Snapchat finally gives creators analytics

Snapchat has always been terrible at analytics, only showing daily Story view counts that content creators had to screenshot just before they disappeared every 24 hours in order to prove their worth to sponsors. But starting today, tens of thousands creators who make official Stories or have large followings will start seeing a slew of view count and demographic analytics on their Snapchat profile.

These new analytics include:

• Total Story Views in the past week, month and year to date.
• Time Spent Viewing Stories in minutes in the past week, month, and year to date.
• Daily unique story viewers, average time unique viewers spent watching, and completion rates
• Audience demographics like gender breakdown, top age bracket, and top geographic regions
• Audience interests like which lifestyle categories like film and TV, food, fashion , and sports their audiences care about

The new analytics could help creators show their total reach to secure sponsored content and product placement deals, refine their posts to match their audience, and compare their following to that on other platforms.

It appears that Snapchat is changing its ways, truly embracing independent creators for alongside the rollout of the redesign that for the first time promotes social media stars you don’t already follow in Discover. For years Snap refused to help creators get discovered, work with them on feature launches, help them if locked out of their account, or provide monetization opportunities.

But now one of its first stars, Shonduras tells TechCrunch “I have been dreaming of these analytics for YEARS!! and now that they are here i can honestly say… yes they are good! I have been using them in beta for awhile and have been able to learn a ton about my audience, my male/female ratios on snapchat are significantly different than all my other platforms! which really helps me create content that is better served for my snap audience!”

Creators often had to turn to unofficial third-party analytics providers to get help understanding their audiences. But that could be expensive, provide incomplete data, or require creators to turn over their login details.

Nick Cicero, CEO of social analytics startup Delmondo says the ne native analytics are “a win all around. Naturally a long overdue step needed to keep more influencers in the platform who have done a lot for Snap, and it’s a great way to build a more diverse set of premium inventory and targeting data for advertisers.”

Snapchat’s neglect of creators had pushed them to competitors like Instagram and YouTube. But now they’ll have more reasons to keep creating on Snapchat. Shonduras concludes that “i will be the first to admit i was done with snapchat and fell away last year. but this is the change that both creators and brands needed to get back on board!! and i hope it works!”