Data-Driven Snapchat Marketing: How to Get the Data Your CMO Wants to See

If you work in B2C marketing, chances are Snapchat is a core part of your social media strategy. You crush your story, you’ve designed filters, your Snapcode is everywhere…but you don’t know how many followers you have, you’re hesitant to test advertising, and you’re not confident about it as a performance marketing channel.

And that makes sense! Unlike Facebook and Google (two platforms that I can almost guarantee you’re using), Snapchat wasn’t built as a data and advertising play. That doesn’t mean you should disregard it, though. Snapchat was built as a way to facilitate one-to-one communication; in fact, 86% of users use it as a means to communicate with friends and family. The conversational nature of Snapchat gives it an edge that neither Facebook nor Google can claim: Trust from consumers.

If marketers don’t abuse that trust, if they remember the mobile mindset Snapchat users have while in the app, and if they don’t ask too much of users, they can build a highly effective, data-driven Snapchat strategy.

Inside the mind of a Snapchatter

Snapchat’s 350 million monthly active users are on the app in fleeting moments throughout their days. Consider this stat roundup:

• 80% use it in restaurants
• 66% use it while shopping
• 50% use it at the gym.

It’s easy to use while out and about because the content on Snapchat is immersive and simple to engage with on mobile, because the platform is truly mobile-only.

That means to get results on Snapchat, you have to consider the mobile mindset of your audience not just in the videos you post, but also the content that you drive them to.

Keep things conversational

I mentioned before that you don’t want to ask too much of your audience on Snapchat. What I really mean is don’t try to force them to make a purchase or download your app when their mindset is much more focused on consuming fun, engaging content. Sending someone to a mobile-responsive landing page with a form or long checkout process won’t get you results. It’s much easier for the Snapchatter to go back to tapping through stories or playing with filters. Same goes for downloading your app; so many Snapchat users are out and about while they use the app and won’t want to use data to download something from the app store. Furthermore, smartphone owners use nine apps per day, so if you’re not in that top nine, getting someone to download your app is not going to have a big impact on your business.

Instead, think about continuing the casual, conversational nature of good Snapchat content. When you start a digital conversation with a customer or prospective customer, you get them to open up and get the chance learn more about their interests, intentions, and motivations.

How we do data-driven Snapchat marketing

At Jebbit, we’ve developed a way for brands to create immersive, conversational mobile experiences at scale. Each Jebbit experience captures declared data from consumers and ties it back to their lead information, so you can understand their likes, attitudes, and motivations and use that information to personalize your messaging on a one-to-one basis.

So, how does that apply to Snapchat?

If you’re attaching a url to your organic posts or using Snap Ads to drive traffic to your site, use that attention to learn about your customers. Instead of driving users to the app store or a landing page, think about sending them to an immersive, mobile experience. When driving them to a Jebbit experience, you can ask them questions or give them options to tell you more about themselves. Then, you can pull interest-based segments of emails to create custom audiences for Snapchat advertising. Think about being able to advertise to an audience of people looking to book a tropical vacation in the next three months. Or people who are motivated to shop at your store because of the denim quality used in your jeans.

When you capture declared data via Snapchat, you’re able to truly understand a highly engaged portion of your audience. Brands who use this type of data for custom audience creation have seen results like a 221% increase in conversion rate, because they’re able to market in a contextually relevant, personalized way. An NBA team used Jebbit for a partner activation, and asked Snapchatters how many pairs of the brand’s sneakers they owned. Of those users, 98% answered with how many they had, giving the brand thousands of qualified leads.

So, for your next Snapchat campaign, try to capture more declared data. Then build your custom audience and let the results roll in- that’s the data your CMO wants to see.