Snapchat is now allowing any brand, developer, or agency to access its Marketing API, giving them the ability to create and automate buying and targeting for ads on the platform.
Snapchat is taking another big step into programmatic ad buying by allowing anyone access to its Marketing API – a move that gives pretty much anyone the ability to build software that can buy, run, and track ad campaigns on the platform, programmatically.
Snapchat had already started dipping its feet into programmatic and ad tech just over a year ago, but its API was only open to a small group of tech companies at the time. Opening it to all developers, brands, tech companies etc, will allow many more to work with Snapchat advertising, and to give them better targeting, measurement, and creative information about the platform.
In a statement James Borow, Snapchat’s director of revenue programs explained that the company has “been listening closely to third-party developers as [it transitions] Snapchat ad products onto [its] self-serve platform. As you can recognise, Snapchat‘s move to open up its Marketing API precedes big changes to its self-serve platform as well.
In the past year or so, Snapchat has worked hard to bring programmatic to the forefront of how Snapchat ads are bought – and it’s been doing a pretty good job. In Snap’s Q4 2017 earnings call, CEO Evan Spiegel said that ads bought programmatically are up 10% since last quarter. Now, 90% of Snap Ads are bought programmatically.
[box]Read next: Snapchat Ads Open Up To All Budgets With Self-Serve Ad Manager[/box]