Commentary
Is A Quarter Of Snapchat's Users Viewing Ads Enough?
- by Sean Hargrave , Staff Writer, April 4, 2017
All this is true -- only there is a catch. I have blogged about it in the past, and now the latest J.P Morgan figures, reported on in eMarketer, appear to back up the suspicion. Millennials are indeed an elusive audience that in theory should be highly prized. The trouble is that they're not all that keen on advertising.
Now, we should qualify that advertising is never a reason why anyone turns on the television, logs on to a site or picks up a paper. It's an accepted accompaniment that people understand keeps the proverbial lights on. But even when Snap goes out of its way to make advertising fun, through branded filters, the response is pretty mixed. The research shows an even three-way split of roughly a quarter of users frequently using sponsored filters, while another quarter do so sometimes. Half of all users never engage.
Furthermore, three in four say they never swipe up to view an ad, and nearly that same proportion never watch video ads.
So is the cup half empty or half full? That's the question that will haunt Snap and its investors. What is clear is that even when it makes advertising a fun way of adding a photo effect to a picture or video, half of its audience won't even consider it as an option.
When we're talking about more conventional advertising messages, the proportion of people who are simply not interested rises to around three in four. Remember, we're not talking about annoying ad formats here. These are not pop-ups -- these are formats that require purposeful interaction.
What that ultimately means is that it's up to brands to establish as they see how interaction goes. It's worth pointing out that a quarter -- or, at a push, nearly a third -- of Snapchat's audience that may be open to interact with an ad is still a pretty massive assembly of Millennials that would be hard to find anywhere else.
However, this comes with a huge caveat. The generation that is the biggest adopter of ad blocking -- which every piece of research shows is the most opposed to seeing advertising online -- is there in droves, but getting interaction will be a very tall order.
That's not to say it can't be done with compelling content, but brands using the channel need to be aware that roughly only one in four is receptive.
Sean Hargrave is MediaPost's London Editor. You can reach him at seanhargrave@btinternet.com.
I'm confused as to why a quarter of Snapchat's user base engaging/watching ads is being positioned as a bad thing? Average engagement rates on Facebook & Twitter are below 2% - the only examples of engagement rates higher than that are with auto-play video which is at about 20%, so lower than a quarter.
If 1 in 4 people on the platform are actively engaging in Sponsored Lenses & Filters - I think you'd find it difficult to find any other platform/site that had those levels of active engagement and participation with ad content, on the internet.
Ruth, not to worry. It's based on yet another study where respondents are asked general questions ---which generate notoriously inaccurate answers----about how often they watch Snapchat video ads. It seems that 68% claimed that they "never watch", hence the premise of the article. Why actual electronic indicators aren't used is a mystery---like dwell time on ads, for example and what percentage of Snapchat users have any ads on their screens for at least X seconds during the course of a day, week, month, etc.
And those who do engage with a sponsored filtered ad are also sharing that ad with friends, which increases overall reach, right?
First Diana, it is "if" they share.
The very act of sharing may or may not increase reach.
Say, for example, you are on the GOT fan website and you share with 50 of your friends who you think will like this GOT content, then there is a higher likelihood that they may have already seen it. The irony is that the smaller and more niche the target is, the lower the proportion of incremental reach there will be.
Great points guys, I guess I was looking for the balance between thinking a quarter engaging in ads is good but is it going to be enough? Separate studies have shown millennials being more opposed to digital advertising that us Gen X or Baby Boomer people so I suspect that beyond attitudes, there aren't actually one in four regularly engaging in ads, it's just something they've once done. And remember, even when they make it fun and add potential value for free, a half of users have never tried a sponsored filter.
So I guess I was looking for that balance of a great service with an audience publishers would kill for but... if only a quarter of them are going to look at advertising in a favourable enough way to consider watching a video etc, then is that going to be enough. Is a quarter of a massive number enough? More of a question than a statement.