Snap Ads + VidMob

SELF-SERVICE VIDEO ADVERTISING ON SNAPCHAT IS AVAILABLE FOR THE FIRST TIME—THANKS TO VIDMOB.

Three weeks ago, Snapchat announced VidMob as one of a number of new API partners. At the time, VidMob had integrated Snapchat’s creative API making it easy for clients to post advertisements created on the VidMob platform directly into the Snapchat platform. This integration made it easier for large brands that were working with Snapchat, or one of their agency partners, to create the ad media needed for the campaigns they were purchasing with Snap or their agency.

Today, we have a much larger announcement. But to understand the true potential of this latest extension of our relationship with Snap, let’s take a step back and look at self-service advertising on the other major social platforms.

In 2000, Google launched AdWords enabling anyone with a credit card to advertise on Google. Prior to the launch of AdWords, the only companies that could advertise on Google were large brands with a direct relationship with the company. Today, millions of businesses use Google AdWords, generating almost $80 billion in annual ad revenue. In 2009, Facebook launched a self-service advertising platform, opening up advertising on their platform in a similar manner. Today, self-service advertising on Facebook and Google accounts for the majority of the advertising spend on both platforms. Without question, the long tail is the path to advertising success.

Meanwhile, Snapchat has grown into an incredibly powerful platform on its own, with nearly 160 million daily users, and over 10 billion video views daily—all full screen, and the majority with audio on. And Snapchat is a young audience. To put it simply, there is no better platform to reach the under 34 crowd than Snapchat. However, until now, there has been no self-service platform to enable the mid- and small-size companies to purchase and run Snap Ads on this highly desirable platform. So while millions of companies could easily purchase and run ads on Google and Facebook, there has been no means to do so on Snapchat.

That all changes today. As we announced this morning, VidMob has worked with Snapchat to extend our API integrations on their platform. In addition to our Creative API integration, VidMob has built the Snap Ads API into a full-featured Snap Ad campaign manager on VidMob, enabling any company in the world to purchase and run Snap Ads on their own. As of this morning, it is as easy to run ads on Snapchat as it is to do so on Google AdWords or Facebook.

And speaking of ease, it’s worth noting one additional point about VidMob integrations with Snap. Not only do we make it easy to set up the targeting parameters, pay for the campaign to run, and review real-time performance data, VidMob also makes it just as easy to make the advertisement in the first place. A big part of the reason that Google AdWords and Facebook advertising have been so successful was that any business could easily create a text ad in seconds. You simply choose your targeting parameters, set your daily spend, and then type in your ad. It doesn’t take long to write, “Come by today for the best coffee in Boca Raton” or “Buy one pair of shoes and get the second pair for free.” Anyone could do it. But all of these platforms are transitioning from static (text- and image-based) ads to video advertising; and even though there is no shortage of evidence that video advertising is far more effective, making the actual video advertisement has proven to be far more difficult than writing a text ad—thus holding back many companies and putting a damper on anyone outside the Fortune 500’s ability to participate in the potential of video advertising. This has effectively put a cap on the number of video advertisers, and as a result, the number of advertisers using video on Facebook and Google is still a small fraction of their overall advertising base.

VidMob’s Snap Ad Campaign Manager

Through its relationship with VidMob, Snapchat has made moves to solve for both of these problems—ad creation and purchasing. As of today, any company can create beautiful, custom video advertisements with ease on VidMob. And once they’re ready, set up detailed targeting parameters, manage daily spend levels, and watch the performance results in real-time. Furthermore, VidMob’s integration makes it easy to make alterations to ads in real-time based on that data, enabling companies to optimize video advertisements as they go. While this has been common practice with text and image-based advertising for years, it has been rare to non-existent with video due to the difficulties and expenses of video production. Not anymore.

So if you’ve noticed that the team at VidMob has been a little more excited than usual recently, now you know why. Our goal remains to make it as easy as possible for any individual or company to tell their story in a video world. If part of that means helping a great company like Snapchat build a self-service video advertising business that’s every bit as dominant as Google and Facebook’s, well, VidMob and our army of creative professionals are here to help.