How Snapchat’s Ad Automation Boosted its Business in Q4 2017
Snapchat has showed that it is able to withstand the battle that Facebook and Instagram have waged on competing social media platforms. In 2017, Snapchat made it easier for brands to advertise, unveiling automated advertising buying tools and allowing its vertical video format to be utilized by all advertisers.
What this means for marketers: Following the release of their 2017 Q4 earnings report, Snapchat has shown that their daily audience has expanded by 18% year-over-year and the nearly 9 million new users added in the period marked the most of any quarter since 2016 Q3, when (Facebook owned) Instagram decided to copy the Stories feature on Snapchat. Concurring with the new audience growth, Snapchat’s ad profits increased by almost 75% year-over-year to $281 million. That growth was powered by advertisers’ amplified usage of the automated ad buying tools that the platform has rolled out over 2017. Snapchat’s advertising API and self-serve Ad Manager made it easier to buy Snap Ads, in addition to opening the app’s inventory to more advertisers. Snapchat plans to automate even more of its ads to fuel further growth. Marketers will be most interested in the company making its newest ad formats: Promoted Stories, Sponsored Filters, and the Lens Studio, available to self-serve advertisers.