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Snapchat's holiday planning guide is out, and it places group chats near the center of a gift purchase. Wrapped in the Chat runs to eight pages, combining shopping surveys with suggestions for advertisers. Its premise is that a gift idea often passes between friends before anyone buys it.
Source: Snap's Wrapped in the Chat holiday guide. An excerpt of the actual cover is resized with yellow framing to preserve its title; the photographs are publisher artwork, not our shopping observations.
What is new in the 2026 report?
Monday's announcement brings together shopping research and advice on ad formats. On the timing page, Snap cites a 2026 Ipsos study it commissioned. One in two daily Snapchatters, it says, finalize their holiday and New Year wish lists before Halloween.
Not all the evidence is from 2026. The 92% figure about involving a close network points to a 2023 Havas study. A claim about buying after a chat points to NRG research from 2024. Reading those small source notes changes how the guide should be described: a new planning document drawing on several years of research.
Are these numbers a sales target?
The population sampled sets the scope of each finding. Here, daily Snapchatters and shoppers generally are different groups. These studies can inform a brief, but a seller would still need campaign results to work out which images actually bring orders.
What should the person making the image take from it?
We would start the brief with a simple check: does the picture explain the gift if its caption is missing? A forwarded image may reach someone who never saw the original post. Showing the item clearly and leaving its useful details unobstructed is our practical suggestion, rather than another statistic from Snap.
Sponsored Snaps are among the paid formats in the guide. That placement decision comes after the asset brief, much as boosting an Instagram live video or using Reddit lead-generation ads still requires content to deliver. The cover has a smaller job than the campaign: let the next person understand the gift being recommended.
