Snap opens walled garden to VideoAmp for cross-media planning

Snap is opening the walls of its garden by linking its first-party data with VideoAmp’s identity system, allowing advertisers to find advanced audiences across Snapchat as well as connected TV networks and other platforms. “We’ve been hearing from a lot of our agency partners like Omnicom and some others about the importance of Snap being integrated into some of their planning and measurement tools,” said Alexander Dao, global head of agency development and sales partnership for Snap. “Now all of Snap inventory is going to be available for planning purposes, and then eventually measurement purposes.” Ad Age Small Agency Conference & Awards Join us July 23 & 24 in Boston Learn more here Previously, Snap integrated anonymized first-party user data individually with some holding company systems for planning on video buys, Dao said. But this is the first time it has done so with a third-party measurement company on video and the first time with any player on AR, Dao said. Peter Bradbury, VideoAmp’s chief commercial officer, said that while the measurement company can provide cross-platform planning and analytics among TV, CTV and some other digital platforms on a demographic level, Snap is the first social platform to allow such integration for advanced audiences. That allows agency planners to de-duplicate audiences and find incremental reach on Snapchat beyond what they might find on TV. Read about Snapchat’s marketing approach Bringing Snap into the cross-platform mix isn’t on the order of bringing bigger platforms such as Google, Meta, Amazon or TikTok into the fold. But Snap does rank ahead of X, Pinterest and Reddit in daily audiences, with considerably more video inventory than those. Bradbury said he hopes Snap can start a domino effect that will make other social platforms consider opening things up more for cross-platform measurement of advanced audiences. Snap has largely been a walled garden, like other social platforms, retaining user IDs for media planning and measurement within its own ad ecosystem. This move puts Snap more in the “hedged garden” camp of allowing at least limited visibility via VideoAmp. “Gaining visibility into Snap’s in-platform video consumption strongly supports our mission of holistic, cross-channel video planning,” Megan Pagliuca, chief activation officer of Omnicom Media Group, said in a statement. The integration will use VideoAmp’s cookieless Valid comingled identity solution, which uses a combination of hashed emails, signed-in users, IP addresses and device IDs from several companies through clean room technology. “I think there will be immense demand for this for advertisers,” said Katie Owens, strategic partnerships lead of VideoAmp. “Having a one-stop shop where you can operate all of your planning.” Dao said he believes making it easier to incorporate AR into the mix will encourage more advertisers to add the format to broader video plans. And he said AR is likely to fare well in comparison, given prior Omnicom research showing Snap AR produced five times more attention than other social formats. Cross-media measurement has been a holy grail for advertisers for well over a decade, yet it’s still more easily said than accomplished. Google, Meta, Amazon and TikTok are participants in the Association of National Advertisers years-in-development Aquila cross-media measurement initiative. But the terms of how much they will open their data gardens to one another remains to be seen, a beta test of the system isn’t expected until next year and TV networks have opted out of the project so far. Omnicom Media Group’s Flywheel digital commerce platform last month also launched commerce-focused cross-platform beta tests with the Amazon demand-side platform, Amazon Prime and an unnamed TV network said by people familiar with the matter to be Comcast’s NBCUniversal. Spokespeople for OMG and NBCU declined to comment. Ad Age Leading Women Luncheon Join us Aug. 7 in New York as we recognize this year’s honorees Buy your ticket today

Snap opens walled garden to VideoAmp for cross-media planning

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