For the past couple of years now, Snapchat has been considered one of the next frontiers in social media marketing—and it’s easy to see why. The app has exploded in popularity, particularly among young people, and its founders have so much faith in it that they turned down a billion-dollar purchase offer from Facebook.
Many brands have begun using it as a content marketing platform, to varying degrees of effectiveness. Quite a few of these brands, however, have criticized Snapchat for its lack of performance statistics, which make it difficult to track exactly how effective they have been with their campaigns.
Snapchat has apparently heard these complaints and is now working with app analytics company Tune to provide marketers with greater insights around its app-install ads. According to sources, Snapchat believed this move was necessary to be able to compete with other brands that have already established themselves as digital and social media marketing powerhouses.
App-install ads have already turned out major dollars for companies like Google and Facebook. Tune provides information on how many people downloaded and then opened an app after they clicked on an advertisement. Marketers are then able to analyze that information and use their findings to analyze and re-tool their campaigns.
This is good news for any businesses that advertise on Snapchat, as it means the platform is at least beginning to look into ways it can provide more comprehensive analytics to marketers. It’s especially good news for brands that wish to market their own apps through Snapchat’s existing app-install ad feature. This means less wandering in the dark trying to figure out what works and what does not in these campaigns.
Snapchat prices its app-install ads just as it does its video promos—on a cost-per-view basis. This differs from Facebook, which prices app ads on a cost-per-install basis. In other words, it’s still more expensive to place an advertisement on Snapchat than Facebook. But then again, Facebook has significantly more money with which to play.
As Snapchat continues to evolve and tinker with its advertising tools, it remains an intriguing platform for content marketers who are focused on reaching out to younger audiences.
Tim Backes is a senior editor with ProPRcopy, a company that offers copywriting services for blog posts, social media content, articles, press releases and more.