By Ann Graceford I t has been rumored for months that Snapchat was looking to take aim at its Millennials and Generation Z users with the launch of its first advertising application- programming interface (API). According to company information Snapchat has more than a million users every day and they majority of these users are under the age of 35, which makes them a very important advertising demographic. Although Snapchat has been very quiet to when the API will be available it has invited 8 advertising sales and 15 creative agency partners to use it, showing that they are ready to take on this market. This is exciting news as Snapchat is opening itself up to outside business. Currently Snapchat handles all creation of ads and sales in-house, when the API opens up, select third-parties will be able to make their own ads, and brands can use programmatic and automated ad technology plat-
forms to buy Snapchat placement in the near future.
Most if not all digital advertising are sold through pro- grammatic ad platforms, which use data fromWeb history to allocate and show the right ads to the right people. The news that Snapchat will now be allowing ads to be sold using these means and their openness to letting ad tech- nology firms use their own proprietary targeting formulas will make companies more comfortable spending market- ing dollars on ads. Reema Mitra, Group Director of Social for agency Huge said while opening up the API to third-parties is some- thing every major social media platform has already done. Snapchat has had the benefit of being able to fine-tune its ad products to exactly what marketers want. “Instead of having to go first like Instagram and Facebook did, they really got to sit and wait it out,” Mitra said. “They got the luxury of learning from other people’s mistakes.
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SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS • JULY 2016
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