Different from custom sponsored Geofilters and Lenses, Snap Ads give brands the opportunity to promote their message within the core Snapchat experience in a big way. A full-screen takeover big way. This interruption of the user’s content consumption is potentially intrusive, but incredibly impactful when executed appropriately. The challenge for brands will be not just in grabbing a person’s attention with an ad, but in holding their interest and driving that user to take some sort of action — in this case a “swipe” that loads an attachment from the ad.
We at HYFN believe that the key to any successful advertising campaign is not just finding your target audience, but engaging them in a meaningful and impactful way. For every campaign we manage we take into account the lens through which audiences will be consuming the content across all channels. With HYFN joining the exclusive roster of Snapchat Partners we’re incredibly excited to be able to bring a new and unique set of experiences to advertisers through HYFN8.
There are currently three types of attachments that can load when a user swipes on an ad:
- Longform Video — up to 1 GB of full screen video content
- App Install — direct access and instant load of App Store
- Web View — any web page, instantly loaded
The first two options are pretty straightforward. A Longform Video attachment loads additional video content beyond the 10 seconds of the top Snap Ad, and is geared towards advertisers that want to distribute video content, like a movie trailer. The App Install attachment instantly loads the App Store and prompts the user to install without having to leave the Snapchat environment. While all of the attachments are great, the third attachment, the Web View, is the one that we are most excited about.
The possibilities for this ad unit are restricted only by the limitations of a brand’s imagination. This unit can be used by brands across the board with varying campaign objectives, driving the user into a fully immersive customized experience. Here are just a few examples of advertisers taking full advantage of this ad unit:
Hasbro — Pie Face
Hasbro built a digital experience for their most popular game, Pie Face, directly into a Snap Ad Web View attachment, giving users the opportunity to virtually throw a pie into the faces of characters like Mr. Monopoly and Mr. Potato Head, effectively keeping users engaged with the ad for an average of over 38 seconds.
Universal’s The Secret Life of Pets
During Universal’s promotion of their upcoming movie, The Secret Life of Pets, the brand decided to forego the standard trailer video view campaign and built a custom experience for users to create their own Petmoji, driving over 5 million views and an average user engagement time of 72 seconds.
Gatorade’s “Serena Williams’ Match Point”
During Serena Williams’ run for her record breaking 23rd career Grand Slam victory, Gatorade used Snap Ads to both support Serena as well as take advantage of the custom capabilities of the Web View product to promote the Gatorade brand. The result was a comprehensive digital tennis game built into the Web View attachment that kept users engaged with the brand for an average of 196 seconds.
These campaigns represent just the tip of the iceberg of the capabilities on Snap Ads. As more advertisers start jumping onto the platform we expect to see even more creative uses of this ad format. Retail advertisers can use the Web View attachment to load a fully functional e-commerce site, while lead gen advertisers can load a user data capture form. Quick serve restaurants can display store locations within a specific geo-target, along with a custom menu for that regional market. Travel advertisers can load all sorts of content related to destinations they are promoting; attractions, restaurants, hotels, event calendars, and more.
Never before have advertisers been able to combine the best of the television world (full screen takeover) with the best of the mobile digital world (custom designed fully interactive experiences) while also incorporating tracking capabilities and measurement studies (such as Nielsen’s mDAR, Millward Brown’s Brand Lift Insights, Datalogix’s Sales Lift/ROI, and more).
It may sound as though executing a campaign on Snapchat is an arduous task with a heavy technical investment, but in reality HYFN8 makes execution a snap. Similar to other social networks, the Snapchat Partner Program allows both Snapchat and their partners to focus on the things that they are best at. Snapchat continues building a highly engaging product and growing their user base (and available ad inventory), brands focus on their core products and marketing strategy, and the API Partners continue to develop software that bridges the gap for brands to access that ad inventory and provide in-depth insights into campaign performance.
We built HYFN8 to service this exact need. As the ecosystem continues to grow and brands start to test the waters, running different creative variations while keeping an eye on performance and making in-flight campaign adjustments will be critical to driving your ultimate business objectives. Currently, the only way you will be able to manage these campaigns is by working with an official partner like HYFN. Along with this, there are several other key benefits such as:
Unlimited creative swapping and A/B testing
HYFN8 gives you the ability to run as many different ad creatives as you would like and measure the performance of each.
Unlimited targeting variations
Create as many different targeted audience segments as you would like with both native targeting options and HYFN8 proprietary targeting options.
Real-time optimization
Make campaign optimization adjustments on the fly from the HYFN8 Campaign Manager based on real-time performance.
Goal-based bidding
Set bids based on a goal objective and not just a set CPM, which is a capability only available through the API.
Proprietary HYFN8 solutions
Enhance your campaigns with solutions unique to HYFN8 such as weather targeting, day parting, TV syncing, Snipe, Doc Oc and more.
There’s no denying the growth of Snapchat and the foothold they have secured with their users. In just one year they have increased the total number of daily video views from 2 billion to 10 billion. There are at over 150 million daily active users, 55% of which are between the ages of 18–24, and those figures are continuing to grow, especially in the older demographic as 50% of all daily new users in the US are above the age of 25.
As an official Snapchat Ads API Partner, we’re excited about the opportunity to give brands access to this burgeoning advertising ecosystem, and look forward to helping them plan and execute their campaigns while driving meaningful business objectives and exceeding their goals at scale.
Brad Goldberg
VP, Direct Response at HYFN
