Snapchat Is Launching A New Ad Format On Its Platform

This is an interesting strategy as the end-of-the-year celebrations approach! Snapchat’s parent company, Snap Inc., has just announced the development of a new ad type for its app. Its beta version is available to advertisers upon request to their sales representatives. Your SMO agency will give you more details on this new feature from Snapchat.

An Extension Of The Commercials Format

Two years ago, the ghost application had difficulty attracting advertisers to its platform. It was far behind Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, and, perhaps more surprisingly, Pinterest. Thus, Snapchat has focused on its Ads strategy and has developed, among other things, Commercials. This new ad placement consists of placing a six-second, unskippable video ad when a user watches a video in the app’s Discover section.

The tests started last May before the platform fully adopted the concept. So, the American company was inspired by this version to create its new advertising format. The mobile application has decided to keep all these criteria; the only novelty will be the announcement’s extension for three minutes. Extend Play Commercials will give advertisers more time to present their products or services.

However, if the unskippable side of the ad remains the same, the user can pause the ad after those six seconds. It is, therefore, up to advertisers to find solutions to attract users and keep them on their advertising content. This format is very similar to YouTube TrueView ads. There is, however, a notable difference: the Extended Play Commercials are mid-roll. This means that they will necessarily appear during the playback of a Discover video, unlike YouTube TrueView, which (usually) appears at the beginning of the video or during and after.

A Prolific End Of The Year?

We mentioned it a little less than a month ago during our analysis of the financial results for the third quarter. The end-of-year celebrations will be a special time to continue its actions and consolidate the good foundations of its digital strategy. Snapchat launched Dynamic Ads and Commercials to diversify its advertising offer.

As we advance, an option with Extend Play Commercials will be available. The results of its penultimate quarter are more than encouraging. Evan Spiegel’s company has seen the time Snapchatters spend on its app soar by 40% since the third quarter of 2018. Then more than 100 Discover content channels saw a monthly audience of more than 10 million users. Lastly, 50 new international Discover channels were launched in this quarter alone.

Data that goes in the direction of the desire of the Californian company: to build a sustainable ecosystem of premium content for its Discover platform. Ultimately, Extend Play Commercials will be a new weapon in its strategy. This format extension will provide better targeting and more precise data for advertisers. In addition, advertisers will benefit from more possibilities and more flexibility now.

What To Remember?

The platform has to face competitors who are openly inspired by it. Facebook and Instagram, for example, have taken over Snapchat’s flagship feature with stories. Despite all these facts, Evan Spiegel’s application has found a place in the budgets of companies’ digital strategies. These priority targets are, logically, generations Y and Z. With this new video ad format I have no intention of stopping there. So don’t hesitate to contact your SMO agency! Its experts can help you develop an Ads strategy around social networks.