New Snap Maps Could Become A Powerful Advertising Business

The polemic new map recently launched by Snapchat could become a powerful location-based advertising business, recently wrote the Oppenheimer firm analyst, Jason Helfstein. The Snap Map is an interactive map that allows seeing where are sharing snaps. According to Helfstein, this tool is an opportunity for brands to place ads for users based on where they are. “In the long term, we see an online-to-offline advertising ecosystem emerging that SNAP can use to advertise through the transaction lifecycle by building brand awareness and driving store traffic” wrote the analyst. Location-targeted ad spend on mobile is expected to reach US$32 billion annually in the U.S. by 2021, according to research by BI Intelligence.Helfstein sees Snap Map as a way to eventually surface location-based ads alongside snaps submitted by users. “Snapchat is gradually building content discovery that should appeal to advertisers looking to target young people at specific times and locations” he added.