Snapchat Ads – is it the right channel for your business?

Nowadays, social media plays a key role in building a company’s image and generating conversions. It makes sense to have a presence on popular platforms such as TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat to reach the widest possible audience. However, not every channel may be the right choice for your business. Snapchat is an innovative social media platform that attracts young users, especially Generation Z and Millenials. In this article, we will focus on the advertising tool that allows you to advertise on this platform, Snapchat Ads, and discuss whether it is worth considering using it for promotional purposes for your business.

Disappearing photos-who-actually-cares?

Snapchat was born in 2011 from the idea of three first-year students at Stanford University, but it was the idea that was introduced in 2014 that made it a teacher for much older social media giants like Facebook and Instagram. It was all due to the stories format, which allowed Snapchat users to post a series of snaps that remained active and viewable for 24 hours after they were published. Up until then, Snapchat’s idea was to make photos disappear, and while stories admittedly did disappear – after a much longer period of time. This wasn’t the only innovation Snapchat introduced in 2014 – there was also a disappearing chat feature, the ability to make monetary transactions and geofilters – but from our point of view, this is the most important one. 

In 2023, a total of 293 million users worldwide were using Snapchat daily, of which 5.6 million of them were users from Poland In the United States, where the platform’s popularity is greatest, the 15-25 age group accounts for as much as 48% of all users. Users aged 26-35 account for 30%, while those aged 36-45 account for 18%. The 46-55 age range accounts for 11% of users, while only 5% of the platform’s users are 56 and older. In short – Snapchat is a platform of the young, mainly Generation Z and Millenials.

Snapchat has its own unique features, such as disappearing photos and interactive filters, which attract advertisers who rely on creativity in digital ads, but the value of advertising on this platform depends primarily on a company’s specific goals and target audience. 

What advertising opportunities does Snapchat Ads offer?

Advertising goals

In this respect, the platform is not significantly different from other platforms that allow advertising on social media channels, however, before choosing a target we will have to decide whether we want to use the Instant Create or Advanced Create ad creation tool. Of course, in the case of Advanced Create, we will have more targets to choose from than for the Instant Create option, and they will be:

• Awareness – with this type of campaign we will increase awareness of our brand or products on Snapchat.
• Consideration – with a campaign with this goal we will redirect Snapchat users to our mobile app, website or AR experience. After selecting this goal, we will be able to define whether we want to increase engagement or traffic. This means that secondary goals will appear for selection, more specifically:
  • App installations
  • Movement on the website
  • Movement in the application
  • Commitment
  • Video views
  • Generating leads
• Conversions (conversions) – when selecting this goal, we will have to define whether we want to increase the number of conversions in the application, on the website or through sales from the catalog.

When it comes to Instant Create, here we will only have the following choices:

• visits to the website,
• application installations,
• application traffic,
• contact and
• promote local business

Target-groups-and-targeting

With standard targeting, we can set up our campaign to reach Snapchat users based on their demographics, location, language and device. In addition to these standard targeting options, we can also use predefined audience groups, advanced demographics and custom audience groups. This gives us more control over who our ads reach on Snapchat, helping to ensure a personalized advertising experience for each user.

Let’s pause for a moment on what possibilities the predefined audience groups give us, as it is a very interesting tool. 

Predefined audiences have been defined using Snapchat and third-party data, allowing you to reach users based on their interests and behaviors online and in the real world.

In theory, we can select several different segments within the Lifestyles, Shoppers, Viewers and Visitors categories. In addition to the standard interests such as fashion, technology or automotive, which we can probably find on every advertising platform, a Shopper segment has been made available for some advertisers in the United States, giving them the ability to target ads to people who have shopped at specific stores, restaurants or selected events. In addition to this, I also mentioned the Viewers and Visitors categories, which work on a similar basis and allow to target ads to people who have watched specific programs on selected streaming services, as well as visited specific places such as restaurants, shopping malls and the like, even if these visits did not result in a transaction. This option is not available in Poland at the moment, but only in selected locations, the full list of which can be found at Business Help Center

Snapchat Ads formats and good practices

Snapchat Ads offers several types of ads that allow companies to reach their target audience in an effective and creative way. Below are the most important types of ads available on Snapchat Ads:

1. Ads using a single image or video:
   • These are full-screen mobile ads that, due to their form, do not compete with other content when displayed.
   • They can be used for all business purposes, from building awareness to completing a purchase.
   • They can be used for all business purposes, from building awareness to completing a purchase.
2. Lenses (Lenses):
   • Lenses enable the creation of interactive and immersive augmented reality experiences.
   • Additionally, they allow you to embed objects and animated characters related to your brand or product in the Snapshots you send, allowing them to be easily shared between users of the platform.
3. Advertisements in the form of stories:
   • A series of ads that appear between content or in the Discover section on Snapchat.
   • They allow the brand’s message to be communicated in an accessible and engaging way.
   • They provide an opportunity to showcase product assortments, announce movie premieres or build brand awareness.
4. Product Catalog Ads:
   • A format of ad that showcases products, services or experiences that are available for purchase online.
   • Allows you to go directly to the online store and make purchases easily and quickly.
5. Commercial Advertisements (Commercials):
   • Advertisements lasting from 6 seconds to 3 minutes that are impossible to skip.
   • They appear within a specially created space inside the Snapchat app.

With the variety of these ad types, Snapchat Ads allows us to create campaigns tailored to our business goals and audience preferences. From full-screen video ads to interactive augmented reality experiences, Snapchat offers tools that allow companies to stand out and capture the attention of users of this social platform. 

Are Snapchat Ads the Right Choice for Your Business?

Whether advertising on Snapchat Ads is the right choice for your company depends primarily on your business goals and target audience, the possibilities of which we have already mentioned above. Snapchat is a platform mainly aimed at younger generations, such as Generation Z and Millenials. So, if your company has a younger target profile and wants to reach this age group, Snapchat may be the right choice.

However, the mere presence of a target audience on this platform is not everything – for the success of a campaign consists of many more issues. This is a channel where creativity is particularly important, the manifestations of which will certainly positively affect the cost of the campaign, as well as its reception. One of the main advantages of Snapchat Ads is that it does not leave us out in the cold in terms of ideas for developing creative and interactive campaigns. Ads in the form of stories, catalog product ads and lenses (Lenses) allow companies to showcase their products or services in an attractive way, engaging users and building brand awareness. In addition, Snapchat Ads offers precision targeting tools that allow you to tailor ads to your target audience based on demographics, location, interests and behavior.

Before deciding to advertise on Snapchat, it is therefore worth carefully checking whether the characteristics of our target audience match the profile of Snapchat users (we can facilitate the process of this verification by preparing a marketing persona profile). Also take a look at other social media channels, such as Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, to assess which one best suits your advertising goals and target audience. Additionally, evaluate your advertising budget and consider whether this is definitely the option that pays you the most – ads on Snapchat Ads will customarily cost more than those aired by Google Ads or Facebook Ads

In summary, if your company cares about reaching users under the age of 30, has interesting products to visually display and wants to take advantage of the interactive opportunities that Snapchat Ads offers, then this platform can be a valuable advertising tool. However, the decision to choose Snapchat Ads should be based on an analysis of your company’s business goals and target audience to make sure it’s the right advertising channel for you.