Monetization Of Apps & Messenger: Snapchat’s Latest Acquisition of Placed Is A Strong Hint About The Future

As per a research, an adult American is exposed to 362 advertisements a day, spread across Internet, TV, Radio, Newspaper and magazines. But, how many of them actually convert, and gives a business to the advertiser?

Imagine New York Times newspaper having the data which tells them that a reader who glanced at an advertisement for pizza on page number 15 of their newspaper actually went to that pizza outlet, and spent money on it.

This would be indeed magical.

We are not sure about newspapers and offline media, but the future of mobile based advertisement certainly seems like this fantasy tale.

In fact, Snapchat’s latest acquisition of Placed, proves this fact, that the future of mobile/apps advertisement would be similar on this lines.

What Is Placed, And Why Snapchat Acquired It?

Placed is a tech startup which provides a platform for location analytics. Using a complex maze of big data, real-time location data of their users and some complex algorithm, Placed is able to tell how many people visited a particular offline store, after getting exposed to an advertisement on any app or mobile browser.

In short, Placed is the link between online to offline conversions, something which was the most difficult aspect of digital advertisements.

In a blog post, Placed CEO said, “Over the past 12 months, Placed has measured more than $500 million in media spend to store visits, across thousands of campaigns and hundreds of partners, cementing Placed as the leader in location-based attribution.”

Say McDonald used Placed for understanding their customer’s offline behaviour. Hence, they would be able to determine which customer saw their burger ad on Instagram, and when did they visit a McDonald outlet to order a burger.

Using Placed, McDonald would be able to determine the exact ROI of their mobile ads, and this is certainly interesting.

Yesterday, Snapchat bought Placed for $200 million, and there is much more than which is visible. This acquisition actually provides us a glimpse of the future, and tells us a possibility for all messenger apps, regarding the next-level of monetization.

How Can A Messenger Utilize Location Tracking For Generating Revenues

The pillar behind a startup like Placed is the 150 million+ opt-in users, who have decided to share their exact location with them, and give valuable, real-time data to Placed for their location-based analytics.

Placed combines this real-time data, with the code which it places within apps like Instagram and Facebook, and then determines the ROI of the advertisement.

Companies have already started offering services like ‘Cost per Visit’ ads, using Placed’s location analytics. In this form of ads, the advertiser only pays when a customer enters their store, via their advertisement.

We have been able to determine that native ads inside online publications drive more in-store visits and purchases, compared to display, banner ads on mobiles. Placed has helped us to discover this truth.

And, this is just the start.

After Placed join their forces with Snapchat’s 200 million+ users, then the user base and the scope becomes tremendous. Using Big data, Snapchat can instantly discover the effect of their ads on the actual offline visits and more.

Understanding customer’s behaviours, and determining the direct effect of advertisements into the spending pattern is the Holy Grail of Digital Advertisements.

And Snapchat’s acquisition of Placed proves that the next level of advertisement measurements has arrived.

Imagine if Whatsapp is aware that a user from Delhi has gone ahead and booked a movie ticket from Bookmyshow after he watches an advertisement on TimesOfIndia, then everything changes.

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