One of the activities in the day of a life of an industry analyst is to join quarterly earnings calls. We all have our own batch of go-to calls every quarter, usually involving the Mag 7. But another earnings call has become a staple for us: Snap. The company continues to emphasize SMB revenue growth.
This was the case in its Q1 earnings call on Wednesday, where Snap pointed to SMBs as a growing source of revenue for its advertising and promotional products. Another key theme on the earnings call was Snap’s revenue diversification, which we recently examined, but that’s a different article.
Sticking with the SMB ad revenue highlights, we’ve synthesized them below for Localogy Insider readers. You may remember that we did something similar for Snap’s Q4 2025 earnings. The takeaways in Q1 are similar but different, and continue an ongoing narrative about SMB ad revenue growth.
Earnings Unpack
Diving right in, one of the points of emphasis for Snap was the growth in Snap Map as a product. This is one of the cornerstones of its SMB ad revenue monetization, as it serves as a hub for users social activity. That then inspires meetup activity, which in turn can drive foot traffic to local businesses.
According to Snap Head of Investor Relations, David Ometer:
With more than 450 million global monthly active users in Q1, we believe that the Snap Map is the world’s most personal map, continually adapting to highlight the friends, places, and real-world experiences that matter most to Snapchatters. As we layer in richer content and local signals, we see Snap Map developing into a powerful platform for connecting our community with places and services in the physical world, creating a durable foundation for local commerce and advertising over time. The innovation we delivered across new conversation starters, content sharing, Lenses, and Snap Map all contributed to the growth in our global community in Q1, with global daily active users and monthly active users both growing 5% year-over-year in Q1. Advertising execution improved in Q1, led by continued strength with SMBs and better performance across our lower funnel products.
Building from the above usage growth in Snap Map, one way Snap has structured the opportunity for local business visibility is through its Promoted Places ad product. This positions local businesses on Snap Map with greater prominence, usually in the context of users’ social activity and meetups.
We are also encouraged by the progress we are seeing with Promoted Places, which helps connect digital discovery on Snapchat with real-world action. Early campaigns generated more than 20 million incremental visits and double-digit growth in foot traffic. For example, Carl’s Jr. achieved an 18% lift in incremental visits alongside gains in ad awareness and brand favorability. We believe products like Sponsored Snaps and Promoted Places can expand our lower funnel footprint over time by adding more differentiated inventory while creating more measurable outcomes for advertisers.
The above example cites a multi-location brand, which are usually faster adopters of emerging digital ad products when compared to SMBs. However SMBs represent a bright spot for Snap with lots of headroom for growth. Among other things, this fits into Snap’s broader diversification narrative.
We are continuing to grow and diversify our advertiser base. Over the past three years, the number of current SMB advertisers on our platform has nearly tripled. In Q1, SMBs grew spend by more than 30% year-over-year in North America. SMBs accounted for more than 30% of global ad revenue and remained our largest ad growth driver for the seventh consecutive quarter. This continues to reflect strong product market fit in the segment, as well as the improvements we are making in onboarding, automation, and advertiser support.
Social Layer
So there you have it. We’ll continue watching Snap’s moves in the SMB realm to see how the above aspirations translate to action in 2026. Meanwhile the opportunity goes back to something noted above: Snap Map. Based on the social activity and high local intent, this is something Snap can monetize.
In fact, this social layer on a mapping product is Snap’s edge, given that it’s something that mapping incumbents – Google and Apple – haven’t been able to build… and they’ve tried. It turns out that a mapping product on top of a social product is easier than the inverse, and that’s what Snap has done.
More to come as Snap chases these ambitions and opportunities in Q2 and beyond.
