Snapchat: You’ve got to see it (B)2Believe it

Snapchat for B2B. No, we’re not joking – and no, we won’t apologise for the poor joke attempt in the title. The US platform says that it is the ‘new destination for B2B marketing’. A bold statement. But is it backed up by data?

Well – sort of. But also not really.

Snapchat says it “commissioned GWI to conduct a survey in the US of over 2,254 professionals aged 18-45, across three categories: business decision-makers, entrepreneurs, and small- to medium-sized business owners.”

The survey results were interesting.


Source: Snapchat.com

But… we’d also argue this isn’t surprising. Most people, regardless of profession, have 6-8 social profiles active – so the budding CMO or experienced Marketing Manager having a presence on the platform is to be expected. Snapchat’s user base is growing. It’s highly popular with 18-30 year olds, so when you consider the age demographic for senior marketing roles is also coming down, the influence of those on the platform is more significant.

So it’s worth it then?

It’s certainly worth considering for any businesses who want to broaden their horizons with cheaper CPMs and potentially higher click numbers for vanity. For brand awareness, it could be simple and effective – much in the way Meta and Reddit are for B2B in the early stages. But is targeting easy to pull off? Can you find the key decision makers you need for impact?

With ABM? Not unless you’ve got a long list of emails or first-party data from your website.

For Enterprise business? Doesn’t seem like it – SMB is the winning area, where the key decision makers will wear many hats. Think of reaching CEOs who need tools for other parts of the business to run for themselves. So if you run a business that sells tools/software to smaller businesses – this could be a good gateway for your product(s).

Slight digression there – so targeting will be the challenge. Snapchat breaks down audiences by behaviours/keywords – so unless your audience is active in a work-minded way, it’ll be tough to create a targeting criterion that you’ll be confident of.

Here’s some other data from Snapchat:

Source: Snapchat.com

So those surveyed see the value in B2B content on the platform. Great – but how the advertiser finds their audience is still the main obstacle. But this is common, given all social platforms bar LinkedIn are predicated on quick-conversion/click interactions with B2C in mind.

If you have first-party data to hand – such as email addresses or website traffic data, then it’s worth a try – but this would be part of a retargeting/already-in-the-funnel approach to marketing. It’s not really right for brand awareness as it’s very ‘spray and pray’ in methodology.

As part of a wider funnel activity – sure. Budgets can be pretty low on Snapchat and if you read the signals correctly, it could be lucrative!

We’d break it down like this:

  • No first-party data + niche ICP → usually not worth making Snapchat a priority
  • No first-party data + broad SMB audience → testable, but still secondary
  • Strong first-party data → much more viable as a support channel

Do you have any thoughts or plans for Snapchat this year? Speak to us – we can help.

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