Is Snapchat finally coming of age?
Snapchat recently overhauled its approach to advertising. Martyn Hannah asks if the messaging app has finally matured as a marketing platform, and what opportunities it presents egaming operators
Snapchat has long been regarded as the advertising platform of the future, but has yet to steal the crown from Twitter and Facebook, particularly for egaming operators. While the messaging app wants to be seen as a premium advertising outlet, the nature of the platform and what it offers marketers has left many scratching their heads. But that could be about to change.
Snapchat has matured of late, shedding its image as a place for sexting and selfies, with a growing user base that now tops 100 million daily active users. And in order to cash-in on this rise in popularity the app has recently overhauled its ad offering, including the launch of its long-awaited API, Snapchat Partners.
The changes are said to provide marketers with more flexibility, additional measurement tools and new formats. The roll-out of Partners establishes a full advertising platform, and also means adverts on the app can be sold by third parties for the first time. But concerns have been raised over what impact additional ads will have on the user experience, and questions still remain as to whether the upgrades are enough to establish Snapchat as a core advertising platform and what it means for egaming operators.
Robert Handley, biddable manager at Oddschecker, says Snapchat has matured as a marketing platform of late, but still needs to tread carefully. “I think it has matured by playing to its own strengths with features like sponsored geofilters setting it apart from other platforms. But it needs to stay true to itself and not get sucked into the way Facebook has done things. It needs to keep the advertising opportunities as creative as possible and let brands become part of the user experience. They have done this well so far.”
So what’s new?
Snapchat already offers three different types of ad. Firstly, it has Snap Ads which is a 10 second full-screen video ad that appears in the same context as other Snaps. Snapchatters can then swipe up, as they can with organic content, to reveal additional material in the form of a longer video, article, app install ad or mobile site.
Secondly, there is Sponsored Geofilters, when Snapchatters are in the location of the advertiser’s choice and take a Snap. They are able to use their custom filter to show where, when and why they took it. They can be set for a specific location, event, or multiple sites across the entire country. And finally, Sponsored Lenses allow marketers to create a custom lens that Snapchatters interact with. Some lenses include prompts like ‘raise your eyebrows’ to trigger an animation. When they are done playing, Snapchatters can send their lenses to friends or post them to their Story.
Snapchat Partners, however, is arguably a game changer. Companies making use of the API will now be split into two categories, Ads Partners and Creative Partners. The former are ad tech firms and will be responsible for developing the software to enable marketers and brands to buy, optimise and analyse campaigns run via Snapchat. Creative Partners will be responsible for generating ad content. Snapchat will also rollout new formats, including ads that play between Stories, when users advance between one person’s Story to the next, and expandable ads.
Jonnie Jensen, CEO of Live And Social, believes changes certainly open up opportunities for egaming operators, but come with a caveat. “There are many agencies out there who profess to being experts at everything, but clearly are not,” he says. “This can be a problem for new platforms such as Snapchat when poor ad content campaigns do not over-value to service users.”
“This, of course, means that campaigns get poor results but worse it creates apathy towards future advertisers which in turn hits ad revenues. But there are many talented content agencies that could no doubt create a great campaign to run across Snapchat or multi-service. And Snapchat is working hard to get the targeting right which means greater relevance for both audience and advertisers,” he adds.
Creativity is key
Indeed, the challenge facing marketers is how to engage with and tap into the psyche of Snapchat’s core user base; 18 to 34-year-olds with a 70/30 female to male split. Users tend to have a creative bent, which means they engage well with the right sort of content but do not respond well to invasive and obvious advertising. Handley says Oddschecker is currently testing different ideas on the platform, and has found that anything containing humour and creativity tends to be engaged with more easily than on other platforms.
“Users respond more negatively to sales pieces than on other platforms. So you need to use the natural creativity of the platform to make sure the campaign is as interactive as possible. By doing this, you are optimising your campaign for the platform just by the very nature of your campaign. Ads that have worked well have been focused around the emotional highs of sports such as racing and football. We haven’t focused too much on our USPs or tried to ourselves, we are just looking to make an impression on the audience,” he adds.
Jensen says another opportunity for egaming operators could be in the existing content they have and the live nature of the services they run. “This creates great opportunities to run topical advertising around events and trending topics. Snapchat Partners would have a good, and quick, idea about how to best leverage the content and maximise the moment. Other opportunities could be to create and share content with popular Snapchat users and groups. This would ensure highly relevant content for the most popular profiles and groups, another vital metric for success,” he adds.
Still early days
A growing number of egaming operators and affiliates are experimenting with Snapchat, from Paddy Power to Oddschecker to Coral. But no one has yet cracked the code. Facebook and Twitter are much more open platforms that are not so intrinsically linked to content. They give much bigger reach, mistakes are less costly, and advertisers and marketers can learn from them and evolve much quicker. But with its growing user base and lucrative millennial demographic, some may perceive there to be a need to make it work.
“I think Snapchat poses an excellent opportunity for marketers in any space,” says Handley. “The average user time is impressive - only Facebook can really compete - and there is an abundance of evidence out there to suggest the advertising potential is huge. If they can continue to develop the ad platform and creative advertising tools that play to the strengths of the user experience I think it will become something the majority of egaming marketers will at least consider, which is not the case with most companies currently.”
So while it seems that Snapchat has matured in recent months, it has yet to come of age. The recent changes certainly open up additional opportunities for egaming operators, and it will take time for their effectiveness to be fully analysed and understood. But for those prepared to invest and experiment on the platform now, the long-term gains could be massive if they are able to engage and interact with Snapchat’s lucrative user base. For those that don’t, it could be a missed opportunity.