Image source: Ben Phillips via Flickr
Shapchat has emerged as a leading social media app. You’ve likely read about its impressive figures: over 300 million monthly active users, 6 billion daily video views, and a million photos and videos posted a day. Although perceived as mainly an app for teens, over half of new users are over 25.
While enamored by Snapchat’s large number of involved users, many brands hesitate to embrace it due to its lack of formal analytics. Some marketers call Snapchat the wild west of social media measurement. However, its measurement offerings likely will continue to evolve and improve. Brands that target Snapchat’s demographics can gain an edge if they start learning about its analytics now.
“Just because it takes a little bit longer to measure doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take the time to record your results,” says digital marketing consultant Nick Cicero in Convince and Convert. “By taking a little extra time to understand the performance of your stories, you can actually learn a lot about your audience.”
Snapchat Metrics to Track
Marketers can benefit by tracking these metrics on Snapchat:
Unique views: the number of people who opened the first video or image of a story for at least one second. To find the number, look at the number of people who opened the first snap of a story every 24 hours. Snapchat only counts each viewer once.
Total opens: the aggregate number of views across all your Snapchat stories. Total opens indicate the quality of your snaps. “Every snap you post should deliver value or fulfill a need, whether it’s eliciting a human emotion or delivering information,” points out Sweta Patel, founder of Global Marketing Tactics in Social Media Examiner.
Open rates: the percentage of total estimated followers who have engaged with your story. The metric is comparable to engagement rates on other social networks.
Screenshots: the total number of screenshots taken for all of the snaps in a story. Clearly, people find a snap relevant if they take screenshot. Checklists, inspirational quotes, audience spotlights, and discount coupons are favored for screenshots. Screenshot numbers are ideal for measuring the success of coupon promotions. Screenshots can help you learn what type of content resonates most with your audience
Completion rates: the percentage of followers who viewed an entire story, from the first snap to the last. The metric is comparable to the retention rate on other networks. To determine completion rates, divide the final view count by the first view count, explains social media marketer Jylian Russell. Keep your story brief and provide reasons for interaction to keep your audience watching to the end.
Fall-off rate: reveals precisely where your followers stopped watching your story. Simply find the difference in views from one Snap to the next, divide the difference by the views on the first Snap and multiple by 100.
Bottom Line: Although Snapchat’s lack of formal, in-house analytics poses a challenge to brands, marketers can still examine metrics to learn how their snaps resonate with their customers and better understand their target audience. Measurement on Snapchat may require more effort than on other platforms, but is well worth the invested time if marketers learn how to improve their Snapchat campaigns.
William J. Comcowich founded and served as CEO of CyberAlert LLC, the predecessor of Glean.info. He is currently serving as Interim CEO and member of the Board of Directors. Glean.info provides customized media monitoring, media measurement and analytics solutions across all types of traditional and social media.
