Or was it a surprise?

Growing up during the age of “necessary profitability,” advertising on Snapchat was an inevitability. The real surprise was that they took so long to show up.

Understandably, the announcement of the network — dubbed the Snap Audience Network — created plenty of buzz.

The network “will exist beyond Snapchat’s own platform and allow marketers to target users across a variety of apps,” wrote Marty Swant at AdWeek. “The move is part of a broader push by the company to better scale its advertising business, which over the past two years has shifted from a primarily direct-sale model to one that’s primarily programmatic.”

In other words, the announcement of the Audience Network was more than a new advertising channel.

The Audience Network signaled a shift in Snap’s ad business, bringing self-service (i.e., programmatic advertising) into the mix, using customer data in ways the company has shied away from in the past, and an expansion from its own user base.

The response to the announcement was largely favorable — Snap stock rose 9 percent in the days following the presentation.

But what else can the new ad network mean?

Snap Audience Network: New But Untested Opportunity for Brands, Apps and Snap

The new Audience Network is essentially a win/win/win scenario, provided it delivers.  

It’s a win for advertisers, with more targeted reach to a larger audience. It’s a win for app developers, with access to advertisers on a programmatic exchange. And it’s a win for Snap, with a brand-spanking new source of revenue.

According to Kurt Wagner at Vox, it’s a way for Snap to grow its business without adding new users to the flagship social platform — something Snapchat has struggled with in the past. “Snap is trying to take the next step to become a more established advertising business,” writes Wagner. “But announcing that plan is one thing; we’ll see if Snap can execute.”

At the time, the main concern was that Snap wouldn’t be sharing personal or identifiable information in user data, leaving some to question how targeted, personalized ads will be possible with the ad network.

Remember: Access to first-party data is a major draw for advertisers, especially as third-party cookies fade.

“If Snap is not sharing data with its ad partners, those ad partners will have to share data back to Snap so it knows who it is targeting,” concludes Wagner. Suffice it to say details are sparse.

Snap has since expanded its advertising capabilities, enabling brands to place ads outside of Snapchat’s walls. Facebook launched a similar network in 2014.

Fast-forward a few years, and the decision to introduce ads appears to be paying off.

In 2021, Snapchat drove over $3.1 billion in advertising revenue—a number that’s expected to approach $6b by 2026.

It hasn’t been all smooth sailing, though.

Apple’s iOS 14 update caused the entire social ecosystem to shutter in fear.

Why?

Because millions of iPhone users could now ask apps not to track them, making measurement and attribution on the world’s most popular smartphone a nightmare.

Leading up to the update, Snap CFO Derek Andersen said, “It is not yet clear what the longer term impact of those changes may be for the topline momentum of our business and this may not be clear until several months or more after the changes are implemented.”

More recently, Spiegel spoke about the turbulence in 2022, saying, “It seems like advertising demand hasn’t really improved, but it hasn’t gotten significantly worse either. Our partners are just managing their spend very cautiously so they can react quickly to any changes in the environment.”

This isn’t an inherently Snapchat problem. Google parent Alphabet announced in its Q4 2022 earnings that it fell short of expectations on revenue and earnings per share due mainly to a decline in ad revenue.

Which Brands Bought Snapchat Ads in 2022?

We pulled data from 190 companies (396 brands) that bought ads on Snapchat in Q1 2022.

Of them, 46% and 27% (184 and 52) didn’t buy Snapchat ads in 2020 or 2021. 

That said, 47% of the companies we looked at had bought Snapchat ads, indicating the stickiness of the platform’s ad products. 

Of the companies buying ads in Q1, 5% (nine) increased spending by more than 1,000% YoY, including Samsung, UVNV (the company that owns Mint Mobile), and Johnson & Johnson Services. 

Q1 2022 Snapchat advertising top categories

Media & Entertainment: These advertisers increased spending by 20% in Q1, thanks largely to Amazon upping its ad investment in its Prime streaming service, Audible and Twitch TV. At the same time, Paramount decreased its budget by 19% QoQ.

Apparel: Apparel advertisers spent 25% more in Q1 than they did during the same quarter last year. Kering (Balenciaga and Gucci) and VF (Vans and Timberland) led this charge, boosting their investments by 116% and 308%, respectively.

Travel: Travel advertisers increased their investment by 119% YoY compared to Q1 2021, including Carnival, Royal Caribbean, the State of New Hampshire, and Southwest Airlines.

Tech: Tech advertisers increased spending by 3% QoQ in the first quarter of 2022. While spending from Samsung was down by 66%, Apple (beats Earbuds, iPhone and iPad) helped offset this with an increase of almost 1,000%.

Pharma: Pharma advertisers decreased spending by 29% QoQ, largely due to advertisers for Procter & Gamble decreasing their budget by 95%. Meanwhile, advertisers for Novartis increased spending by more than 100x QoQ to promote Kesimpta.

As long as people are opening Snapchat 40 times a day, ad dollars will follow.

For more insights, sign up for MediaRadar’s blog here.

In 2017, Google announced that Chrome would instill stricter ad-blocking standards. The announcement raised speculation, as publishers and advertisers were left to wonder exactly which ads would be blocked and how Google would handle violators.

In December of that year, Google gave “an update on Better Ads,” officially confirming that “Starting on February 15, in line with the Coalition’s guidelines, Chrome will remove all ads from sites that have a ‘failing’ status in the Ad Experience Report for more than 30 days.”

Now that these standards are officially in place, however, it’s important that publishers and advertisers know exactly what is being blocked, given that Chrome currently holds more than 64% of the global web browser market share.

And, more importantly, what does Google’s advertising future look like?

What is the Coalition for Better Ads^®?

The Coalition for Better Ads is an alliance of companies and associations that have come together in an effort to give internet users the best possible experience with advertising. The Coalition put the Better Ad Standards in place to clarify how content producers can best interact with viewers and serve ads in a way that is not annoying or intrusive.

The Coalition for Better Ads developed the Better Ad Standards based on “comprehensive research involving more than 25,000 consumers” while citing “Extensive consumer input and empirical data” as factors in shaping the new standards.

In a broad sense, the Better Ads Standards were implemented to create a more user-friendly online experience, ridding of the most annoying, least preferred ads on both desktop and mobile.

But what do we, as internet users, prefer the least?

What Exactly Is Google Chrome Blocking?

Google Chrome is blocking 12 types of ads across desktop and mobile (four types of desktop ads and eight types of mobile ads).

Desktop Ads

Pop-up Ads^*

This one should not come as a surprise to many.

Pop-up ads have long existed to the disdain of internet users. When considering ads as “disruptive,” nothing is quite as disruptive as an ad that pops up in front of the content a web user is trying to enjoy.

The Coalition’s website states that pop-ups “are among the most commonly cited annoyances for visitors to a website.”

People are generally not fond of anything that disrupts their experience to this level—82.2% of the sample from G2’s study said they hated email pop-ups.

Auto-playing Video Ads with Sound

We’ve all had it happen… You’re scrolling through a tremendous article when suddenly, noise erupts from somewhere unknown.

Before you realize that there’s an auto-play video ad on the page, you’re jolted from concentration and left searching for the “mute” or “close [X]” buttons.

Video ads that require a click to activate sound did not fall beneath the Better Ads Standard and are, therefore, still allowed.

Auto-play ads are a hot topic outside of Chrome’s walls.

Traditionally advertisers have opted for it due to the ability of auto-play ads to introduce words rather than just text and subtitles. While Facebook and other popular advertising ecosystems allow advertisers to launch auto-play ads, they make it just as easy for users to disable them, which many of them do.

Prestitial Ads with Countdown

Prestitial countdown ads are the ads that appear before a page’s content loads, forcing the reader to wait a few seconds before allowing them to click and continue.

The Coalition states that these ads “can disrupt users in a way that dissuades them from waiting for the countdown to finish and continuing onto their content.”

They also note that for desktop, prestitial ads without a countdown do not fall below the Better Ad Standards’ threshold for acceptability and are thus okay for publishers to use.

This begs the question: What about pre-roll ads on YouTube and popular OTT streaming services? Ads that play before content—and “count down”—are widely popular in these ecosystems and generally excepted by users.

Large Sticky Ads

Large sticky ads attach themselves to the bottom of a page of content, staying there as the user scrolls down the page. To qualify as “large,” a sticky ad must take up more than 30% of a desktop screen’s real estate.

Regardless of the device, consuming content on a full-screen is always much more preferred by viewers, especially on mobile devices that people generally hold vertically. That’s good news for advertisers as it allows them to maximize real estate on mobile devices.

Mobile Ads

Pop-up Ads

For pop-up ads, there’s not much difference between desktop and mobile. According to internet users, they’re annoying no matter where they appear.

For desktop and mobile, pop-ups with and without countdowns fall beneath the threshold for viewer acceptability.

Prestitial Ads

Prestitial mobile ads, like on desktops, appear before the content of a web page loads. The difference on mobile, however, is that all prestitial ads are restricted, not just the ones with a countdown.

On mobile, prestitial ads tend to take up more real estate, which, even without a countdown, can make them more disruptive than on desktop.

Ad Density Higher Than 30%

“Ad density is determined by summing the heights of all ads within the main content portion of a mobile page, then dividing by total height of the main content portion of the page.”

In short, within a piece of content, a publisher may not have more than 30% of the space in which that content sits being filled by advertising.

When considering the “content portion” of the page, that only means the real estate where the content sits, excluding headers, footers, and anything outside the content itself. The 30% also applies to the entire content portion of the page, the page in total, not just what is viewable on a user’s screen.

Sticky ads count toward ad density, with the height being counted toward the page’s ad density percentage. Video ads “that appear before or during video content that is relevant to the content of the page itself are not included in the measurement.”

Flashing Animated Ads

The Better Ad Standards restrict the use of “ads that animate and ‘flash’ with rapidly changing background, text or colors” because they can be “highly aggravating for consumers, and serve to create a severe distraction for them as they attempt to read the content on a given page.”

Not all animated ads are blocked on Chrome – only the ones that rapidly flash.

Auto-playing Video Ads with Sound

As they are on desktop, auto-play video ads on mobile are also restricted.

Users won’t have to worry about finding the “mute” button on Chrome for mobile anytime soon.

Postitial Ads with Countdown

Postitial countdown ads appear after a user has followed a link in a piece of content.

Once they follow a link, the ad appears with a countdown, making the user wait before they can be redirected to the page they were trying to access.

Much like prestitial ads with a countdown, users may be inclined to leave the page once they see a postitial countdown appear, as it makes them wait to enter the following page.

Full-screen Scrollover Ad

Scrollover ads are unlike inline ads, as they do not move with the content on a page but instead sit on top of it.

Scrollover ads, in a certain sense, can almost be looked at as something similar to a pop-up since they lay on top of content, obstructing it from view.

The Coalition for Better Ads refers to these ads as “disorienting” for mobile users, as they may distract users from the content they’re trying to read.

Large Sticky Ads

On mobile web browsers, large sticky ads can appear on more than just the bottom of the page but serve the same static disruption that sticky ads do on desktop browsers.

* All images and quotations used above are from https://www.betterads.org/standards/. Visit the site to see the full breakdown of the Better Ads Standards.

What happens to violators?

Sites that violate Google Chrome’s ad blocker and use at least one of these ad types will first be notified by Google that they are violating the Better Ad Standards and given 30 days to remedy the issue.

If the site owner repeatedly violates the new standards and ignores Google’s notifications for those 30 days, only then will Chrome start blocking all of the ads on that site.

So, while Google is putting in great efforts to make online advertising better for everyone, the metaphorical gavel is not being dropped on violators as quickly as many had initially anticipated.

Still, the risk of a publisher losing all their online advertising is likely not something they want to play around with.

There is no question that these changes are, at the least, the beginning of a much better user experience with advertising on the internet.

This brings us to our next topic: What else is Google doing to tackle the user experience.

Google Sunsets Third-Party Cookies

Stricker ad-blocking standards aren’t the only measure Google is taking to ensure the millions of people who use its browser don’t get tired of ads.

Google is also sunsetting third-party cookies in 2024 (after delaying it for several years). The delay not only gives Google more time to test its Privacy Sandbox but gives advertisers more time to prepare for a world without their beloved third-party cookies.

The impending deprecation is understandably concerning for advertisers, considering more than 80% of senior marketers in the U.S. rely on third-party cookies.

Third-party cookie alternatives

So, what will advertisers use when Google says goodbye to third-party cookies next year?

If they want to advertise on Chrome, Google’s Privacy Sandbox will likely be the solution. But other alternatives exist, including The Trade Desk’s Unified ID 2.0, which allows for targeted advertising without revealing the end user’s true identity. Other likely third-party-cookie alternatives are email addresses and phone numbers.

Outside of Google’s walls, retail media will continue to gain steam as consumer brands capitalize on first-party shopper data.

For more insights, sign up for MediaRadar’s blog here.

In recent years, the media mix has shifted. Publishers, even previously successful ones, could end up with a negative ROI (return on investment) or become overwhelmed by their competitors – that is, unless they found even more novel and engaging ways to reach their audiences or figured out the latest ad buying fluctuations and trends.

One of those upward trends became mobile, an effective way for publishers and brands to advertise to their consumers.

Top 5 Mobile Advertisers

Below are the advertisers, who invested the most money in mobile advertising.

o   Carnival

o   Comcast

o   Amazon

o   SoftBank Group

o   HP

Top 3 Mobile Product Categories

Here are different product categories, and the top three brands within each division, that spent the most on mobile ads.

o   Tech (In order: Samsung Group, Intel, and then Nintendo)

o   Retail (In order: Amazon, Bed Bath & Beyond, and then Walmart)

o   Finance (In order: State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance, Wells Fargo, and then Capital One Financial)

The product category that increased the most year over year (YoY) was cigarettes and tobacco (See: JUUL and eCigs) while the product category that decreased spend the most YoY was toiletries and cosmetics (See: Estee Lauder and Edgewell Personal Care).

From the first half (1H) of 2017 to the first half of 2018, mobile advertising increased 42%, noted an IAB Internet Ad Revenue report conducted by PwC. By 2021, mobile video is expected to reach approximately $16.2 billion.

Snapchat capitalized on this expanding market.

The mobile messaging and social media app began deploying mobile ads in 2014. Its growth slowed in March 2017 after going public. Fortunately, however, Snapchat regained steam, as proven by its Q4 report, published towards the beginning of fall 2017.

Recognizing the key benefits of Snapchat, major brands started jumping on the many different customized and high-CPM ads formats, videos, and sponsored lenses offered by the app.

What are Snapchat‘s Sponsored Lenses?

For starters, a sponsored lens is a filter. Users of the app can apply one to any of their previously-taken photos and videos.

There are many different types of lenses. Some act as a frame for still-shots, some are incorporated into interactive clips, and some, including the “World Lenses,” are just added to users’ current environment.

Advertisers have a lot of say when it comes to creating their long Snapchat campaigns. They can get additional lenses within their filter for photos with multiple people, lenses for the rear and/or front cameras, and even switch out one lens for another during their campaign.

Sponsored lenses not only allow advertisers a great deal of creative freedom and say, but they also help them engage more with their consumers. The Cinco de Mayo snapchat lens from Taco Bell, for example, received approximately 224 million views, according to an article by Adweek. At the time, it quickly became the top campaign in the app’s history.

5% of all companies advertising on Snapchat in 2018 ran a sponsored lens. Food is the product category that’s most likely to run this type of filter. Only categories with at least 10 advertisers were even considered, however.

Snapchat‘s Ad Revenue Comes From … 

Top Five Snapchat Advertisers

Here are the advertisers, who invested the most money in advertising on Snapchat.

o   Comcast

o   Mars 

o   AT&T

o   Adidas

o   P&G

Top 3 Snapchat Product Categories

Below are different product categories, and the top three brands within those divisions, that spent the most on Snapchat ads.

o   Media and Entertainment (In order: The Walt Disney Company, Hearst, and then Spotify)

o   Retail (In order: Exxon Mobil, Apple, and then McDonald’s)

o   Apparel and Accessories (In order: Nike, American Eagle Outfitters, and then Macy’s)