• by Colin Kirkland , January 26, 2022

Today Snap Inc. rolled out catalog-powered shopping lenses to improve Snapchatters’ augmented reality (AR) ecommerce experience.

The update may prove to be even more significant for brands, making it easier for them to build, scale and optimize their products in the AR space. 

“Catalog-powered” means that these new AR shopping lenses are directly linked to a company’s product catalog, which allows Snapchat to quickly deliver real-time analytics back to the brand. 

Snapchat continues to be a leader in AR shopping. According to the company, users engage with AR over 6 million times per day.

A 2022 global CrowdDNA-commissioned study shows that Snapchat is the top application for sharing shopping moments, with 93% of users reporting interest in using AR to shop. 

And while some of the AR shopping features still appear cartoon-like -- most notably the try-on experiences where Snapchatters can use the app as a virtual dressing room -- they produce real results for brands.

AR try-on experiences have shown a purchase intent 2.4 times higher, and currently lead to a +14% sales life over video spend, according to the CrowdDNA study.

Overall, Snap’s update aims for a more seamless AR shopping experience. 

Snapchatters will now be able to tap on the Lens Product Card to purchase each personal item provided by a brand. 

Marketers can now leverage Snapchat’s AR try-on as an indication of which of their products users are engaging with, which could make it easier for brands to track consumer trends. 

The idea is that brands will use this insight to inform targeting strategies and product development. 

Ulta Beauty is one brand that is thriving on Snapchat. According to Snap, Ulta consistently runs catalog-powered shopping lenses. The brand has generated $6 million in incremental purchases on the platform and has seen over 30 million product try-ons within a two week span. 

The final piece of Snap’s update involves lens creation on Lens Web Builder, a free web-creation tool that brands can use to create their own AR experiences.

Lens Web Builder launched last year, but did not offer streamlined AR shopping templates. Now brands can generate commerce lenses in just 2 minutes ––and beauty brands can do this in just a few clicks.