Snapchat is launching new measurement capabilities for advertisers as the company looks to increase its viewability for brands.
The company is also looking to boost its global revenue ahead of its forthcoming IPO by providing clear definitions of what brands are getting when they use the various ad units on the platform.
Advertisers in Australia, as well as Europe, are now able to use third-party measurement from Moat to analyse the effectiveness of their video campaigns on the app.
Viewability is a major industry issue and locally Moat competes with Integral Ad Science in this space.
The new partnership allows advertisers to determine whether their ads are seen by people or a bot, with metrics such as “human and viewable”. It also allows brands to see if users watched their ad with the sound on or off.
When Snapchat chief strategy officer Imran Khan visited Australia last November, he told AdNews that the company was obsessed with measurement.
"We're obsessed with showing the ROI for our advertising. We made ad measurement, targeting, and third-party research top priorities for 2016 and we feel we’ve delivered," he said.
"Transparency is central to our business."
On the latest partnership with Moat, Khan said: “Advertisers are asking for a clear definition of a video view. We are partnering with Moat to bring standard viewability measurement to Snapchat, and support Moat as they move the industry forward by delivering a new metric that measures sight, sound and motion of a video.”
The latest measurement news follows feedback Snapchat received, with advertisers complaining it lacked the measurement options other digital platforms offered.
In December when AdNews spoke to OMD chief digital officer Stuart Bailey about Snapchat as a media channel, he expressed concern that Snapchat had no third party tracking available.
“One issue we have with Snapchat is we can’t third party verify the ads for our clients. We are currently working with the company and the rest of the market to encourage them to open it up to third party measurement,” he said.
“Our point of view is, if you think Snapchat is better than Facebook, then you need to prove it. It’s not that I don’t believe the data they provide, but we need to be able to see it for ourselves.”
With Snapchat now offering 16 different measurement solutions, including Innovid, Sizmek, Google DoubleClick, Nielsen and Adjust, nine targeting capabilities and an API – it is making strides in increasing its offering to advertisers.
Recently Snapchat revealed it has four million daily active users in Australia and 150 million users globally.
It has been quickly expanding its presence in Australia, now with a team of 15 in Sydney including GM Kathryn Carter. Snapchat has plans to grow its team further to meet increasing demands in this market.
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