Users of Snapchat will be getting their ads differently from now on. Snap Inc. (NYSE:$SNAP) will now be new advertising tools, including Promoted Stories and Augmented Reality (AR) Trial.
What does this mean for advertisers?
With Promoted Stories, anywhere from 3-10 Snaps of a product can be linked together and will be visible to users for 24 hours. AR trial ads will be based on the company’s World Lens feature and will allow users to play with an AR version of the promoted products.
HBO was one of the first to use the Promoted Stories feature, showing why shows such as Game of Thrones should be watched on Black Friday. Europe-based clothing brand ASOS (LN:$ASC) also tried Promoted Stories, to promote their Black Friday campaign in the UK and France.
BMW (ETR:$BMW) has tried AR trials to advertise its new BMW X2 model. A three-dimensional AR version was created that allowed Snapchat users to view the product from different angles. They could also customize the color of the vehicle.
What does this mean for Snap?
Despite advertisers using these new tools, Snap shares have not been doing well. Nobody, it seems, wants to be involved. In fact, Snap lost 47% in shares since its listing date of March 2, 2017, against a 25.5% growth in its industry.
Snap relies heavily on advertising revenues, so it needs to ensure that its advertising models are on point. These two new tools, Promoted Stories, and AR trials may be what Snap has been needing to reinvigorate its growth rates among users – with ads that aren’t just ads, but interactive elements and stories. So long as users keep coming back to Snapchat, and more and more people become users, advertisers will want to show off their products with Snap, allowing Snap to increase its revenues. Whether or not Snap has done enough to retain these users is another question entirely.
Featured Image: depositphotos/TPOphoto
