This week, we saw an overview of currently popular social media platforms and learned a bit about them. We discussed in class that Snapchat incorporated advertising into the app faster than many other platforms. This fact particularly interested me because with all the available marketing channels out there, what would prompt a brand to advertise through a mobile-only platform like Snapchat? Who actually watches the ads?
I read a great article summing up the great challenge that advertisers face if they are to engage in Snapchat advertising: Snapchat viewers are quick to skip video ads if brands don’t impress.
One shocking statistic I read in the article was “about 70 percent of users moved on by the three-second mark” for an ad. So, if a brand was buying a 10-second ad, it’s likely that users see less than half of it. A top executive at an unnamed agency explained: “… [marketers] really have to get their message out in two seconds, or else most won’t see it”.
Source: Digiday
I suppose it makes sense. Most Snapchat ads are voluntary views from their millennial users. For the most part, people actually choose the “ads” they want to see, either via “Discover” (recurring news/media/lifestyle videos) or “Live Stories” (events happening around the world). With such choice among the millions of digital ads out there, why wouldn’t a user dismiss an ad if it didn’t interest them in the first two seconds?
The metric used by Snapchat to measure the success of each brand’s ad is Completion: how many ads were watched until the end? Completion “shows the level of engagement and interest”, versus views/clicks.
The future of Snapchat ads is uncertain, but so far, it looks like brands (big ones!) are adopting the fast-moving platform. Topic TBC!
References:
- Sloane, G. (2015, September 8). Snapchat viewers are quick to skip video ads if brands don’t impress – Digiday. Retrieved September 17, 2015, from http://digiday.com/platforms/snapchat-viewers-quick-skip-video-ads-brands-dont-impress/
- Snachat. (n.d.). Using Discover. Retrieved September 17, 2015, from https://support.snapchat.com/a/discover-how-to
- Snapchat. (n.d.). Snapchat | Support. Retrieved September 17, 2015, from https://support.snapchat.com/ca/live-stories
- O’Brien, J. (2015, May 21). How 6 Big Brands are Advertising on Snapchat Discover. Retrieved September 17, 2015, from https://www.sprinklr.com/social-scale-blog/big-brands-advertising-on-snapchat-discover/