Snapchat hopes to make a significant uptick in marketing palatable to users with an opt-in approach, but its biggest challenge is helping marketers measure the return on their investments.

The picture messaging application?s popularity has allowed it to grow into a successful business, and as with every new medium?s progression, it has accepted various advertising endeavors to sustain revenue. Snapchat?s ad efforts have been innovative and unique, a necessary tactic to keep its substantial user foundation, as well as provide effective ad ventures marketers. 

?I believe that Snapchat?s push to include advertising is a natural progression,? said Greg Pritchard, senior vice president of business development at GumGum. ?From a business fundamentals standpoint, companies need to generate revenue in order to continue providing their services to consumers for free. 

?From a technology standpoint, I think that Snapchat has recognized its central role in the rise of the visual web, and is looking to help digital marketers shift investments towards more image-centric and native opportunities, which results in a better ad experience for consumers,? he said. 

While the threat of ad blocking has marketers scrambling, platforms such as Snapchat offer refuge for brands still looking for ways to advertise on mobile devices. Snapchat now has more than 100 million users, which inherently caused brands have flocked to the app to reach younger consumer who spend a substantial amount of time on its platform. 

Many users have noted the uptick in advertising on the app as seen through conversations on other social media platforms, but it still maintains its personal relationship with its fans after carefully considering how to serve marketers without banner or pop-up ads and video interruptions. Snapchat is a relatively new platform and diving too far into advertising too fast can create a negative experience for users, which can result in boycotts and negative sentiment. 

Various posts on other social media channels have also commemorated the multitude of unique and innovative advertising methods.

Snapchat employs a variety of opportunities for marketers such as brief ads within its Our Stories feature, Discover pages devoted to a particular media brand and sponsored geotag filters. The advertisements on Our Stories always coincide with relative content such as Coca-Cola congratulating recent grads during a story in which commencement ceremonies were showcased, while the Discover pages allow publishers to post its own content consumers can choose to engage with and the filters allow users to post pictures with a filter generated by a particular brand within a specific location or time. 


Indeed serves advertisements to grads on Snapchat

For instance, customers at McDonalds can now share their experiences in photos with a branded filter, which features an animated version of the golden arches.  

Although the platform is a significant option for brands in connecting to younger demographics, Snapchat is lacking in advertising measurement. 

?Consumers, especially the Millennials and Gen Z users that make up Snapchat?s core audience, know that social media platforms will come with advertising,? said Dan Laughlin, vice president of business development at HyprMX. ?For now, Snapchat has found ways to make advertising more opt-in than some other apps, contrast their in-story ads and branded filters with the proliferation of Instagram in-feed ads.?

?The biggest immediate challenge for Snapchat will be developing other mobile capabilities advertisers need to track effectiveness and ROI,? Mr. Laughlin said. 

However, this is not slowing marketers down in terms of partnering with Snapchat. For instance, the bourbon brand Jim Beam recently broke new ground for whiskey marketers by engaging with millennials on Snapchat via 10-second vertical video ads that are being served to viewers of Stories for live events (see more). 

Maybelline and Calvin Klein also rolled out short video clips interspersed with snapshots of New York Fashion Week shows on the event?s public Snapchat Story, proving that the photo-sharing feature may be an effective marketing venue when leveraged to reach targeted audiences with relevant content (see more). 

?Snapchat ads push marketers to rethink their creative, and that is a good thing for the industry,? said Ryan McConville, chief operations officer at Kargo. ?It might translate into more work for marketers and their creative shops, but it is work worth doing. 

?In order to build a mobile ad worth seeing, marketers need to be willing to put in more work,? he said.