Snapchat Advertising: A History of Vertical Innovation
Snapchat, launched in 2011 as a mobile-only app for sending temporary photo messages, has grown rapidly by focusing exclusively on enhancing the mobile user experience, inadvertently becoming a leader in mobile advertising through its engaging, user-friendly design that resonates with mobile users broadly.
Today, Snapchat is one of the fastest growing mobile messaging and social media networks in the world. The app was originally launched in 2011, allowing its users to send temporary photo messages to one another.
From day one, Snapchat was purely mobile. That meant that developer efforts would always be aimed at creating a better mobile experience for users, and that’s it.
In making their mobile app as user-friendly as possible, Snapchat may have stumbled upon a bit of an unintended mobile advertising leadership role. As it turns out, the things that make users engage with Snapchat, are often the things that make mobile users engage with advertisements, anywhere.
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Snapchat Continues to Attract Advertisers in Q1 2022
In Q1 2022, Snapchat continued to attract advertisers, with data showing that 190 companies (396 brands) bought ads on the platform—including a significant portion (46% of brands and 27% of advertisers) who had not advertised on Snapchat in 2020 or 2021—highlighting Snapchat's growing maturity and appeal as an advertising platform that generated nearly all of Snap Inc.'s $4.1 billion revenue, reflecting its evolution from a two-year-old app once offered $3 billion for acquisition to a major digital advertising ecosystem with a market cap nearing $50 billion.
What’s new at Snapchat? Highlights from Snap Partner Summit 2020
At the Snap Partner Summit 2020, Snapchat unveiled major updates including an enhanced Camera Kit that integrates AR capabilities with external apps for practical uses like identifying plants and scanning products, and a new Lens Studio allowing third parties to create custom AR lenses using machine learning, thereby expanding creative and business opportunities on the platform.
Facebook vs Snapchat: How do Their Advertisers Compare?
Snapchat is increasingly popular among Gen Z users due to its innovative, interactive ad formats and growing daily active users, attracting new advertisers and driving a 24% year-over-year increase in ad spend, while Facebook, despite its overall revenue growth, struggles to engage younger audiences and sees many Snapchat advertisers as new entrants rather than overlapping with its own user base.
TikTok — Snapchat’s Biggest Advertiser: What's the Strategy?
TikTok, while publicly maintaining a friendly and distinct relationship with Snapchat, strategically invests heavily—about 80% of its US ad spend in 2019—on advertising within Snapchat's platform to capture young users' attention, despite concerns over TikTok's aggressive ad presence and recruitment of former Snap employees, highlighting a complex dynamic of competition and collaboration between the two social media giants.
Top 10 Snapchat Discover Channels - MediaRadar
Between November 2017 and January 2018, MediaRadar found that 397 brands placed video ads across Snapchat’s 52 Discover Channels—averaging ads on four to five channels each—with iHeart Radio being the most popular channel (61 brands), followed by Daily Mail, Brother, Food Network, NFL, Buzzfeed, ESPN, WSJ, Vulture, and Tasty as the top ten channels by advertiser count.
Snapchat Trends Upward: Where are advertisers investing?
In 2018, as the advertising media mix shifts with the rise of mobile platforms, Snapchat exemplifies this trend by growing its ad business despite earlier concerns following its 2017 IPO slowdown, highlighting the importance for brands and publishers to stay informed on where advertisers are investing to maximize returns.