Travis Bernard says, “Snapchat’s current geofilter product is a nightmare for event managers, brands, and any commercial business because anyone can coat-tail or hijack the space. Let’s say you’re holding a political rally at City Hall, and you want to buy a geofilter for the augmented Snapchat space at the event. When you go to purchase it from Snapchat, your plan gets rejected. Why? Someone else has already bought the augmented space. Snapchat’s current policy is “first come, first served,” and you can’t reserve a geofilter more than 30 days in advance. The first person to... [...]

Josh Constine says, “Snap Inc.’s quest to earn enough money to IPO sees it flip-flopping after pledging not to use “creepy” ad targeting. Snap will now allow advertisers to use Oracle’s Data Cloud (formerly Datalogix) third-party data about what users buy offline to target ads on Snapchat, according to The Wall Street Journal. Snap tells TechCrunch that this rolled out over the last few weeks, and will allow targeting to 100 different customer demographics like “cosmetics shopper” or “consumer tech shopper.” That’s a 180 from what VentureBeat reported Snap CEO Evan Spiegel... [...]

Patrick Kulp says, “Snapchat ads are about to get much more personal. Snap, the company behind the ephemeral image sharing app, will begin letting advertisers use offline sales data like store purchases and loyalty rewards programs to better tailor ads to individual users. The move follows in the footsteps of bigger rivals like Facebook and Google, which have built behemoth ad businesses around their ability to target with pinpoint precision. Both have agreed to similar partnerships with Oracle Data Cloud. Snap had previously long resisted these kinds of tactics; CEO Evan Spiegel famously... [...]

Tim Peterson says, “Snapchat is finally stepping up its search game. On Thursday Snapchat began rolling out an update to its mobile apps that makes its search bar more prevalent and more useful. The most noticeable change is the addition of the search bar to the app’s home screen, but the more significant change is the fact that the search bar now works the same wherever you use it, such as on the Chat screen, Stories screen or the home screen. Previously searching for another account from the Chat screen only let you privately message them or add them as a friend, whereas doing so from... [...]

Sophia Bernazzani says, “A great storyteller once said, “brevity is the soul of wit.” And although William Shakespeare wasn’t alive for the invention of video, we think he would agree with our marketing spin: “Brevity is the soul of video content.” Video content has exploded on social media: Videos are watched by 82% of Twitter users, and 100 million hours of video are watched on Facebook every day. But those platforms aren’t the only ones engaging users through video: Snapchat video views jumped to 10 billion per day, more than doubling in less than a year. And Snapchat users... [...]

Andrew Waber says, “By this point, we’ve all traded enough Facebook advertising Q4 tips (raising hand) to write a few books on the subject. If you’re not using all the tools in Facebook’s ROI kit in the next few weeks through the busy holiday shopping season, you don’t have many excuses. But what about for the newer social platforms that don’t have as many best practices in circulation? For retail clients especially, there’s still time to make hay in Q4 on Pinterest and Snapchat. Pinterest Pinterest is a cool combination of social engagement/proof and search intent. Since I last... [...]

Tim Peterson says, “It’s Snapchat’s turn to copy Instagram. On Tuesday, Snapchat finally updated its Stories product — the one Instagram copied in August — with the ability to rewind through Stories, which has been possible on Instagram, but not on Snapchat. If that seems like a minor adjustment, then you haven’t come close to throwing your phone at the wall after getting through 10 snaps in a 25-snap Story only to swipe too quickly past a snap you wanted a longer look at. If you’re looking for something more, on Tuesday, Snapchat also added lenses meant to augment the reality... [...]

Barry Levine says, “A Danish startup is now offering a new analytics service for Snapchat’s disappearing videos and photos that it says is “the only software-as-a-service analytics [exclusively] for Snapchat.” The company, Snaplytics, employs its own proprietary system to monitor activity on public, one-to-many communications, avoiding any Snapchat APIs, which have a problematic history. Snapchat photos and videos are deleted shortly after viewing or posting. Snaplytics’ new service had been in beta for about a year, during which time it worked with about 200 brands and agencies... [...]

Tim Peterson says, “Snapchat’s reported plan to take full control of ad sales from publishers in its Discover section isn’t simply a bad thing for those publishers because they can’t package Snapchat inventory into their pitches to brands, or a good thing because they’ll get content licensing money from Snapchat. It’s a mix of pros and cons, just like it is for advertisers. Right now, the biggest con for advertisers and their agencies is that Snapchat hasn’t said much, if anything, to them about the ad sales change. “This hasn’t been their best communicated rollout,” said... [...]

Matt Orlic says, “You probably fall into one of two camps. You might believe Snapchat is a fad, silly memes and lusty Lotharios looking to send a few risqu? photos to their special someone. (You are wrong, by the way.) Or you believe it to be the second most powerful social media platform in the U.S. behind only Facebook. Ding, ding! You’re right! Launched in 2011, Snapchat has experienced unparalleled growth in just five years, reaching milestones faster than, well, everybody. Just how important is Snapchat to marketing in 2016? Very. Take a look at these stats: 60 percent of users... [...]