Dive Brief:

• According to an industry insider who spoke with Digiday, 70% of Snapchat users leave video ads within three seconds.
• The takeaway for advertisers on Snapchat is to make sure the key message is delivered in the first two seconds of a video ad.
• Last week the social media platform announced reaching four billion daily video views.

Dive Insight:

Snapchat’s video audience is vast – last week it claimed reaching the four billion daily view threshold – and it is young, heavily skewing toward millennials. And apparently its audience also either has a short attention span or is very particular about what it spends time viewing. Digiday was shown a chart from an agency showing the performance of 10 second video ads on Snapchat that illustrated that 70% of video ad viewers left the ad within three seconds.

An executive from the agency, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told Digiday, “It is a very steep, rapid decline for the brand here, and when marketers think they are buying a 10-second ad, they really have to get their message out in two seconds, or else most won’t see it.”

The challenge for marketers buying video ads on Snapchat is getting that message across before the viewer decides to move on. And, differently from other social media platforms, Snapchat currently charges advertisers for all views, even if they last less than a second. Snapchat users are watching a lot of video, the question is can marketers take advantage of that four billion daily strong audience.