Evan Spiegel: It’s still early with the partnership. I think the click-through rates are very healthy when the ads are relevant. So, the big focus has really been on improving relevance, continuing to drive relevance for sponsor links in My AI. So far in terms of signal integration, right now, we’re using it to inform interest categories. I think there’s a lot more we can do there, but we’ve sort of taken that initial step again sort of with the test and learn perspective. So, we think about this more as a longer-term investment, especially because the immediate work we’re doing on that platform is yielding really meaningful results. So, we’ll keep focusing on the product experience and of course, experimenting with the partnership, but there are more important priorities, I think, in terms of the ad platform right now.
Operator: Thank you. Our last question comes from Mark Mahaney with Evercore.
Mark Mahaney: Okay. And I just want to get into a nuts and bolts issue on ARPU or a question on ARPU. You had two kind of interesting trends here. European ARPU kind of jumped a lot. And I know this is an output indicator, but could you just maybe explain why that [did end just] (ph) like a 15% year-over-year growth? And then sequentially, North American ARPU jumped a lot. It’s kind of the biggest sequential growth we’ve seen in a while. So, just any color behind those two metrics? And again, I understand that their output metrics, but any color would be appreciated.
Derek Andersen: Hey, Mark, it’s Derek. Thanks for the question. Look, I think part of what you’re seeing there is the fundamental improvements that we’re making to the ad platform and the ad products in our go-to-market. So, for example, when you’re looking at the year-over-year growth in the European region, what we’re seeing there is that the fundamental improvements that we’ve made to the DR ad platform. So, some of the things I talked about earlier in terms of the big investments we’ve made in infrastructure to drive ad ranking and optimization, the work that we’ve done to incorporate a broader range of signals and features into those models and then those models themselves becoming much larger. The faster pace of experimentation that we’re seeing on the DR ad platform, all of that’s driving out much more precise conversion predictions.
And that’s driving improved ROI for advertisers. And you can see that, as I mentioned earlier, in the improvement in lower funnel year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter. And then the other thing is what I also mentioned earlier, which is these new brand products to be launched earlier this year, they got very nice traction in Q3, including First Story and the Total Takeover products, and then, of course, the go-to-market improvements that we’ve been making. And I think one thing in particular in Europe and to a certain — and to an extent, in the APAC region is that the new region precedence for those regions came on prior to us making the significant changes to our ad platform in Q1 and prior to launching these products. And so those fundamental improvements to the ad product, the ad platform and the go-to-market, those are not just unique to the European region.
For the most part, they’re going to be globally applicable, including some of the really good improvements — we’re making the scalable solutions for small and medium-sized businesses. But you can see some of that is impacting North America a little later. And that’s why North America, for example, was the fastest region quarter-over-quarter at 14% sequentially in growth, and that’s a combination of those fundamental improvements coming to bear on the North America market, as well as the improved go-to-market exercise there. So, I think what you’re seeing is the work starting to show up in the output and the fundamental progress we’re making with the ad platform, and that’s showing up in ARPU, which is great news for the business all around.
So, thanks for the question.
Operator: Thank you. This concludes our question-and-answer session as well as Snap Inc.’s third quarter 2023 earnings conference call. Thank you for attending today’s session. You may now disconnect.
