Can Kik Beat Snapchat With Better Targeting?

Kik is a popular messaging app among teenagers. With more than 200 million registered app downloads, it is consistently near the top of app ranking charts, just below a top echelon that includes Facebook Messenger, Instagram and Snapchat. Recently Kik says it is giving brands the ability to better target on consumers when delivering promoted messages. Kik Better Targeting

Kik first introduced Promoted Chats last year, which lets brands build a following in the app that they could then message. It later introduced keyword capabilities that helped brands communicate with fans through automated responses based on the keywords. According to Kik, more than 10 million of its users opted in for chatting with brands since Promoted Chats launched last August. Now the company is revealing new reporting capabilities to measure the effectiveness of Promoted Chat campaigns after they run.

If brands can truly reach out to targeted customer segments and effectively measure campaign performances through Kik, the messaging app may outperform Snapchat because Snapchat is still an uncertain proposition when it comes to defining and hitting an intended audience.

As of now there are about 60 brands using the Promoted Chats feature on Kik, including Funny or Die, Seventeen Magazine, Skullcandy and Vans. Most of the brands are using Kik to reach out to young people since the signing up for the app does not require a phone number.