Internal memo: CEO Evan Spiegel unveils Snap's plans to grow its user base and revenue in 2023, including onboarding more users in their 30s and pushing AR ads
Alex Heath / The Verge :
Context & Ripple Effects
Spiegel had previously used an internal memo to set a profitability target while acknowledging a rushed redesign, making this another instance of Snap using internal planning to reset operating priorities. Snap’s earlier reported revenue and daily-user growth gave the company a larger base to monetize, but the memo identifies audience expansion and ad format as the next levers.
The emphasis on AR advertising anticipated Snap’s later aggressive investment in AI and AR after an ad-business revamp. It also fits the longer arc of Spiegel repeatedly recasting Snap’s strategy, including the earlier profitability and redesign reset.
First-order effects
- Snap’s product and growth teams are tasked with reducing onboarding friction for users in their 30s, extending the service beyond its existing user base.
- Snap’s advertising organization gains AR ads as an explicit revenue priority, directing sales and product work toward interactive ad inventory.
Second-order effects
- Advertisers seeking to reach the added older audience gain a reason to test Snap’s AR formats, tying user-growth execution more directly to ad demand.
- The paired priorities force Snap to coordinate audience development with ad products rather than treating user growth and monetization as separate efforts.
Third-order effects
- Snap’s later AI and AR investment push suggests AR became a core product-and-revenue platform rather than a standalone ad experiment.
- If this approach holds, social-platform competition will increasingly hinge on whether specialized formats can both broaden an app’s audience and create differentiated ad inventory.
The trend: Snap is pursuing a broader-audience, higher-value advertising model built around AR as it adapts its consumer product to changing social-media habits.