New Snapchat Ads Insights: What Marketers Need to Know

Despite the growing competition in the social media landscape, Snapchat continues to grow its daily active user base. Reportedly, the platform increased to 280 million active users in Q1, 2021, compared to 229 million back in Q1, 2020. Earlier this week, Snapchat shared insights on its Snap Ads and invited marketers to dive deeper into the advertising in its platform.

Changing video content consuming behavior

The company provided a fascinating insight that most people using Snapchat were light TV viewers. Platform original content could mark a notable shift into the next phase of video digestion, with young audiences now consuming video content online and less time watching traditional TV programming. 71% of Gen Z was reached by Snapchat, not by TV

Adding Snap’s Ads to advertising products mix

In the Discover tab, stories are shared by publishers, creators and Snapchat stars. The company provided branding benefits of advertising in its Discover shows and how that links to brand favorability and awareness. Snapchat explained, "ads on Snapchat Discover come in the form of 6-second, non-skippable ad formats that are delivered in our Shows. Our content, which is curated and brand-safe by design, features partners such as E! The Rundown and ESPN Sportscenter, as well as exclusive shows like the upcoming star-driven series Charli vs Dixie and Off Thee Leash With Megan Thee Stallion”.

To provide measurable insights, through 2020 and 2021, Snapchat partnered with Nielsen and a range of advertisers across six different industries to run a series of “16 multi-cell hypothesis tests”. In addition, the company attempted to answer these questions:

• Does adding Discover ads to brands' advertisement mix improve lift?
• How much does advertising on Snapchat increase incremental value?
• Is the higher CPM of video on Snapchat worth the investment?

Snapchat compared a business as usual (BAU) advertising product mix with a BAU ad product mix + Snapchat ads.

The results

After finishing the testing, the platform proved that implementing Snapchat Ads into the advertising product mix is a game-changer for reaching Gen Z with over $4.4 trillion in spending power.

In order to measure the effectiveness of Snapchat Ads, testing results were calculated using CPM, and the total spend across all advertising products in a given group. The company found that adding Snapchat to an admix increased efficiency by 65%. Even though non-skippable ads require a higher CPM, the lift Snap’s ads create exceeds the higher price points.

Bottom line

Snapchat is presenting Discover ads as an alternative to traditional TV advertising. And the statistics don’t lie - the increased usage of Snapchat puts the app in a unique position to increase businesses’ reach and dive into evolving video consumption behaviors.

Despite its higher cost per thousand impressions than similar social media platforms, Snapchat’s Discover ads can drastically increase brand awareness with Gen Z’s and are worth considering adding to your advertising strategy mix.