Dive Brief:
- Snapchat has partnered with Foursquare to improve the targeting of its geofilters, as reported by Adweek.
- The move gives marketers on Snapchat access to Foursquare’s 90 million location data points for optimizing geofilter campaigns.
- Adweek pointed out that advertisers can now potentially be as granular as targeting a specific store rather than an entire shopping mall.
Dive Insight:
Snap Inc. continues to ramp up the marketing appeal of its central platform in advance of a massive IPO expected early next year. Lack of targeting tools on Snapchat became a long-standing complaint from marketers seeking to engage its youth-leaning audience, and the app previously resisted offering any valuable user data, calling some targeted advertising "creepy."
The tune has changed considerably in the back half of 2016, as Snap has implemented a variety of measurement options for marketers in a pivot toward monetization. In August, it announced plans for behavioral ad targeting, and a month later added three new targeting tools called Snap Audience Match, Lookalikes and Snapchat Lifestyle Categories.
These moves helped make Snapchat more attractive to marketers and potential investors, but the platform has continued to frustrate some with changes to its Stories format and a lack of concrete metrics. Foursquare is now Snapchat’s twelfth tech partner, per Adweek, an indication of how serious Snapchat is about continuing to improve its ad product, now bolstered by the hyper-specificity of location data.
"Snap's geofilters will be more interesting and specific, which will make Snapchatters happy," said Mike Harkey, Foursquare's vp of business development, in a statement to Adweek. "Advertisers will surely have fun targeting certain place categories, such as movie theaters over Thanksgiving or big-box stores on Black Friday."
