5 things Marketers Need to Know From Snap's Q1 Revenue Report

Snapchat just released their Q1 2019 Revenue Report and after reading through it, there are many great insights that marketers need to know aside from the fact that, to nobody’s surprise, they’ve achieved a 39% YoY increase. 

Sure, the fact that they’re continuing to dominate the social media space, specifically with the Gen Y audience and Millennial's, is important as that’s a great way for marketers to reach those audiences; however, there’s more to the story that we need to know. 

1. Year over year revenue growth accelerated to 39%, from 36% in the prior quarter.

Okay, let’s get this one out of the way first. 

We know that they’re reporting 39% YoY revenue growth but it’s worth doing a deeper dive into this insight because it’s a 3% increase over the prior quarter.

Snapchat is growing and it’s growing QUICKLY in the paid space.

And as part of this, they’ve made it easier for advertisers to actually advertise on Snapchat.

Outlined in the report:

“We made several updates to our self-serve tool, Ads Manager, including enhancing advanced features such as target cost bidding, new bulk uploading capabilities, bulk editing and cloning, and the expansion of location categories to the UK, Canada, and France.”

“We continue to invest in brand-focused buying tools; our Reach & Frequency product now allows for one day buys (the previous minimum was three) and has been expanded to the UK, Canada, and France.”

2. Daily Active Users increased 2% sequentially to 190 million 

Despite some recent speculation, Snapchat isn’t losing popularity or even maintaining their current user base as many may think -- they’re actually increasing the amount of people who are using their platform.

This is important for marketers to understand because even if you looked at this platform 1-2 years ago to identify if it’s right for your marketing plan, it’s worth taking another look at.

There’s a chance that your target market is now active on Snapchat. There’s also a reaaalllly good chance that this growth is also why more companies are looking to advertise on Snapchat.

3. As of March, Snapchat reaches 90% of all 13-24 year-olds and 75% of all 13-34 year-olds in the U.S.

Okay, so the user base is increasing but, as marketing rockstars, it’s crucial we understand who is joining.

Their report has identified that while the younger base (13-24 year olds) is one of the biggest audiences, we can’t discount the 25-34 year-olds either.

If you’re finding that other avenues aren’t working (Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn) but they’re on Snapchat, it may be a good opportunity to look into Snapchat ads.

4. Snapchat is continually improving and introducing new features to keep audiences engaged

 During the Snap Partner Summit, they unveiled Snap Games, Augmented Reality, and ten Snap Original Shows.

According to the report, Snap Games is “an all-new live, multi-player gaming experience featuring our original game Bitmoji Party and select third-party games.”

Gamification has been a buzzword in the marketing space for 5+ years and while arguably it lost a bit of steam recently, there are still plenty of reasons for marketers to consider using it.

People naturally want to engage and discover something rather than being told something. Gamification is a great way to get people to participate in your campaign without just throwing your company name and tagline in an image and putting it in their newsfeed.

With Augmented Reality, the report states that they’ve introduced, “a number of augmented reality (AR) innovations, including Landmarkers, AR Bar, and Scan”

While the report doesn’t explicitly say that “Shoppable AR” is part of this new roll out, AdWeek uncovered the following:

The camera company is introducing three new features, dubbed “Shoppable AR,” to its augmented reality lenses: the “website,” which lets consumers tap a button and open up a webpage that can promote a product or sign-up page; a “video” option, allowing users to watch a trailer or how-to shorts; and “install,” which prompts users to install an app (or open it, if the user already has it on their phone).

The AdWeek article goes on to explain that they’re testing out functionality where retailers can direct users to purchase a product that they’ve tried on as a lens. This puts Snapchat at the forefront of social commerce in 2019.

Click here to see the video of how this feature works.

Perhaps even more interesting is that through Discover, Snapchat is creating and streaming their own original shows .

We announced a new slate of ten Snap Original Shows, our premium, mobile shows created exclusively for Snapchat’s audience, which will begin airing in May 2019, and renewed three of our most popular Snap Original Shows, including “The Dead Girls Detective Agency,” “Endless Summer,” and “Deep Creek.”

Video content is being consumed at an all-time high and even more, Cisco has projected that more than 80% of all Internet traffic will be video by 2021. So, of course, platforms want their piece of the video pie.

Netlfix and Hulu (to name a few) have been creating their original shows for a while but now it seems as though Snapchat is starting to get in on the action.

By making video consumption easier with a growing user base, it only makes sense that they’d want to launch something like Discover to keep users on the platform longer and engaged further. And it looks like they’re on the right track, “In Q1 2019, nearly half of our daily Discover viewers watched Discover every day of the week.”

Don’t Sleep on Snapchat

 Snapchat’s Report has shed a lot of light for marketers regarding where they’ve been for Q1 in regards to their user base but also helps us figure out how marketers can move forward to take advantage of the platform growth.

With added features, such as Snap Games and Discovery, along with making it easier to advertise, it’s worth taking a second look at in Q2 and beyond for 2019.