Snapchat Releases New Research on How AR Campaigns Drive Conversion

As AR technologies improve and progress to the next stage of consumer awareness and usage, they offer up new avenues for consumer/brand engagement and enable sophisticated, virtual product experiences that can assist drive conversion in whole new ways.

That's a crucial point for marketers to remember, especially because the epidemic is hastening the eCommerce transition. With more people shopping online than ever before, giving additional options to replicate in-store experiences is critical to maximize sales success.

While AR technologies cannot yet completely duplicate the sensation of touching and feeling a tangible thing, they are progressing in that direction, which means that your audience will progressively seek out more complex experiences like this during their shopping excursions.

To put this in context, Snapchat just released fresh statistics on the benefits of AR tools for marketers, as well as how they're already helping to increase conversion and buyer response.

According to Snap:

"As marketers continue to use AR to bring value to Snapchatters, we’re seeing that Product Experience Lenses, which allow Snapchatters to experience a product or service, drive strong campaign performance. In fact, campaigns that include Product Experience Lenses are twice as likely to drive statistically significant lifts in Action Intent compared to norms."

That's significant now, but when AR wearables enter the picture, it may become much more so in the near future. Essentially, if you're not at least keeping up with the newest advancements in AR connectivity, you're already falling behind, with the next wave of AR adoption poised to become a key component in many outreach tactics.

To support this, Snap has conducted a study of ten in-app campaigns that used a Product Experience Lens in conjunction with Snap Ads to promote online transactions.

"For each campaign, we observed different combinations of ad product exposure prior to purchase events and we observed the extent to which a Snapchatter’s exposure to a Lens was the last touchpoint prior to purchase (“last-touch conversion”), as well as it being a touchpoint at any point prior to purchase (“any-touch conversion”). These were then compared to Snap Ads exposures that led to a conversion."

In other words, Snapchat wanted to know how effective AR Lens usage was in generating conversion vs standard Snap ad exposure.

And the findings were noteworthy:

"Across the 10 campaigns, Lenses would’ve been credited with 45% more purchases on average when looking at any-touch compared to last-touch conversions. In comparison, Snap Ads were much lower at 16%."

That's a significant increase, highlighting the promise of AR technologies for enhancing brand and product interactions, even at this early stage of development.

Snap admits that they can't entirely attribute AR Lenses for these outcomes, at least not without factoring any other causes. However, the findings reveal that AR technologies are under-represented in purchase attribution and may play a larger role in driving purchase activity than many people believe.

With AR wearables poised to change the game, it is well worth taking the time to examine the potential here, as well as where AR may fit into your outreach plan.

Snapchat is presently developing its AR-enabled Spectacles, which will eventually allow it to deliver entirely new experiences in a variety of ways.

It still feels far away, as if powerful AR technologies, such as daily wearables, are not on the horizon in the foreseeable future. However, examples like these suggest that the next stage is approaching, which will offer up new chances in a variety of ways.