After posting better than expected revenue numbers in their latest performance report, Snap Inc., the parent company of Snapchat, is now taking the next step in its monetization efforts by opening up its advertising API to all.
Snap originally provided access to its API only to approved developers, but now, all advertisers, agencies and third-party developers will be able to utilize the same.
The capacity will enable businesses to further automate their Snapchat ads – as explained by Venture Beat.
“It represents Snapchat’s first moves in the programmatic advertising realm, meaning that ads can be bought and sold automatically, and advertisers can experiment with different kinds of ads through A/B testing to see what works best. Or, for example, a retailer could optimize their ads based on their inventory — if stock runs low on one product, they could automatically switch ads to promote another product.”
This type of automated ad buying is already available on many other platforms, and the increased capacity to utilize such tools on Snapchat should help the company generate more ad revenue, boosting its results.
In its most recent earnings call, Snap noted that over 90% of its ads were purchased programmatically during Q4, underlining the value of the option, and the potential of the expansion of their API platform.
As noted by Marketing Land, the marketing API will remove the need for businesses to go through Snap’s direct sales team or manually place each ad buy using Snap’s self-serve ad-buying tool.
“For agencies, it can reduce the reliance on outside vendors to manage clients’ Snapchat campaigns and increase their flexibility and control over those campaigns. And for developers, it can enable them to erect new ad-buying dashboards to serve more niche needs than what may be satisfied by larger, more general ad tech firms.”
Given the uncertainty for businesses at Facebook, now is the time for these smaller, niche market players to press their case and capitalize on those considering their options. While Facebook has long been on a mission to crush the yellow ghost, it may have inadvertently opened the door to its expansion with its latest News Feed shifts.
It’s still early days for Snap – one good quarter doesn’t spell ultimate success – but it does seem to be refining its process, and building on potential.
2018 is definitely set to be an interesting year in the social space.
And an extra Snapchat note - Snapchat's also offering a new 'Starman' portal within its Lens options, showcasing the unique capacity of their immersive portal option.
This Snapchat AR Portal Takes You To Space With Starmanhttps://t.co/IUkMyLRZVV pic.twitter.com/xuVvQC9v3J
— VRScout (@VRScout) February 12, 2018
You can access the new portal via Snapcode or by downloading the hyperlink on your phone.
You can access Snap's full marketing API here.