Snowflake Data Cloud Summit 2024 | Bill Stratton | Snowflake & John Eckhardt

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Bill Stratton

Global Industry GTM Lead, Media, Entertainment and Advertising

Snowflake

John Eckhardt

Director, Global Marketing Science

Snap Inc.

Snapchat enhances platform for users and advertisers through secure integration with Snowflake

Snap Inc. is partnering with Snowflake Inc. to make its flagship product, Snapchat, more secure for users and profitable for advertisers.The company has integrated with Snowflake’s Marketing Data Cloud to provide advertisers with encrypted data through technologies such as Data Clean Rooms. These features allow organizations to share data without compromising user security.Snowflake’s Bill Stratton and Snap’s John Eckhardt discuss Snapchat’s emphasis on user security.“Regulatory bodies have been pushing advertisers to be much more conscientious about the way they use data,” said John Eckhardt (pictured, right), director of global marketing science at Snap

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Bill Stratton | Snowflake & John Eckhardt | Snap Inc.

Bill Stratton

Global Industry GTM Lead, Media, Entertainment and Advertising Snowflake

John Eckhardt

Director, Global Marketing Science Snap Inc.

>> Good afternoon everyone, and welcome back to theCUBE's live coverage of the Snowflake Data Cloud Summit here at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, California. I'm your host, Rebecca Knight, alongside my co-host, co-analyst, Dave Vellante. Dave, as a mom of two teenage girls who spend a lot of time on Snapchat, I think a lot about privacy in Snap.

>> Yeah, I'll bet. When I think of Snapchat, I think of data.

>> All right. Not what I think of, but okay. I'd like to welcome our next two guests. We have John Eckert, he's the Director of Global Marketing Science at Snap. Welcome. And Bill Stratton, Global Industry, Go-to-market Lead, Media Entertainment and Advertising at Snowflake. So thank you both so much for coming on theCUBE.

>> Thank you for having us.

>> Thank you.

>> I'm going to start with you, John, talk a little bit about how Snap is using Snowflake.

>> Sure. Yeah. Snowflake's been an incredible partner for us for the last couple of years and we're happy to be able to take this opportunity to actually be out in the market talking about all the great work now that we've been doing. So Snowflake's an incredible partner for us on the marketing cloud space and on the data and privacy and clean room product space. So over the last several years, advertisers, regulatory bodies have been pushing advertisers to be much more conscientious about the way they use data. Snapchat has been privacy by design. The nature of the way that the app is built is that the messages are ephemeral, they disappear. We made decisions very early on in the development of the product that we are going to not take every tracking tag that anybody wants to throw on any ad, and we wanted to be very conscientious about the way that we use user data to make sure it helped the users and it helped advertisers. And so this partnership with Snowflake and the marketing cloud has enabled advertisers to be able to create integrations that drive better ads performance and also do that in the most modern privacy-safe way through data, clean rooms,

>> Linear TV obviously gone through a huge transformation, being disrupted by digital media. We're all unconnected from the cable and we've got all different kind of options and it's kind of awesome. How has that affected what you're seeing in the marketplace in terms of how they're using data and how they're using your product?

>> Well, listen, I don't know if transformation's even the right word what linear TV has gone through. I mean it's completely as an industry been changed. I think the biggest beneficiary of that is all of us as consumers, but the power of sight, sound in motion is still obviously what's critically important for consumer behavior and watching some of the amazing shows that are out there. But this gentleman to my left, the platform that Snap has in reaching those kinds of consumers, as you said, your daughters, it's really unparalleled. So it's sort of this combination that I think we're seeing, this change of consumer behavior away from linear TV, Dave, as you said, to an experience like Snap where you're sharing it with your community, your friends, your family. And it's such an environment that advertisers, and to the announcement that we made a few weeks ago, want to participate in. But they want to participate in a way where they're not taking their consumer and privacy at risk. And so the Snap environment along with Snowflake is providing that for those advertisers and those marketers. And I can't think of a better way to reach consumers like your daughters through a safe privacy-compliant platform like Snap. And we're just so glad to partner with John and his team. And the community and the reaction that we've gotten from marketers has been amazing. So super happy about that.

>> Snap's an amazing platform. I mean, full disclosure, I'm not a big-time Snap user, but my kids are, and the things that they do are just remarkable. And when I talk to some of the Silicon vendors, they'll say, "Look, the ROI on consumer is so clear. The bigger you can build GPU clusters, the better you can serve that audience." And you're seeing that, but take us through what that means from a marketing standpoint and how you protect the privacy of your users.

>> Yeah, sure. So yeah, I mean in the space of AI and where AI and ML models are moving, obviously you can see that in direct application for the users, which is where we start. And then that becomes a platform in which advertisers can then leverage it. So today, you can jump into Snap, opens to the camera first, you can move over to some lenses, you'll start seeing lenses that have a generative AI component. So something as simple as taking a picture of you of whatever you would look like in the nineties. So it's kind of a snapshot back for me.

>> Some of us who were alive in the nineties.

>> Back into-

>> I'd like to go back to the nineties look I had.

>> Back to high school.

>> Exactly.

>> And today, those things, we have cell phones and we have compute clusters that are capable of doing really sophisticated modeling and interpretation of really simple inputs and making a really complex output. And that's obviously been really important to the user engagement side. We've seen great response and great user engagement in these types of tools, but you can see that over the course of the next months to years that advertisers are going to be able to start using this. So you see it happening in the background on Snapchat as well. When advertisers implement something like a conversions API with their product catalogs, so it's like zero code, implementation of being able to pass conversion data securely to Snap. The ability with that data combined with their catalog data on their website or in their app, those models are being used in order to make sure you're decisioning the right product and ad to be put in front of the right person at the right time to get the best performance. And so there are subtle ways in which it's being used that just make the experience generally better for a user and for an advertiser, but there are going to be much more explicit ways that it ends up ultimately getting used down the road as you look in the entire creative value chain for marketing and advertising too. So I'm excited about the direction that it's headed because I really think we're kind of in the first inning of how AI and ML models can start to improve marketing and advertising. And so there are many other touch points that are actually even more so impactful in the way a user perceives and connects with a brand and whether they ultimately buy something or don't buy something.

>> I was going to ask you about that because Snap in the early days, it was amazing. It had the gamification, go get it, get it, and it was a lot of fun. And then of course Snap was started even before Snowflake, so there was no Snowflake for your data platform. It was probably like a Dupe back then was the big data platform. So what has Snowflake enabled you to do that you couldn't do before? And to your point about early days of AI, what can we expect going forward? Because it's just like people joke that it's the dial-up modem days of AI.

>> Sure. Yeah. So two big things that Snowflake's really enabled for SnapChat. The first is, as I sort of alluded to this marketing cloud launch and the zero-code connector for being able to pass conversions data in order to drive performance and optimization is crucial. We've seen a 300% increase in the number of convergence API integrations that we've had in the last year, which is huge. I mean, advertisers are really moving in a direction of privacy-safe integrations with SnapChat to drive ads performance and performance marketing, not just brand marketing. And being built into Snowflake's marketing cloud and the way that it, is going to be able to exponentially increase that growth rate.

>> What's interesting, just to tap into what John just said is he's not talking about chip performance or model performance. He's talking about optimizing an experience for a marketer. So there's a lot of press and there's a lot of fanfare talking about chips and models and comparison of models and things like that. At the end of the day, the marketer on the Snap platform just wants their ad to perform better. They want it to be relevant. They want it to perform in a way that sells product for them. And so all his comment is nothing about the performance of the chips. It's all about the value for the marketer. And I think that's kind of the first out, or the first inning, whatever analogy you want to use. I think we're going to kind of start to see that with Snowflake trying to reduce the complexity of AI. I'm not going to move data around to get chip performance actually keeping the data in Snap's environment on Snowflake and then just optimizing for marketers. And then the consumer experience, as he mentioned, is only going to benefit as well.

>> On theCUBE, we talk a lot about how these technologies are really fundamentally changing how work gets done, how people do their jobs, and really roles. Can you talk a little bit about your role as a marketer in terms of how things have really changed even in the past 18 months?

>> Sure. Yeah. We did a session yesterday where I did five demos in 45 minutes of AI capability all for marketers. And so there used to be organizations on the marketing and advertising side that they had large teams of people building audience targets in order to activate a campaign. Now that complexity is being reduced using AI and LLMs on Snowflake, and the data has always been there. And so we're starting to unlock that as a value creation. And I think from a marketer standpoint, that'll give them the opportunity to put more money into creative and other relevant items so that they're driving performance as well. That's what we're starting to see, that sort of the chairs and the decks are being changed so that the marketer can truly tap into performance and capability.

>> Both an art and a science.

>> Absolutely.

>> Well, and thank you for clarifying that point of performance before. So I wanted to ask you about your relationship with your advertisers, because I know small businesses that they're getting crushed because their search is going to zero and they were completely relying on it, and their traffic's dropped by 90%. So they're pivoting to social media platforms and there's this trust factor. So how do you ensure that trust with your advertisers from a marketing standpoint so that they can plan for their business and grow?

>> Sure. Yeah, I mean that is purely a relationship game, especially with our small medium customer group and being able to connect, being able to demonstrate that Snapchat responsibly manages, responsibly monetizes, that they have partnerships with some of the biggest infrastructure partners like Snowflake to make sure that we're securely... Whatever data they have, whatever advertising dollars they have to spend, that we're using it responsibly and efficiently to drive their business. And we've been doing that. Our small and medium customer business, especially in international, has growing extremely fast. Recently in our earnings, it's nearly doubled every year over year. So we've seen, I think the trust is being built and I think in time and many ways being able to demonstrate that it's the right place to be because of the scale of the platform, because of the sentiment of the users on the platform, the way that they engage with brands. And then ultimately when you spend that first dollar, you start seeing out outcomes that matters, that matters to small business more than anyone else because they don't have the time or the money to waste where they're not going to be getting performance within matters of days or weeks. So that's what we're really focused on. That's what we believe is actually one of the most important growth arcs for us, is democratizing these tools, democratizing access and giving small businesses a chance to really flourish on the platform. And it diversifies also the platform and the experience for the users too. When there are many, many products, many, many businesses that are all kind of vying for their eyes and their dollar, that makes the opportunity for us to actually serve a better ad that's even more relevant, higher. So it's a win-win across the board.

>> If you think about it, just to add one other quick thing, excuse me, Dave, is what Snap is doing if a small market or small business, a performance marketer needs to optimize on conversions, they're trying to grow their business month to month, day to day, week to week. Now with Snowflake and Snap, they can measure and understand those conversions to customer, but they don't have to send their customer data anywhere. So it's leveling the playing field, it's democratizing the opportunity for those marketers, but it's also giving those small companies privacy guarantees that only big companies used to be able to afford. Now it's democratized all the way through to all marketers.

>> It's a key point. It's like, when the cloud first came out, you gave small companies the data center capability and capacity of big banks. Now that's trickling down through to marketers. You mentioned sentiment analysis. We've seen a number of demos here this week around sentiment analysis. What is the state of sentiment analysis and how has it progressed? Because early on, certainly from our experience, sentiment analysis wasn't really that good. There's a lot of false positives or false negatives, and how has that evolved in your business and the industry in general?

>> Sure. Yeah. I mean, I'll give you a quick perspective on Snap. I mean, we are very, very performance focused. So it is outcomes. The sentiment is a diagnostic. When you take surveys or when you get an understanding of where advertisers heads are or you get an understanding of where user's heads are in the way that they're consuming and communicating on the app, that ultimately affects the way that they perceive ads. So it's an important intersection. Across a lot of the research that we've done, we found that Snap has the most "happy users," meaning they're in the most positive mental state when they're on the platform in large part because the way that you're using Snap is very different than the way you use other social media. You're using Snap to communicate with friends and family, using Snap to play with AI lenses. You're not using it to see if you're in or out of some social circle or feeling FOMO because you missed the party or you missed the trip that your friends took on.

>> And in light of the concern around youth mental health, that's a really important point is your state of mind when you're using your social media platform.

>> And it's an important reason why a lot of advertisers find it important to be on Snap because just like you think about brand safety and content moderation, the same thing goes around the positive aspects of users on a platform is you want your brand associated with positive feelings that a user is having when they see your ad or when they interact with your brand, whether it be a lens or a story ad of some sort. So yeah, we use it, but it's a diagnostic tool for us to best understand what are all the subsequent contributors to ultimately advertiser performance.

>> It's a good distinction. You don't go there to argue politics.

>> That's right. Exactly. A happy state of mind, I like that. I need to spend a little more time on Snap this afternoon, probably. Pick up my spirits a little bit.

>> Get those filters going. So what's next for both of you?

>> I can go. So obviously the theme of this conference is trying to drive AI capabilities in a way that is very focused on the business user. In this case, it's a marketer. And so we want to give the marketer these tools and capabilities, but reduce the friction and the complexity. So I think that's really where we're pushing. We're going to both be in Cannes two weeks from now. We will have the entire advertising creative community there. We'll have some of the biggest brands obviously globally in the world there. And I think all of this conversation will center around how do we use AI to improve the performance of marketing. Everyone wants to feel relevant with their products and their services. And so I think we can bring that to the marketer. And I think that's really where we're focused as a company. And Snap is really as a partner and a customer. They're not just a customer. They're a partner of ours. And then we work together to solve those challenges for our other customers, our marketers.

>> So two key dimensions. The first is the scale and access of our privacy safe tech that we've built with Snowflake. We are on stage with a partner booking where we initially started building and prototyping these solutions to get them a privacy-safe measurement solution that works globally and we're past that point. We've built it and now we want that to be accessible to every advertiser who runs into all of these same kind of privacy regulatory or technical limitations that we have today around data security and privacy. So that's one. The second is past measurement, what's really important is the ability to be able to target off of this information and then ultimately optimize off of this data in a privacy-safe way. So our arc is stabilize the measurement, make sure we're doing great measurement that advertisers care and start to make investment decisions off of, and then progressively move into other areas of our product stack that drive performance marketing and to work with our Snowflake team and our advertisers to build the best in class targeting and ranking tools that are also fully privacy-safe, quote, zero trust.

>> Part of where we're going to go is we've got 10,000 customers using Snowflake every day. We want them and their marketers to be able to directly activate to Snap out of their Snowflake environment. That's reducing complexity and simplicity, and that's what our customers want.

>> I'm updating my Snapchat.

>> As we speak.

>> Right now. I got to go check-

>> Watch his filters later. Exactly.

>> You're running it there.

>> I'll send you my Snapchat.

>> Real-time update.

>> John and Bill, thank you so much for coming on theCUBE.

>> Thank you.

>> A really fun conversation.

>> Thank you so much.

>> I'm Rebecca Knight for Dave Vellante. Stay tuned for more of theCUBE's live coverage of the Snowflake Data Cloud Summit. You're watching theCUBE, the leader in enterprise technology news and analysis.

Bill Stratton | Snowflake & John Eckhardt | Snap Inc.

>> Yeah, I'll bet. When I think of Snapchat, I think of data.

>> Thank you for having us.

>> Thank you.

>> I'm going to start with you, John, talk a little bit about how Snap is using Snowflake.

>> Some of us who were alive in the nineties.

>> Back into-

>> I'd like to go back to the nineties look I had.

>> Back to high school.

>> Exactly.

>> Both an art and a science.

>> Absolutely.

>> And in light of the concern around youth mental health, that's a really important point is your state of mind when you're using your social media platform.

>> It's a good distinction. You don't go there to argue politics.

>> That's right. Exactly. A happy state of mind, I like that. I need to spend a little more time on Snap this afternoon, probably. Pick up my spirits a little bit.

>> Get those filters going. So what's next for both of you?

>> I'm updating my Snapchat.

>> As we speak.

>> Right now. I got to go check-

>> Watch his filters later. Exactly.

>> You're running it there.

>> I'll send you my Snapchat.

>> Real-time update.

>> John and Bill, thank you so much for coming on theCUBE.

>> Thank you.

>> A really fun conversation.

>> Thank you so much.