Snap Inc. (NYSE:SNAP) may have found its next big product for attracting more ad spend from brands. Geofilters are becoming a key component of the company’s core business thanks to their growing popularity among digital native users. Ever since the company launched the feature, its usage has skyrocketed helping bolster user engagement levels.
Geofilter Growing Popularity
Geofilters allow users to turn any landmark of their choice or business into stylized image filters overlaid on photos. The location based filters were initially drawn up for locations in Los Angeles and New York City. Snap now plans to launch them in more cities and towns buoyed the amount of reception they have received so far.
According to Snap, Geofilters are viewed every minute over 1.5 million times, equaling 2.16 billion views per day. Geofilters viewership has more than doubled from 1 million in January to current highs of 2.6 billion. The growth in popularity has to do with a partnership that the company inked with location data providers Foursquare and Factual.
Foursquare partnership has been of great help given that the company boasts of a technology that not only provides coordinates of every business but there category as well. The valuable data is now expected to allow business buy Geofilters ads customized for their own brands for driving in store traffic.
Targeted Advertising
Snapchat’s bid to engage the Millennials and be able to attract more ad spending has seen it invest big on location based features. The company recently acquired Placed for $200 million to further validate its geo-filter ads ability to drive in store purchases. Spending $300 million to buy French location sharing startup Zenly further validates its Geofilter ads.
The investment drive is part of an effort that seeks to find a way of getting the digital native user base to reveal where they are at a given time. Gaining such information is vital in Snap push to market itself as the go to place for driving traffic from online to physical stores.
The fact that a good number of this users are adding organic Geofilters in their accounts means they are just a step away from clicking Geofilter ads seen as the next big marketing tool.
