Social Rocket
Ahead of the US midterms, Snapchat is positioning itself as a channel for political and social outreach. A study commissioned by Snap and conducted by Alter Agents, published on 15 September 2026, shows two main things: high attention to political content and a strong influence of private conversations among friends and family.
The study surveyed 1.021 daily social media users aged 18 to 45 in the US. According to Snap, 78 percent of the surveyed Snapchat users plan to vote in the upcoming midterm elections. 83 percent say they are likely to pay attention to ads on social issues, candidates or voter initiatives.
An important point of context: this is platform research commissioned by Snap, not an independent impact study. The figures describe the surveyed US sample and cannot readily be transferred to Germany.
According to the study, political ads often lead to further research
Snap reports that 80 percent of surveyed Snapchat users had already learned about candidates or causes through digital ads that were previously unknown to them. 74 percent also say that after seeing an ad on a platform they use to communicate with their close circle, they are more likely to look up a candidate.
The more interesting finding for social media marketers, however, lies not only in the ad itself but in what happens afterwards. 66 percent of surveyed Snapchat users discover information on political and social topics through direct conversations within their close circle. 64 percent say they trust perspectives from their personal or local environment more than traditional news networks.
Snap also cites 74 percent who share interesting political ads with family or friends, and 65 percent who would be more likely to support a cause or candidate when people from their circle talk about it online.
In this way, the study describes political communication on Snapchat less as a classic one-way funnel and more as an interplay of paid reach, research and private sharing.
The group chat becomes a distribution channel
From this, Snap derives three recommendations for campaigns: content should be data-based and easy to understand, suited for sharing in private chats, and ideally lead directly to further information or official pages.
For marketers outside politics, the key principle is this: visibility in the feed or in an ad can only be the first point of contact. Part of the actual spread then happens in private chats and therefore barely shows up in public engagement figures.
This fits Snapchat's broader advertising strategy. The company has 2026 prioritised ad growth, creator formats and generative AI more strongly and, in parallel, rolled out Unified Attribution for app advertisers worldwide. For commerce campaigns, Snapchat is also extending Dynamic Product Ads to Sponsored Snaps.
Different legal framework conditions apply in Germany
The study explicitly refers to the USA and the midterm elections 2026. In the EU, the regulation (EU) 2024/900 on the transparency and targeting of political advertising has applied in full since 10 October 2025. Political ads must, among other things, be clearly labelled and include information about who paid for them. Targeting or ad-delivery techniques are subject to additional transparency requirements.
Snap itself also governs political advertising under its own advertising policies and provides a public Political Ads Library. For German campaigns, therefore, it is not only the creative mechanics that matter, but above all which forms of political or social messaging are permitted under the law and under platform rules.