Snap (SNAP) - Get Report CEO Evan Spiegel said the company's near term revenue growth will continue to be tied to advertiser spending growth, but that longer term, growth in user engagement and numbers will be critical. Spiegel made his remarks at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia conference in New York City on Wednesday late afternoon.

Revenue growth at Snap, the parent company to popular social network Snapchat, has accelerated for the last two quarters, helping boost the stock price considerably after several quarters of inconsistent and often lackluster performance.

Snap shares have risen more than 200% this year, although they are still just shy of the $17 price that the company went public at in 2017.

"This year, we've re-organized our sales force, so they can go really deep" with advertisers, Spiegel noted. The company also created a self-service ad sales platform.

Spiegel also said that he and his fellow Snap executives had learned a lot about being a public company, particularly in terms of smoothing out its performance for the sake of its employees.

"We have to find the right balance between risk and pushing forward, and not having that be too disruptive, because our compensation is based on our stock," Spiegel said.

And referring to Snap's Spectacles, which failed to sell in anywhere near the numbers anticipated, Spiegel said that they are a "really long-term hardware experiment with augmented reality." He suggested that it would take at least 10 years before the physical world could be merged with an augmented or virtual world in a successful way.

Snap shares were up 0.4% to $16.90 on Wednesday.