Snapchat Opens Ad API To Advertisers

Snapchat is paving its path to going public with the launch of a new Snapchat API that enables advertisers to insert ads between Snap stories.

The ad inserts will show up when a user auto advances to the end of a Snapchat story to view the next one in queue, TechCrunch reported. A quick swipe up on an ad of interest would lead the user out of the app to read a custom Snapchat-style article or to a webpage or the app store. The swipe-up rate for Snap Ads is 5x higher than the average click-through rate on comparable platforms, Snapchat said.

Snapchat’s revamped platform’s API will now give companies the ability to create big-budget ad campaigns that could even include creating geo-filters, which Snapchat says has a typical reach of 40 percent to 60 percent Snapchatters.

The social networking platform recently partnered with Taco Bell to introduce custom Taco Bell lens, which essentially turned the user’s face into a hard-shell taco. The campaign reportedly saw 224 million views with an average use time of 20 seconds.

Gatorade was yet sponsored campaign on Snapchat that received 165 million views with the average Snapchatter using it for 30 seconds.

While still relatively minuscule in size, Snapchat’s platform is seeing higher brand-user interaction on its platform than other social commerce giants like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.

A MediaScience study corroborated higher user affinity for Snap ads. It found them to get 2 times more visual attention that Facebook ads, 1.5 times more than Instagram ads, 1.3 times more than YouTube ads, which resulted in two times more lift-to-purchase intent that its competitors, including TV ads.

According to Snapchat, its platform reaches 41 percent of all 18 to 34-year-olds in the United States.