Snap Launches eCommerce For Advertisers

Snapchat eCommerce is taking shape this week, with the company that operates the messaging app launching advertising products centered around online retail. The move comes after a recent product search deal involving Amazon.

According to a report, the products include Collection Ads, scheduled to launch next month, which “let advertisers feature different products in small boxes within an ad. This will help an advertiser better tell a story about their product.” Another tool, product catalogs, enable companies to “upload thousands of iterations” of existing product feeds, which in turn help to automate online marketing campaigns.

Advanced Pixel Targeting, meanwhile, is a tool via which advertisers can “create lists of who to target” and encourage them to revisit commerce sites to buy previously browsed products. “The company is also adding dozens of new partner performance agencies certified by Snapchat to help advertisers take advantage of these new products,” the report said. “As their ads have become more automated, Snapchat helps advertisers move away from general campaigns to more targeted ads designed to get people to buy products in the moment.”

Earlier this week, Snap announced that it was testing out a new way to search for products on Amazon using the Snapchat camera. The new feature requires that the consumer points his or her Snapchat camera at a physical product or barcode to grab the relevant information via the image. The underlying software recognizes the product, after which an Amazon card appears on screen, along with a link for the specific or similar product in question. The consumer can then make a purchase via the Amazon mobile app or through Amazon.com.

The new ad products and visual search capability follow the backlash to the Snapchat redesign, which depressed user figures in the second quarter of 2018. Daily active users declined 2 percent year over year in Q2, to 188 million.