With Snap Accelerate, Snapchat Pursues Mobile Startups That Built Facebook’s ad Biz

Snapchat’s program aims to win over mobile startups looking to acquire new users, the same type of advertiser that helped newly public Facebook overcome its ad problems.

A new­ly pub­lic com­pa­ny with mount­ing con­cerns over the via­bil­i­ty of its adver­tis­ing busi­ness, Snapchat in 2017 resem­bles Face­book in 2012. Now, to address the issue, Snapchat is tak­ing a page from Facebook’s playbook.

Snapchat has rolled out a pro­gram to win over the same type of mar­keter that Face­book relied on to build up its mobile ad busi­ness: mobile app devel­op­ers look­ing to acquire new users.

Called Snap Accel­er­ate, the pro­gram will help mobile star­tups to adver­tise on Snapchat by offer­ing them ben­e­fits includ­ing ear­ly access to new ad prod­ucts as well as cred­its that can be used to buy ads. A Snapchat spokesper­son said the com­pa­ny will not hold par­tic­i­pat­ing star­tups to its usu­al spend­ing require­ments, such as a com­mit­ment to spend a cer­tain amount on Snapchat ads over a cer­tain peri­od of time.

Snap Accel­er­ate is the lat­est exam­ple this year of Snapchat try­ing to low­er the bar­ri­er to entry for adver­tis­ers and attain must-buy sta­tus. After rolling out an adver­tis­ing API to enable brands to auto­mate their Snap Ad buys through third-par­ty ad-buy­ing tools, the com­pa­ny intro­duced a self-serve tool for busi­ness­es to buy Snap Ads on their own and a self-serve tool for busi­ness­es to cre­ate the ver­ti­cal video ads.

By cater­ing to star­tups, Snapchat is effec­tive­ly mak­ing a bet that its ads can help these com­pa­nies grow their user bases and, there­fore, their busi­ness­es. If suc­cess­ful, those com­pa­nies will not only have more mon­ey to spend on adver­tis­ing but will be more like­ly to spend that mon­ey on Snapchat’s ads. Addi­tion­al­ly, case stud­ies of their suc­cess­es may lead oth­er com­pa­nies to adver­tise on Snapchat. After all, it worked for Facebook.

Accord­ing to a page on Snapchat’s devel­op­er site, the pro­gram is aimed at com­merce, enter­tain­ment and gam­ing star­tups that oper­ate con­sumer-fac­ing mobile apps and are inter­est­ed in direct-response adver­tis­ing. In oth­er words, it is meant to attract the same types of com­pa­nies that had flocked to Facebook’s mobile app-install ads in 2012 and 2013 to help that social net­work not only over­come con­cerns about its ad busi­ness but also con­quer the mobile ad market.

All mar­keters who apply and are accept­ed into the Snap Accel­er­ate pro­gram will be cred­it­ed with mon­ey they can use to pay for ad cre­ation and to buy ads on Snapchat. They will also receive ear­ly access to new ad prod­ucts and tools, as well as Snap’s Mar­ket­ing API. They will also be able to run a free brand­ed fil­ter around their company’s head­quar­ters for a cer­tain peri­od of time. How­ev­er, these ben­e­fits vary based on which of the program’s three tiers a com­pa­ny qual­i­fies for.

The three tiers appear to cor­re­spond with a par­tic­i­pat­ing company’s size and stage of growth, vary­ing from fledg­ling apps to star­tups that have hit a cer­tain lev­el of sus­tain­abil­i­ty. Here is a break­down of how the three tiers differ.

Kickstart

• The com­pa­ny is giv­en up to $20,000 worth of ben­e­fits, includ­ing cred­it to use for buy­ing ads and pay­ing for ad creation.
• A free brand­ed fil­ter is avail­able for three months.

Sprint

• A com­pa­ny is giv­en up to $50,000 worth of ben­e­fits, includ­ing cred­it to use for buy­ing ads and pay­ing for ad creation.
• A free brand­ed fil­ter is avail­able for six months.
• The com­pa­ny is invit­ed to Snap-host­ed edu­ca­tion events.
• The com­pa­ny is giv­en pri­or­i­ty for busi­ness and tech­ni­cal sup­port from Snap.

Scale

• The com­pa­ny is giv­en up to $100,000 worth of ben­e­fits, includ­ing cred­it to use for buy­ing ads and pay­ing for ad creation.
• A free brand­ed fil­ter is avail­able for 12 months.
• The com­pa­ny is invit­ed to Snap-host­ed edu­ca­tion events, as well as pri­vate net­work­ing events.
• The com­pa­ny is giv­en pri­or­i­ty for busi­ness and tech­ni­cal sup­port from Snap.

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