4 ms·

Doesn't matter, it helps brand image/awareness, which indirectly affects sales. They're already very successful.

• omarchowdhury 10y ago
  If they want to justify $25 billion plus valuation they will need to open the platform to be useful to businesses other than the high spending brand advertisers, which is certainly a lucrative segment but not the totality of advertisers. Once the people at Snapchat just accept that buying things is also apart of the human experience, then they'll be able to build in direct response ad formats and sales tracking (online and offline). Right now their ad formats are on the level of vanity, though vanity does sell it doesn't sell to all. In the long run, for Snapchat to justify $25bn and greater the local Chinese restaurant needs to be able to send an ad with a call to action to Snapchat users in a vicinity of their choosing, and also be able to track conversion by who walked in. This is all technically feasible, and Snapchat may open up to more sales conversion advertisers. But, that same Chinese restaurant could be doing this advertising campaign today on Facebook and Google. So what makes Snapchat special? They will need to train their users to accept advertisements from unknown entities, because right now their ad content leverages previous brand recognition and borders more on entertainment than sales.
• jonknee 10y ago
  They're losing buckets of money and Twitter should be a great example of having trouble selling ads to social media users. Snapchat is the hot new thing so they're getting ad dollars in experiments from major brands, but it remains to be seen if it's a worthwhile investment for them. If Snap can only offer brand image/awareness type advertising they are not worth what they think they are.