Amazon's ad revenue is the same as Twitter and Snap combined

"Advertising is still just a small piece of Amazon’s growing empire. But “small” is relative. In 2017, the company’s ad business generated $2.8 billion, making it bigger than the ad platforms managed by Twitter ($2 billion) and Snap ($800 million). Only three online ad platforms outrank Amazon’s: Google, Facebook, and Oath.
The bulk of Amazon’s ad revenue is generated by placements within Amazon.com. For example, sellers pay to appear in search results, or display custom banners above the results. Some, like toy company Melissa & Doug, shell out additional dollars for custom Amazon home pages. But the retail conglomerate has also started to explore ad placements across the wider web, as well as within Alexa and Prime Video. Marketers, drawn by Amazon’s wealth of shopper data, have been eager to experiment. Last spring, WPP acquired an Amazon-focused consultancy."

Source:  FastCompany, 29th January 2018

60% of Snapchat users create content on the platform daily

"Snapchat expects over a trillion Snaps to be sent this year — roughly 3 billion per day, with daily active users opening the app 20 times per day.
Sixty percent of its daily users create content on the platform daily, and more than one third of daily users engage with Snapchat's augmented reality technology — putting Snapchat far ahead of both Apple and Facebook in AR use. By comparison, Facebook has seen a decline in page engagement.
In Q2, users under 25 spent more than 40 minutes per day on the app and users 25 and over spent more than 20 minutes per day on the app. By comparison, Instagram users under 25 spend 32 minutes per day on the app, and users over 25 spend 24 minutes a day on the app."

Source:  Axios, 6th October 2017

Only 11% of US teens think Instagram & Snapchat have too many ads

Source:  Research from Forrester, reported in their blog, 29th August 2017

What happens in an Internet Minute in 2017

Source:  Created by Lori Lewis and Chadd Callahan of Cumulus Media, and featured in the WEF's blog, 31st August 2017

Google & Facebook own 8 of the 10 most popular apps in the US

Source:  June 2017 data from comScore, reported by Techcrunch, 25th August 2017

Estimated ARPU from advertising for Google, Facebook, Twitter & Snapchat

"Following our recent analysis that Facebook is closing the gap on TV advertising, Ampere research also suggests that Facebook is also approaching Google. Across the various global online advertising players, Google is closest to TV on the ARPU measure, currently making about $7 each quarter for each monthly active user (MAU) from advertising on its sites. Thus, it really isn't far behind TV, where the average viewer is responsible for between $10 and $11 of advertising revenue per quarter.
In contrast, Twitter has been struggling to grow its revenue per MAU, which is fairly stable at about $2. Snapchat has been the big success story of recent quarters. Although it lags other players in terms of revenue per MAU, Snapchat been very active in beginning to monetise its customer base more aggressively. It has increased revenue from practically $0 per quarter per MAU to $0.70 in less than two years.
It may be in second position now, but when it comes to ARPU, Facebook advertising has been rapidly closing the gap on Google’s lead. In Q1 2015, Facebook made $2.3 per MAU. Google made about $5. By the end of 2016, Facebook had more than doubled its number to nearly $5 per MAU in advertising revenue."
Source:  Blog post from Ampere Analysis, 4th May 2017

Snapchat has 158m daily active users

"A daily habit. In 2012, Snap says it went from 1,000 daily users to 100,000. A year later, it was at 1 million daily users. Now 158 million people on average use the service and create over 2.5 billion Snaps -- short videos or images -- every day. On average, more than 60 percent of the company's daily active users create Snaps with its camera every day. Users visit Snapchat more than 18 times a day, on average, and spend 25 to 30 minutes on the app.
[...]
Slowing growth? Snap warned that its daily active user base may not continue to grow, and that its user growth showed a slowdown in the past couple of quarters of 2016. In the beginning of the September quarter, its base increased 7 percent from the June quarter. But in the latter part of the September period, its user base was "relatively flat," which resulted in an overall 4 percent sequential rise. It also added only 4.5 percent more users from September to December (before that, the user base had risen sequentially in the double digits on a percentage basis).
iPhone effect. The "majority" of Snap's users have iPhones. "As a result, although our products work with Android mobile devices, we have prioritized development of our products to operate with iOS operating systems rather than smartphones with Android operating systems." Sorry, Google."

Source:  Data from Snap's IPO documents, reported by CNet, 3rd February 2017

View counts for Snapchat stories has fallen 15-405 since the launch of Instagram Stories

"Good enough and convenient. That’s proved a winning strategy for Instagram’s clone, according to a dozen analytics providers, social media celebrities, and talent managers who told TechCrunch they’ve seen a decline in Snapchat Stories usage since Instagram Stories launched on August 2nd.
Most reported declines in Snapchat Stories view counts ranging from 15 to 40 percent, and a reduction in how often they or those they monitor post to Snapchat Stories. Meanwhile, our sources report rapidly growing view counts on Instagram Stories, and engagement-to-follower rates one social influencer talent agent called “Insanely f*cking high”.
The success of Instagram Stories, the decline in Snapchat usage we’ve heard from a wide array of sources, and Facebook’s relentless drive to compete with the startup could spell trouble for Snapchat’s IPO on the NYSE market that’s expected in March. Snap Inc declined to comment for this story."
Source:  TechCrunch, 31st January 2017

WPP will spend $70m wth Snapchat in 2016

"On behalf of its clients, ad giant WPP is spending about $70 million (£56 million) with Snapchat, the company's chief executive Martin Sorrell said on Tuesday at the UBS Media and Communications Conference, The Wall Street Journal reports.
The figure is just a pinch of the money it spends on other digital platforms — in October Sorrell said WPP will spend $5 billion (£4 billion) with Google this year, up from $4 billion (£3.2 billion) in 2015. That year the company spent $1 billion (£800 million) with Facebook."

Source:  Business Insider, 7th December 2016

Snapchat has 150m daily users, inc 50m in Europe

Imran at Snapchat says 50 million daily users in Europe, 150M daily overall, of course #dmexco2016 pic.twitter.com/7iFfSatwL4

— Garett Sloane (@GarettSloane) September 14, 2016

8 billion video views a day are watched on Snapchat

"News broke in early January that Snapchat users were racking up seven billion video views per day. That number is now at eight billion, according to a source who heard Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel speak with bankers and analysts Monday afternoon at Morgan Stanley’s Tech, Media & Telecom conference in San Francisco.
Snapchat was at two billion daily video views last May.
By Kurt Wagner, Jan 15, 2016, 8:53 AM PST
That means Snapchat is, at least on paper, serving the same number of daily video views as Facebook, which (somewhat surprisingly) did not update its video view metrics during the company’s last earnings call in late January. Even if Facebook users are watching more than eight billion — which is likely, since the last time we heard from the company was in November — Snapchat is at least close, with a much smaller audience. Snapchat boasts 100 million daily users, compared to Facebook’s user base of more than a billion daily active users."

Source:  ReCode, 29th February 2016

More than 6bn videos a day are watched on Snapchat

"Snapchat is generating 6 billion video views on its app every day, according to the Financial Times.
That number has tripled since May, the FT's Tim Bradshaw reported, citing people close to the company.
Snapchat confirmed the view count, but declined further comment, according to the report. Business Insider has also contacted Snapchat for comment and we'll update this article if we hear back.
In September, International Business Times reported Snapchat was drawing in 4 billion video views a day.
The new 6 billion figure means Snapchat is rapidly closing the gap with Facebook, which last week said it had doubled its number of daily video views to 8 billion, up from 4 billion in April.
What makes Snapchat's number even more impressive is that it attracts around 100 million daily active users to its app, compared to Facebook's 1 billion daily active user count. Facebook's numbers also include both desktop and mobile views, while Snapchat is a mobile-only service."

Source:  Business Insider, 8th November 2015

About 3m people a day look at Cosmopolitan's channel on Snapchat Discover

"Most millennials probably don’t know who Helen Gurley Brown is, but the Cosmopolitan brand Brown built is resonating with the young set — on Snapchat, at least.
Cosmopolitan says it’s averaging 3 million viewers a day on Snapchat Discover, a milestone that could appeal to some advertisers who wonder whether these media channels on the messaging app are desirable places to run their spots. Cosmo, which has been a Discover partner since the service launched in January, has seen traffic go from about 1.8 million a day to 3 million viewers since the summer, according to Kate Lewis, vp and editorial director of digital at Hearst Magazines, which owns Cosmo.
When asked whether the app is worth the editorial effort, she replied: “Oh my god yes. It’s been amazing, and we have about 3 million people a day on the Discover platform.”"

Source:  Digiday, 16th October 2015

Snapchat users watch 2 billion videos a day

"In a 23-page sales pitch it’s sending to ad agencies this month, the company says more than 60 percent of 13- to 34-year-old smartphone users in the U.S. are active on the service and together view more than 2 billion videos a day. That’s already about half the number of videos people watch on Facebook, which is seven years older and has 10 times as many members."

Source;  Bloomberg, 26th May 2015

The demographics of Snapchat users

"Snapchat has significant scale: We estimate it reached 82 million monthly active users globally as of May 2014. That's about one-third Instagram's size.
The majority of Snapchat's users are female, and 70% are between the ages of 13 and 25, according to our estimates. Young women are a difficult-to-reach and influential demographic.
Engagement is high: Two-fifths of 18-year-olds in the U.S. use it "multiple times daily" to communicate with family and friends. That's a higher proportion than those saying they use voice calls multiple times daily.
Visual sharing on Snapchat is exploding. Sharing of Snapchat Stories increased 100% in the last two months. Stories are now getting 1 billion views daily, while 760 million disappearing photos and videos are sent daily."

Source:  Business Insider, 24th June 2014