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Snapchat has partnered with 14 companies to help brands make the "post-swipe" ad experience more enjoyable for users.
The term refers to what users are shown after they swipe up on one of Snapchat’s full screen ads. The new partners include companies like Whalar, TreSensa, Entrypoint, and Popwallet and have a wide range of expertise, including influencer marketing, playable ads, 360-degree video, and mobile coupons.
Snapchat has already created some interactive post-swipe ad experiences for brands.Budweiser recently ran a playable football game ad that garnered an average watch time of nearly two minutes, while Adidas recently created a playable soccer ad on the platform.
Here are some key reason Snapchat’s new partners could help draw additional ad spending to the platform:
- Marketers are highly interested in playable ads this year. Forty-five percent of mobile advertisers surveyed by AdColony indicated they were most excited about playable ads for 2017. That topped native ads, social video, and full-screen video. Snapchat’s new playable ad and gaming partners, like TreSensa and GameCommerce, can provide the expertise brands may not have in creating playable ad formats, potentially driving more ad spend to Snapchat.
- Snapchat can capitalize on growing influencer marketing budgets. Sixty-three percent of marketers increased their budgets in 2017, according to a study by Bloglovin’ cited by Marketing Dive. Whalar, one of Snapchat’s new partners focused on influencer marketing, can cut down the time needed for brands to research and find influencers, which could cause more brands to include Snapchat in influencer marketing campaigns.
Meanwhile, onboarding more advertisers is important as Snapchat builds out its Shows, Discover, and news content. The company has recently taken steps to build out this type of content like adding news shows like CNN’s The Update, and partnering with universities to serve college students on-campus news. And this additional content can all represent additional ad inventory. If Snapchat’s new partners are able to effectively ease the creative ad process, Snapchat may be able to more easily fill these ad spots.
Regardless, the new partnerships could indicate Snapchat isn’t onboarding advertisers as quickly as it hopes to. Snapchat may be partnering with these companies in response to lower-than-anticipated ad spend on the platform, with the goal of the partnership being to make Snapchat’s advertising capabilities more attractive.
Though Snap’s revenue — which is mostly generated from advertising — increased roughly 21% from Q1 2017 to Q2 2017, it has still largely missed user growth expectations. That has likely limited the platform’s ad business, and the partnership may be in response to this.
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