Snapchat has been struggling to gain traction with advertisers for quite some time, and Wednesday’s annual Snap Business Summit, hosted in the Barker Airport in Santa Monica, Calif., provided an opportunity to change the narrative.
Snapchat has long been on its back foot in comparison to its platform contemporaries. Marketers have frequently decried the platform’s user base as being too tiny, and the app has taken a hit in terms of advertising since Apple’s App Tracking Transparent (ATT) went into force.
The event presented Snapchat lay the framework in AR and AI, as well as new creation tools, to a room of partners, creators, and marketers, with the livestream available to anybody who couldn’t attend. However, the event appeared sleek, as has every Snap event in the past, with senior executives confidently pitching their latest ideas and scenarios to the audience.
And, while it was unmistakably a Snap event in which the team and audience gathered to celebrate the company’s triumphs, there were a couple of crucial announcements that were important to creators and companies.
Here’s a recap of what was revealed and why it’s important.
More creators can now participate in Snap’s Stories income sharing programme.
At this point, Snapchat had been exploring an early version of the income split programme with a select group of creators across the world, using mid-roll adverts that creators had put to their Snap Star Popular Stories.
While the app has yet to reveal the percentage portion of these arrangements, additional creators are able to join the programme, according to Brooke Berry, Snap’s head of talent development, at the company’s event. Creators with a minimum of 50,000 supporters, twenty-five million monthly Snap views, and at least 10 Stories per month are eligible to participate in the rev share deal.
Berry added that the programme includes advertising within select producers’ Stories in order for them to obtain more recurrent revenue reimbursements for their “behind-the-scenes” content.
This is Snap’s first foray into the revenue share market, a risk that not all platforms have taken given the necessary infrastructure.
Avi Gandhi, creator of Partner with Creators, was encouraged by the platform’s efforts to increase access to paid Stories. “The more creators they can convince to monetize, the better.” “I hope they can ramp up their efforts over the next year,” he continued.
While Snap’s programme is encouraging, it may not auger well for smaller creators who are still growing their audiences. It also has a big shoe to fill: only six months ago, creators told Digiday that Snapchat wasn’t a priority because rival apps offered more features, more chances, and, in some cases, greater income.
Users can share their public stories.
Like TikTok’s algorithm, Snapchatters 18 and older will be allowed to upload their own live stories, making them creators on the site. Public stories previously targeted major creators and brands.
At the event, Powered By Media CEO Devain Doolaramani told Digiday that the solution may help users establish brands and audiences.
Snap is focusing on augmented reality.
Snapchat is famous (and well-liked) for its augmented reality technology.
On March 23, Snapchat unveiled its AR Enterprise Services (ARES) including its first offering, the Shopping Suite. However, the event was used to convey further information about ARES’ future.
“Bring together our AR and artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities into a new cohesive service to help organisations improve brand loyalty, decrease product rejection rates, and differentiate in an increasingly crowded environment,” said Jill Popelka, director of AR Enterprise Solutions, during the Snap stage.
The package includes tools such as 3D Viewer, Fit Finder, and AR Try-On, which, according to Popelka, resulted in a 24% lower return rate among early testers, but she could not disclose specific data.
Snap did, however, promise a new feature called AR Mirrors, which will allow users to digitally try on things. “This will help them browse smarter, faster, and overcome the gap among online and in-store shopping,” Popelka explained.
Snapchat’s persistent difficulties
Spiegel and his team, on the other hand, did not address advertisers’ concerns about the network’s perceived small user base, and advertising on the site isn’t always as successful as it once was, because of Apple’s ATT implementation.
Overall, Snap has had a difficult time, causing marketers to lose faith in the app. Sure, according to the platform’s Q4 earnings, its user base will have increased to 375 million active users on a daily basis by the end of 2022, compared to 319 million in the year prior. However, as compared with other platforms, Snapchat is nearly always second tier and one of the first to get cut when resources are tight.
Alex Roa, the CEO and founder of marketing firm The Culture Club, is one advertiser who isn’t convinced. He recently stated on LinkedIn that it still fails as a full-length media platform.
“Snapchat is mostly used as a communication platform, with its media tied in as an add-on,” Roa explained. “It’s difficult to see Snapchat gaining a majority new user share for newspapers/entertainment purposes only, since it would compete with YouTube or TikTok.” It’s difficult to imagine a world in which you share a Snapchat video via a creative to your parents.”