Snapchat’s SMB bet is paying off — but can it keep up the momentum?

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

Have you noticed an active mood shift from advertisers toward Snapchat now, vs. 12 to 24 months ago?

Yes, for us, since Q2 2024, we’ve seen the active number of advertisers on Snapchat double year over year, so that reflects a bit of that momentum and a bit of that mood shift towards the platform. It’s extremely heartening and encouraging for us to see these products and these go-to-market improvements in our service to build customer value, and customers telling us that through their feedback.

And the success stories we receive are not limited to any one type or size of business or any one geography. So we believe that is a true reflection of this mood shift. We hope that this is a long-term opportunity for small businesses to tap into a very large and engaged audience that Snapchat has. That’s where our path to value will be.

Would you say that SMBs are your priority focus right now, and that the ideal scenario would be that this category of advertiser would become the core of your ad revenue?

We are making extremely big investments in the small- to medium-business space, both in the ad solutions we offer to them and in how we provide them the right service. In 2025, we remain very committed in our mission to continue doing those things and being a growth driver for our small and medium business partners. Because ultimately, when they win, Snap wins too.

And Snap also wins because it’s become less reliant on just those larger advertisers, with a more diversified ad revenue stream?

We are definitely in our journey to become an extremely diversified lower funnel-first ad revenue platform. And as you can see from other of our peers in the industry, small businesses are a core constituent in that journey. And at Snapchat, we continue to share that view as well.

Do you think maintaining Snapchat as cheaper and more cost-effective than other platforms is the key to keeping SMBs, or any advertisers, on the platform?

The fact that Snapchat has become more cost-effective than other platforms is an accurate perspective of individual businesses that we service and that we’ve spoken to. But we still need to continuously add value over a longer period of time. And that means continuing to deliver on that strong return on their ad dollar and performance, because that will ultimately enable us to continue increasing the share of wallet in this highly competitive environment.

What specifically prevented SMBs from advertising on Snapchat before now?

Small businesses, in my opinion, have always had the same No. 1 problem: They need to acquire customers.

There are two distinct times when business owners need advertising. One, when they need word of mouth, which is upper-funnel advertising. And two, when they spend the majority of their ad dollars to get direct sales, leads or conversions, which is the lower-funnel advertising.

Historically, our strength has always been to drive the former, the word of mouth, really well, among a very unique audience. But over the last two years is where I would say we’ve taken a very concerted effort to rebuild our ad stack. And it’s that pivot that is accelerating SMBs now adopting Snapchat as part of their overall customer acquisition strategy.

So given that the likes of Meta, Google and TikTok have a number of products already out there, what specifically do you think Snapchat can offer SMBs that the others can’t?

We certainly see that SMBs want to get the maximum return on every dollar they spend, and they have a lot of choices out there. Internally we talk about how quickly we are able to actually deliver our solutions and services to small businesses. We completely understand we’re playing catch-up with much larger players and we need to get where they are in a shorter period of time. That’s why we’re focused on moving very quickly, effectively, launching solutions, seeing how it works out, and either iterating on it or sunsetting it and finding an alternate solution.

But one of Snapchat’s unique strengths lies in our audience. Younger generations continue to be super engaged in Snapchat. What many people don’t realize, though, is that more than 50% of Snapchatters, in the U.S., are 25 or older. Our community has literally grown up with the app. So Snapchatters who were in high school or college when they first downloaded the app are now getting married, buying homes and having children. They have disposable income. And these are the customers that businesses of all sizes want to talk to and connect with.

Research has also shown us that while our audience does overlap with many platforms, we also have a significant portion who don’t use those other apps on a daily basis. In the U.S., 40% of daily U.S. Snapchatters that are within the 16-to-64 age bracket, are not on TikTok every day. That percentage increases when we compare against platforms like Pinterest.

As a business owner, the nugget for you is: if you invest all of your ad dollars in just one platform, eventually, you start to see returns go down. And every small business owner I’ve spoken to throughout my career has experienced the same thing. So we encourage business owners to stop and check, every now and then, if the ad dollars are working just as hard as they were. And we are seeing that when businesses do so, they end up choosing Snapchat. They’ll often begin by testing a small amount that starts to work, then they invest a bit more that continues to work, so they continue to scale.