Snapchat’s foray into location-based platforming has spurred the purchase of two location firms to boost advertising, revenue, content, and product development.

Map to success

Last August, Snapchat commenced tests with Snap to Store, which tracks user views leading to in store sales. Now, they want to let marketers know the scale of users engaging the app near their venue.

The stats also include visitation metrics, how many users visited a store, how many returned, as well as customer demographics and preferences.

According to senior partner and group director at WPP-owned Essence, Omer Nisar, “Combining location and highly sought-after demographic makes the location addition a welcome one for us."

Introducing: Location Categories

The new category feature will allow brands to target ads directly to a specific location, with 150 categories ranging from beaches, to coffee shops, to housewares stores.

Using “radius targeting” with location categories will enable Snapchat to employ data collected from daily sessions. However, the sessions are anonymous and only viewable in groups of more than 1,000.

It’s all about impacting instore visits with mobile ads, making Snapchat’s pre-campaign guidance invaluable to advertisers looking to hone in on a particular audience. 

Do you use Snapchat for shopping? What do you think about location based ad targeting? Give us your thoughts in the comment section below.