Sources at ad agencies say a lack of analytics, disinterest of influencers, and other factors are driving clients from Snap, exacerbated by Instagram's strength
- Several agencies said advertiser interest in Snapchat is flat to dwindling, as many opt to move towards Instagram.
Context & Ripple Effects
This lands mid-arc: by January, analytics firms reported Snapchat Stories view counts had fallen 15%–40% after Instagram launched its Stories clone, and Snap's own filing showed DAU growth slowing right as that feature shipped. Through spring, the supply side kept eroding — Snap's hands-off approach alienated high-profile creators, and by July [[a:920639|publishers like Hearst, Bustle, TechCrunch, BBC News, and Mic were openly shifting their enthusiasm to Instagram]].
What changes today is the demand side: agency sources tell CNBC advertiser interest is now flat to dwindling too, with weak analytics and disinterested influencers named as the drivers. The audience exodus and the publisher drift have finally pulled brand budgets with them.
First-order effects
- Advertisers served by these agencies are moving budgets from Snap to Instagram, shrinking Snap's advertiser base during its first year as a public company.
- Snap's sales pitch now has two documented holes — no adequate analytics for buyers and a creator roster losing interest — that its own earlier behavior helped open.
Second-order effects
- Publishers and influencers already drifting toward Instagram gain more leverage there, reinforcing the very network effects that make Snap's inventory less attractive.
- The pattern compounds downstream: by Q1 2019 Instagram influencer spend reached $265M in North America, up 62% YoY, and by 2021 Spotlight creators were leaving Snap as payments dried up, some landing on Instagram and YouTube.
Third-order effects
- If the dynamic holds, social advertising consolidates around whichever platform can clone a rival's format while offering superior measurement and creator economics — a structural disadvantage for smaller platforms that Snap's later creator departures suggest never reversed.
- Agencies emerge as gatekeepers whose analytics requirements effectively decide which platforms get scaled budgets, raising the bar for any challenger without enterprise-grade measurement.
The trend: Social ad dollars are consolidating around platforms that replicate competitors' formats at scale with better measurement, steadily draining advertiser and creator bases from first movers like Snap.