Snap has an advertiser problem: 63% of sharing is now private

The room and the pitch

More than 300 advertisers, creators and brands filled a Sydney venue in September 2026 for Snapchat Summit ANZ, the platform's first dedicated event for Australian and New Zealand media buyers.^[1] Snap positioned the event as a boutique local counterpart to its global NewFronts appearances, showcasing platform momentum and new research into Gen Z Australian audiences.^[1] The evening closed with augmented-reality experiences during what the company called Snappy Hour.

The 971 million figure

Snap reported 971 million monthly active users globally in the second quarter of 2026, the figure its sales team carried into every room at the summit.^[3] At upfronts, Snap uses the 971 million figure to sell Gen Z reach alongside competing platforms. No Australian-specific monthly active user figure was confirmed in materials available from the event.

The research and the gap inside it

Snap and research firm Mindscope presented findings from Reset Velocity, a proprietary behavioural model the two organisations developed together, measuring what they call Connection Intent, Authenticity Signal and Relational Durability across markets in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA).^[2] The model returned an EMEA Reset Score of 70 out of 100, a gain of 37 points since 2019.^[2]

The same dataset found 63% of audience connections in EMEA now occur in private channels, in the direct-message and group-chat layer that standard impression-tracking tools cannot read.^[2] Snap's own investor materials describe the platform's usage shift away from public Stories and Spotlight into private messaging as a deliberate product direction. The Reset Velocity findings confirm the direction while Snap is simultaneously asking buyers to trust its reach numbers.

Reset Velocity is vendor-commissioned research. Snap and Mindscope produced it together, and the methodology section, including the sample size, selection criteria and geographic breakdown, was not publicly disclosed in materials available to Prompt the Market. Independent verification of the 63% figure is not possible from the sources at hand.

Ronan Harris, President of Snap Inc. and a named Mindscope client, said the partnership delivered real-time intelligence, leaving methodology unaddressed. Harris said the work Mindscope is producing is delivering incredibly actionable insights in real-time and at a depth others are not reaching.^[2]

Measurement in private channels

For months, the broader industry has faced measurement gaps in private channels, a problem raised at the Sydney summit. WhatsApp, BeReal and now Snap's own private channels all present the same structural problem: behaviour happens where the measurement tags do not go. A buyer purchasing against a reach figure of 971 million global users is purchasing against a number that was generated, at least in part, by activity in an environment their standard tools cannot measure.

The Reset Velocity model recorded a 37-point rise in Snap's EMEA Reset Score between 2019 and 2026, a period that tracks almost exactly with the platform's pivot from public broadcasting to private sharing.^[2] Buyers may treat that shift as either an audience maturing into closer connections or an audience becoming harder to monetise through conventional display advertising, depending on the problem they are trying to solve.

Snap's next step in the ANZ market was not announced at the Sydney summit. The company's Q2 2026 global results, published in August 2026, remain the most recent verified performance figure available.^[3]