The mobile app industry is flourishing: Media buyers are desperately looking for quality install ad channels, ad spend is growing and video or native-ad formats have proven to be superior to all other formats. So it’s not surprising that the mobile app install revenue forecast is 7.1 billion dollars by 2020.

This past year several social media channels have released new formats of mobile install ads. Among them are Pinterest, Instagram and last (but not least) Snapchat.

As Bidalgo was recently named a Snapchat Licensed ads partner (for the benefit of mobile app marketers!) and the fact that the life of the professional app marketer never stops evolving (even as you read this post something is being invented in our ecosystem), we decided to spill some beans and share some of what we know about mobile-install Snap ads.

We also have some insights from Bidalgo customers’ Snapchat campaigns – the numbers are very promising!

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How it all began: The Snapchat story

Snapchat is one of the most popular social media and messaging platforms, especially among US based youngsters and millennials (AKA the most important audience to marketers, in most cases).

Snapchat’s rapidly growing user count proves its growing popularity:

Source: TechCrunch

Snapchat has done a great job differentiating itself from all the other social media or messaging mediums by introducing short-life messages (videos and pictures that self-destruct after a few seconds), offering cool photo and video image filters and releasing many more creative and fun features that changed the way people express themselves today, practically speaking.

The distribution of Snapchat users in the United States as of February 2016 shows the largest group of users are between 18 to 24 years old, with 25 to 34 year olds trailing close behind.

Source: Statica

Nowadays, after reaching maturity and becoming well established, Snapchat is increasingly being thought of as an advertising channel for the masses.

Given that Snapchat is steadily growing and that it is exclusively a mobile app platform, we are facing a great opportunity to leverage a new quality channel for our user acquisition KPIs.

Superb. Now let’s dive into the details..

Using mobile app install Snap ads

Good news, snapchat ad targeting is relatively similar to what mobile app marketers are already used to. Just like with Facebook or Instagram, Snapchat allows marketers to target users by “interests”, “lookalike audiences” and “remarketing lists”.

If you ask us, Snapchat targeting is both easy and rich. You can use multiple targeting categories, wide demographics and needless to say, age based targeting.

The Snap video ad units pop up in between screens or when the user is toggling between in-app activity events. A Snap ad plays for up to 10 seconds in a vertical format video (expect to see the word “ad” at the bottom right corner of the screen) with an option to swipe up to learn more. Snapchat users know and use this UX as part of their regular app experience.

For mobile app install ads specifically, you swipe to start installing the promoted app.

Snap video ads blend right in with other Snaps. All is fast and instant, in true Snap fashion, which gives us reason to hope we will see better ongoing performance for Snap ads compared to all other channels, even the best native-ads we all know (driven by reduced ad fatigue or ad blindness).

Snapchat App Install Ads allow mobile app marketers to push their apps to potential users seamlessly. Snapchatters swipe up on the Top Snap to directly access the app store page within Snapchat. One tap later, the app installs in the background. Snaps’ Ads App Install works with both Google Play and the iOS App store.

For an in depth overview of Snapchat Ads (install and more) click here.

How do you get started with Snapchat Ads? You can either go through a third-party partner to advertise on Snapchat, like Bidalgo, or advertise directly on the recently released Snapchat Ad Manager. Working with Bidalgo as your snapchat partner gives you the advantage of scaling your app install campaigns with an Artificial Intelligence powered advertising solutions that delivers better results and higher efficiency. In addition, you get the ability to see all the information, including measurement partner data in one place and manage your other media campaigns (on top of Snapchat) under one roof.

How are Snapchat App Install Ads performing so far?

I know you are wondering about use cases: CPIs, benchmarks, reviews and so forth. Our mobile app customers who are also running app install campaigns on Snapchat are experiencing amazing results so far: 40% lower CPIs, 100% increase in conversion to payers and 1/3 of the CPA of other channels. We see more and more advertising budgets invested in Snapchat Ads. Obviously, this is just the beginning of Snapchat’s Mobile App Install Ads and the more it expands, the more we will also start to see these metrics stabilizing, but judging from our 7 years of experience in launching new ad automation products and channels, it looks really promising.

Given the impressive results so far, we suggest jumping on this train as soon as you can. This is one ride you will want to be a part of!