A few years ago, Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel ruffled some feathers when he described precision targeted advertising as ‘creepy’. He claimed that Snapchat wouldn’t be following Facebook’s lead in using detailed user data for advertising purposes.

However, with Snapchat hotter than ever, the lure of increased advertising revenues seems to have one out over highfalutin principles: Snapchat has announced a series of new targeting features that let advertisers sharpen their audience aim.

Three new ways to target Snapchatters  

Snapchat’s popularity with Millenials is undisputed. According Nielsen Media Impact statistics cited by Snapchat, in the US the platform reaches 41% of all 18-34 year-olds on any given day. The ubiquity of Snapchat among the younger set has seen advertisers clamour for more powerful means of targeting their desired audiences.

In response, Snapchat has introduced Snap Audience Match, Snap Lookalike, and Snapchat Lifestyle—three new ways for advertisers to reach interested consumers.

Snap Audience Match

Audience Match allows Snapchat advertisers to fine-tune their targeting by anonymously matching the email addresses and mobile IDs of existing customers to with Snapchat’s own pool of user data.

Snap Lookalike

Snapchat’s Lookalike feature takes a page straight out of Facebook’s supposedly ‘creepy’ playbook. The new capability allows advertisers to target users with similar habits and behaviours to their existing customers.

Snapchat Lifestyle

Snapchat Lifestyle makes use of user behaviour information. It allows advertisers to target users without the need to supply pre-existing databases of their own, such as email lists or mobile IDs. Instead, users are targeted purely based on the kinds of videos they watch on Snapchat.

Staggered roll out

Audience Match and Lookalike are being made available to most Snapchat advertisers right out of the traps.

However, the behaviour-based Lifestyle option will not be made broadly available until later this year.