Here's one way Snapchat is following in Facebook's footsteps for a change

Evan Spiegel Snapchat Snap Inc

Turnabout is fair play.

While Facebook and Instagram have been borrowing key features from Snapchat and integrating them into their apps, now Snapchat is mirroring Facebook, by offering a new suite of self-service ad tools.

The goal is to better compete for a bigger share of advertisers’ ad budgets.

Over the past year, Snapchat has steadily introduced ad capabilities and tools that are similar to those offered by leading sellers of mobile ads, including Facebook and Google.

“Those two companies in particular have set a high bar for any new advertising platform entering the market, particularly in the areas of campaign reach, audience targeting, performance measurement, automated and self-service buying,” said eMarketer principal analyst Cathy Boyle.

emarketer snapchat By the end of 2017, eMarketer estimates Snapchat’s net digital ad revenues will jump by 163.3%, and growth will remain in the high double digits through 2019.

The new product, called Snapchat Ad Manager, has been in the works for a while, and is expected to be popular with small and medium-sized businesses.

Beginning in June, marketers will be able to buy many of Snap’s ad formats, including Snap Ads and long-form video, based on targeting—including age, gender and device—as well as bid type, like dynamic CPM and goal-based bidding.

Snapchat’s popular ad format, sponsored geofilters, is not available through the new tool, but Snap did open up its application programming interface (API) last month to make it easier for marketers to buy filters automatically.