Snapchat went public last month. There was a lot of buzz surrounding this IPO, and CNBC reported that there were 12 times more orders than there were shares offered. On the first day of trading, share prices rose as high as $26.50, which is about 30 percent less than Facebook's debut cost per share.

Simultaneously, Snapchat has been battling the release and impact of Instagram's Stories. Average unique views per Snap have decreased 40 percent since the launch of Stories, reported TechCrunch. Around the same time, downloads of Snapchat also dropped significantly. And after Stories launched, influencers began seeing 28 percent higher open rates on Instagram compared to Snapchat.

With the direct competition, Snapchat has to find ways to stand out and differentiate its brand. Enter Snap to Store, Snapchat's newest (and somewhat exclusive) advertising tool. This allows you to directly track and correlate Snapchat ad campaigns with in-store foot traffic.

How does this work?

A user visits a location, applies a specific in-store geofilter and shares the snap. Then, Snapchat tracks who visited the store after seeing the snap. By comparing the visitation rate of users who did and did not see the original geofilter, Snap calculates the visitation lift. You can even break down this data by gender, age, region and state.

Wendy's tested this feature with a Jalapeno Fresco Chicken Sandwich geofilter, and the campaign got 42,000 customers into its restaurants in a single week.

"Foot traffic into our restaurants is the best measurement of short-term sales success for any program," Brandon Rhoten, Wendy's VP and head of advertising, media and digital, told Mashable. "Snap to Store is a big win for Wendy's for this reason — we want more adtech like this."

And yes, Snapchat is solving a critical problem — tracking how digital advertising impacts and affects in-store foot traffic and sales. Snapchat is hopeful that this tool will be the answer brands are looking for (and willing to pay for).

The user data is already there. On average, a Snapchat user spends 25 to 30 minutes a day on Snapchat and opens the app 18 times. Plus, 80 percent of Snapchatters already use the app while they're at restaurants. That number falls to 66 percent at malls, 50 percent at gyms and 49 percent at airports, found Greenberg Strategy research.

In short, users are already checking and posting to Snapchat while out and about, which means the data is available. Though, the app must be open for Snapchat to access its users' location data.

But users can opt out of being tracked via GPS. Or they can opt out of sharing their location with Snapchat altogether. This could prove to be an issue if users aren't comfortable with the amount of data being shared or simply do not like Snap to Store.

For now, brand advertisers have to spend a certain, undisclosed amount on Snapchat advertising to access Snap to Store. If you're interested in seeing if your brand is close to accessing this feature, reach out to Snapchat or one of Snapchat's ad partners.