappointed. Wendy’s created a geofilter to promote their Jalapeño Fresco Chicken Sandwich. That geofilter drove 42,000 people into Wendy’s within a week of seeing it. Yeah, no complaints there.
So, here’s how the Snap to Store tool works specifically. Snap tracks when users used the Wendy’s sponsored filter to either put on their stories or send out to friends. Snap then tracks how many of these friends who received or viewed a snapchat with the sponsored filter went to Wendy’s within the week. It also makes note of the friends who may not have viewed the original snapchat, but go to Wendy’s anyways.
These numbers are then compared to show the boost to in-store traffic that the sponsored filter provided.
The “Snap to Store” dashboard also allows you to break down data based on gender, age, location, and filter used.
2) Targeting and Retargeting Tools
Snap, also, has been using geotags and location services to determine where users spend most of their time, and where they send most of their snaps from.
Here’s what they found out:
- 80% of Snapchatters are taking pictures at cafes and restaurants (Hey, Food Brands)
- 66% at Malls
- 50% at the Gym
- 49% at the Airport
Snapchat explains how users’ locations shouldn’t be used to target them simply when they are at a specific location though. Instead, this location data allows you to gain insights into users’ hobbies and interests.
And to go along with this, you can now choose to “bid for installs” as one of their targeting tool options, which gives you access to use a machine learning algorithm to target users who are the most likely to take your desired call to action.
As far as retargeting, Snapchat made some improvements to their previous tools, so now if a user has used one of your sponsored filters in the past, you can retarget them with a full screen ad.
Though Snapchat’s targeting tools are not nearly on par with Facebook’s yet, they’re definitely making a statement that they, too, are a powerful advertising outlet.
