Jeff Gonzales, CEO of marketing company AET Automotive, said dealerships that invest in Snapchat tend to have little competition at the moment. Most are active on Facebook, where there are plenty of baby boomers and Generation X consumers, but Snapchat is still largely uncharted territory, he said.
Gonzales said his company’s dealership clients use Snapchat to promote deals they’re offering. “Our platform and our technology really focuses on the retail offers, so what we’re taking a look at is the segmented buyer based off of specific models within a brand and who the natural buyer is,” he told Automotive News.
Snapchat’s rising popularity gives stores more opportunities to target users with tools such as Snap Ads, which appear as people peruse the site and last only a few seconds. Snap Ads allow stores to push pictures, animated images and videos to users, then capture those leads by encouraging users to express interest by swiping up on the screen. The final destination could be a sign-up page for users who want more information about a vehicle, for example, or a place to explore vehicle features.
A Boston Consulting Group study released in June and commissioned by Snapchat found that 62 percent of millennials and the younger Generation Z have increased their time on social media since the pandemic began. That compares with 42 percent for older generations, according to the study, which included 9,500 consumers 16 and older in the U.S., the United Kingdom, Canada and France.
On average, Snapchatters opened the app more than 30 times a day in the second quarter. The average number of posts — known as Snaps — created each day by users grew 25 percent year over year in the third quarter.
The health crisis has forced dealerships to rethink how they engage consumers on multiple fronts, such as tweaking the buying process to make it more accessible for online shoppers. The pandemic could lead to permanent changes in consumers’ habits, making them more accustomed to handling more of their vehicle purchases and service needs in the coming years without visiting a dealership.
