What Is Snapchat Advertising?

Running a small business takes hard work, relentless determination, and the ability to do just about any job. From building a brand from the ground up to navigating a perpetually changing business environment – the work for small business owners never stops.

Starting a business is not just about your product offerings, that’s just the beginning. As most small business owners know, the journey only starts when they ‘open up’, growing your business is about: Building awareness for your business and how your products, goods, or services can improve the life of your customer. Growing your customer base to ensure you’re reaching as many potential leads as possible, thus maximizing your sales or conversions.

Re-engaging interested or past customers to build brand loyalty and repeat buyers. The goal of marketing is to invest in areas where you can connect with the right customers, those that will find value in your products, goods, or services. This blog will walk through 9 marketing strategies proven to help drive small business growth on Snapchat.

Before you get started with building your marketing strategy, it’s important to have a basic understanding of this thing that is. What influences your customers: Who do your customers listen to, or how they are entertained – influencers, celebrities, TV/news/media? Who your customers are: what demographics make up your customer base, where are they located, how old they are, what are their interests, and more?

How your customers interact online: What websites, platforms, and apps are your potential customers using to search, shop, browse, learn, and discover? Where do they communicate with friends? Where do they get their information from? While there is no ‘one size fits all’ magic formula to growing a business, most marketing strategies are relatively simple and can be achieved using a laptop, some planning, and a growth mindset.

Nine Strategies For Snapchat Advertising

Establish Your Brand:

Customers want to know what your company does, what you stand for, and how you stand out amongst your business peers. Once you’ve established a company mission, it’s important that your business’s name, logo, and marketing materials are consistent with that mission and clearly convey the essence of your brand. Small business owners might consider working with a freelance designer or creative agency to build a strong and consistent brand identity system – logo, brand colors, guides, and more.

While this step can be expensive, it’s a smart and worthwhile investment as it helps establish awareness for your business and helps your customers associate your mission and goals with the look and feel of your brand. Small business owners can leverage a number of online design and creative tools to help sustain the look and feel of their business and build creative assets that are consistent.

At Snapchat, one of our core values is creativity which is why we have invested heavily in free tools that help you build advertising creative and re-purpose existing marketing materials in an effective and inexpensive way. Here is just a quick view of some tools Snapchat has that can help kickstart your creativity and keep your branding consistent within your advertising and marketing materials:

Snap Publisher: Design ad creative from scratch, or use one of our templates. Convert your existing video assets to vertical videos for full-screen mobile ads. Snap Publisher is free to use and makes creating ads for mobile easy and simple.

Instant Create: Create an ad in 5 minutes or less by importing photos directly from your website. Instant Create allows you to publish engaging creative on Snapchat without additional design resources. Not sure where to start with ad creative on Snapchat? Check out some of our creative tips for engaging and promoting ads.

Track Online Traffic And Behavior:

In today’s digital world, the path to purchase is anything but linear. Having real-time insight into what actions your customers are taking online along the buying journey is key to optimizing your digital marketing and getting the highest return on your advertising investment.

For businesses advertising on Snapchat, we always recommend implementing the snap pixel. The Snap Pixel tracks and captures data on how Snap chatters browse your website after seeing your ads. This helps you understand how your campaigns are performing, while also surfacing ways to optimize your Snapchat campaigns.

For example, with the Snap Pixel implemented you can use goal-based bidding to bid on specific actions you’d like the viewers of your ads to take, such as add-to-cart and checkout. Another great benefit of using the Snap Pixel is unlocking the ability to create Pixel Custom Audiences which is a quick and easy way to retarget website visitors on Snapchat, helping move these curious browsers from considering your products to purchasing them.

Test And Measure What Is Not Working And What Is Not Working:

For businesses of all sizes, it’s important to establish a regular reporting cadence when running any of the marketing strategies mentioned in this blog, as well as analyze what’s working with your advertising, and what’s not. Savvy marketers know that approaching marketing strategies with a data-driven mindset can prove to help reduce churn, and turn sub-par programs into optimized and scalable business opportunities.

On Snapchat, we’ve built an ads platform that makes reporting and measurement simple, and easy, and shows results in real time. And measuring your performance on Snapchat gives you actionable insights, allowing you to make data-driven decisions and enhance your Snapchat campaigns over time, optimize your ads, and maximize your return on investment.

Another advertising tool we recommend at Snapchat is split testing. Split testing through Snapchat is Adds Manager allows you to run the tests on your ads campaigns and various variables within your campaigns in order to find out what’s working and what’s not. The testing can show you what type of ads are resonating with your target audience, and why giving you the ability to unlock maximum return on investment for your budget so you can grow your business.

Think Of Digital Advertising As An Investment, Not A Cost

One of the most effective ways to market your small business is to invest in digital advertising. Why digital? It’s easy to get started, and relatively inexpensive to test out. Advertising digitally gives all businesses the ability to optimize online campaigns over time, and spend their advertising budget in the most effective way possible.

Additionally, digital advertising allows you to test your creative approach, business messaging, and more to find the winning combination for your business. On Snapchat, you can get started with mobile ads for just $5 a day. With Snapchat Ads, you can reach a global audience and drive meaningful results, all from your browser window. From simple ways to get started to advanced advertising capabilities, Snapchat has digital advertising solutions built with small businesses in mind.

Learn more about how advertising on Snapchat works here, and how to get started here. Snapchat for Business can help small businesses amplify their marketing efforts to reach their current and future customers. Depending on what type of business you run, you might consider a few (or maybe all) viable strategies from the above list.

That said, always make sure you have a good understanding of who your target audience is, and where you can reach them. Measure every marketing program you run, and be sure to run small tests with each strategy to see what fails and what performs. To summarize, digital marketing is a great way for small businesses to reach a maximum number of potential customers in a quick and cost-effective way.

Know Your Audience

Marketing is not only about reaching customers, it is about truly connecting with those you reach. Knowing your audience can help you make true connections with potential customers and help persuade them to buy your product, invest in your services, and come back for more.

That said, every business caters to a certain demographic that has unique needs, characteristics, and qualities, and therefore all businesses require marketing plans that are specific to their target market. To develop an effective marketing approach, small business owners should be able to answer the following questions:

Where are they located/where do they live? How do they interact online? How do search for and find products, goods, and services? What is my target audience is demographic? With Snapchat ads, you can target Snap chatters based on their online and real-world interests and behaviors, targeting Snapchat users by location, whether that’s multi-country, metros, or a point radius around a specific address, and reach Snap chatters by certain demographics such as age, gender, language, device type and more.

Additionally, you can layer existing customer data with behavior seen on our platform to fully leverage the power of the Snapchat audience. Additionally, Snapchat’s audience insights show you how Snapchat users engaged with your ads, so you can create more relevant content and surface additional targetable segments to grow your reach.

With Audience Insights, you can create relevant audiences that can be activated with saved audiences and see the interests of people in your custom audience. And see the demographic breakdown of people in your custom audience. And expand the reach of campaigns by adding segments that resemble your target audience.

Build Your Online Presence:

It goes without saying that today’s world is heavily influenced by what’s online. Having an online presence is essential to get discovered by those searching and browsing online, quickly and easily. Oftentimes, the first step to building your online presence is by launching a website for your business.

Depending on your business, it might make sense to create a profile or listing on a platform where potential customers are looking for products like yours.

For example, if you run a restaurant, you will want to make sure your business is easily discoverable on map platforms, food ordering apps, user review and recommendations platforms, and booking websites.

Showcase Your Key Selling Points:

When it comes to getting people to sign-up or pay for your services or products, potential customers want to know how your product will benefit them. When advertising your business or products, emphasize your key selling points up front, while also promoting any sales you’re running or planning to run.

This may seem obvious, but sometimes businesses can ‘bury the lead’ by advertising or marketing with creativity that has nothing to do with their product or service. On Snapchat, we offer full-screen mobile ads that inspire, educate, and move Snapchat users to engage with businesses to learn more.

We always recommend featuring a strong message within your ad creatives and encourage you to include any relevant offers or specials to help drive consideration. Below is a quick guide on ad creative guidelines depending on your business type:

E-Commerce or retail: Feature the products you sell front and center to drive purchase intent. App and games: Show the app UI, features, and benefits within the adds creative.

Local businesses: Bring attention to key visual features of your storefront or location. Highlight what services or products your business specializes in. For example, a local restaurant can showcase popular dishes or specials in their ad creative to entice customers to visit.

Leverage Testimonials And Word Of Mouth:

Leveraging word of mouth is an easy and inexpensive way to attract new customers, and convince them to give your products or services a try. A simple way to harness the power of word of mouth in your marketing is to use video testimonials of customers unboxing and reviewing products, or reviewing your business.

Including a spoken testimonial helps Snapchat users better understand your products, relate to your brand, and see how your business can add value. Another tip for using user testimonials on Snapchat is to mirror the bite-sized and linear storytelling of Snaps and keep the ad duration to around 5 to 6 seconds.

This gives your brand the opportunity to reach potential customers in a way that feels organic and non-intrusive to Snapchat users and puts you right in the middle of their conversations. Adds featuring user-generated content UGC and Snapchat-inspired features typically get viewed in full compared to more polished ads and make your ad feel more conversational.

Nurture Customers Through The Buying Journey To Convert:

Marketing is about building awareness of your brand or business, educating potential customers on your products or services, and converting those leads into new customers and repeat buyers. When advertising on Snapchat, we always recommend launching and maintaining a general, awareness-focused campaign to start, with limited targeting in place.

Having an always-on, broadly targeted campaign collects a wider range of impressions, which can help you interpret how Snapchat users react, respond to, and engage with your brand or business. Once you have run ads on Snapchat, you can begin to understand how customers are engaging with your ads, and how to move them from engaged, to buying.

Retargeting is the easiest way to move potential customers from awareness to consideration, and finally into the purchase phase of the buying journey. Running reengagement campaigns is the best way to make the most of your digital ad spend, on any advertising platform.

All this said, marketing can always be boiled down to a simple funnel, with awareness campaigns gathering the widest amount of exposure possible, consideration campaigns helping educate and engage the potential buyer, and conversion campaigns built to make the sale.

Is Snapchat Good For Advertising?

Snapchat provides businesses with some of the most interactive and engaging ad formats in the market to reach and grow audiences. Snapchat Ads are full-screen, immersive canvases that allow you to showcase your business in an organic way that feels native to Snapchat and reaches your audience.

Upon viewing your ad, Snapchat users can seamlessly swipe up to see your products, install or visit your app, get directions or make reservations at your storefront or restaurant. Not only are Snapchat Ads engaging, but they’re also incredibly effective with the Snapchat audience and provide a great return on investment for businesses of all sizes.

Hopper, a travel booking app, found that Snapchat users booked flights 4x as often as customers gained from other platforms. But what’s the key to fostering good ad engagement on Snapchat? Below we’re sharing our 10 tips to help increase add engagement on Snapchat.

Use these tips and mobile advertising best practices to build visually appealing ads that drive quality engagement and high return on investment for your business. Now here are the ten tips to help you with good advertising and engaging customers.

1. Choose the right ad format for your goals
2. Make the ad feel native to Snapchat
3. Drive urgency with relevant messaging
4. Designs for sound on
5. Showcase your product front and center in the add creative
6. Links the add properly
7. Test add creative and try new ad formats
8. Use goal-based bidding to bid toward your desired action
9. Broaden your targeting
10. Understand your audience reach to optimize

1. Choose The Right Ad Format For Your Goals:

Snapchat offers a growing menu of ad formats to help you achieve your business goals. Whether you want to boost awareness, drive sales or app downloads, or increase conversions, Snapchat Ads are easy to use and deliver meaningful results. Below is a quick guide on what ad format to use depending on your business goal:

• Drive sales and sign-ups online: Performance advertiser with a Product Catalog? Try dynamic ads want to drive online sales. Try signal image ads, video ads, story ads, and collection ads. Build brand awareness: Looking to build brand awareness on Snapchat? Consider advertising with Story Adds, a Lens AR Experience, or an Extended Play Commercial.
• Retargeting existing customers: Want to reconnect with customers who are already aware of your brand and have engaged with your business in the past? Use Story Ads to engage with previous customers and drive customer loyalty.
• Boost app installs and engagement: Use app install attachments to prompt Snapchat users to swipe up and download your app. The App Install attachment displays an Install Card at the bottom of Single Image or Video ads, Story Ads, and a small pill CTA for lens AR experience.

2. Make The Ads Feel Native To Snapchat:

Mirror the bite-sized and linear storytelling of Snaps, and keep your ad duration around 5-6 seconds. This gives your brand the opportunity to reach potential customers in a way that feels organic and non-intrusive to Snapchat users and puts you right in the middle of their conversations.

Adds featuring user-generated content UGC and/or Snapchat-inspired features typically get viewed in full compared to more polished ads and make your ad feel more conversational.

3. Drive Urgency With Relevant Messaging:

Add any relevant messaging from the beginning of the ad to drive sales, app installs, or app visits. Your messaging should be easy to understand, displayed from the beginning of your ad, be localized for your audience, and provide an offer message (if available) within the first 2 seconds of the ads.

4. Design For Sound On:

Do not forget to add audio to your ads on Snapchat and 64% of Snapchat ads are viewed with noise on.5 An effective way to include sound in your ad creative is to use a customer testimonial of your product or brand within the ad creative. Including a spoken testimonial helps Snapchat users better understand your products, relate to your brand, and see how your business can add value.

5. Showcase Your Product Front And Center In Your Add Creative:

Using full-screen images and video in your ads inspires, educates, and moves viewers to engage and learn more. Be sure to feature a ‘hero’ message from the opening frame on, and include any relevant offers or specials to help drive consideration. Below is a quick guide on ad creative guidelines depending on your business type:

• E-Commerce: Feature the products you sell front and center to drive purchase intent.
• App and games: Show the app UI, features, and benefits within the ad creative.
• Local businesses: Bring attention to key visual features of your storefront or location.
• Highlight what services or products your business specializes in. For example, a local restaurant can showcase popular dishes or specials in their ad creative to entice customers to visit.

6. Link The Ads Properly:

Making sure your ads bring the user to your desired location is critical for impressions and conversions. Below are the recommended attachment types depending on the advertiser’s goal:

• Drive online sales: web view attachments allow Snapchat users to swipe up to view a web page that is instantly loaded. They are available for Snap Ads, Story Ads, and Lenses purchased through Reach and Frequency.
• Drive app installs: Use app installments to allow Snapchat users to swipe up and download your app – use Install Now or Download as your call to action as these have the strongest conversion rates.
• Drive app engagement app visits: Use a deep link to re-engage existing users of your app and bring them back into your app. When a Snapchat user who already has your app swipes up on your ad, they are directed to the location in your app defined by your deep link. If you reach a Snapchat user who does not have your app, they are directed to the app store to install it. Deep Link attachments are available for Single Image or Video ads, Story Adds, and Lenses.

7. Test Ad Creative And Try New Ad Formats:

Testing your creativity gives insight into what content resonates most with your target audience. When testing adds creativity, consider running your test for 2 to 4 weeks to gather enough impressions on your ads. After you’re up and running your ads on Snapchat, we recommend testing a variety of ad formats to find out the winning combination for your brand.

8. Use Goal-Based Bidding To Bid Towards Your Desired Action:

Goal-based bidding allows you to optimize towards a specific action that a Snapchat user is most likely to take, such as installing your app, watching a video, or completing a purchase. By specifying your cost-per-action in the delivery section of Ads Manager, impressions will be delivered to efficiently achieve that outcome.

Once you’ve unlocked goal-based bidding on Snapchat, be sure to take advantage of different bidding strategies. To drive ad engagement, we recommend using Target Cost Bidding to help drive scale by entering the Snap Auction at a higher and more competitive price, while also meeting your goal CPA.

9. Broaden Your Targeting:

Once you’ve been running your ads for about 2-4 weeks, a quick and easy way to increase ad engagement is to broaden your targeting. Within existing ad sets and campaigns, you can expand your targeting by geo, gender, age ranges, and languages to expand your reach and get more impressions. Learn more about Snapchat’s targeting options here.

10. Understand Your Audience Reach To Optimize:

Use audience insight better understand your audience reach. Audience Insights help you learn more about your target audience on Snapchat so you can create relevant content and surface additional targetable segments to grow reach.

With Audience Insights, you can create relevant audiences that can be activated with the saved audience. See the demographic breakdown of people in your Custom Audience. Expand the reach of campaigns by adding segments that resemble your target audience. See the interests of people in your custom audience.

Optimize targeting for top regions and DMAs. Adjust bids by device, including type and carrier. Mobile advertising is a key component of any digital marketing strategy. Advertising on Snapchat gives businesses the opportunity to reach a large and engaged audience at an affordable price of just dollar 5 a day.

When developing your ads for Snapchat, build creative ads that showcase your products or services, feel native to the platform, communicate a clear key message, and encourage the viewer to take action.

Taking Advantages For Different Opportunities By Advertising On Snapchat:

Snapchat Ads are immersive full-screen productions, quick to engage and sure to inspire, and they tend to be more playful than ads on other platforms. You can easily tailor Snapchat Ads to your marketing goals, and they’re especially effective in helping your business expand into younger markets or build brand awareness and loyalty among young customers.

By incorporating Snapchat into your paid social media mix, you create audience-driven content designed to perform well on the platform. What is more, Snapchat Ads Manager offers granular audience insights which you can draw on to optimize campaign performance through ever more refined targeting.

Snapchat can be a powerful tool within your social advertising arsenal, offering several strategic benefits for brands looking to meet their campaign objectives and business goals. Snapchat Ads present a prime chance to introduce your brand to an untapped market and unique audience who are not to be found on other social apps.

Final Words:

In conclusion, While it is not as new and emerging as TikTok, Snapchat is not exactly a B2B platform, so you may be skeptical about using it to meet your marketing goals. Let’s go over some statistics that explain additional facts about advertising on Snapchat.

Marketers can create and leverage various types of Snapchat Ads on the platform Like AR experiences, unique business filters for photo overlays, and even 3-minute-long commercials. These ads can be used for a variety of different purposes, like general brand awareness, driving sales, or driving website traffic.

Many people may compare the platform to Facebook, but there’s a significant difference between the two products. Although Facebook’s ads and targeting tools are more robust, Snapchat’s creative studio puts an emphasis on design. While Facebook’s Business Manager can feel initially overwhelming, Snapchat offers a tool that will guide you through the process of getting your campaign up and running.

Additionally, Snapchat offers templates for creating ads, which can be helpful for businesses that don’t have teams responsible for making creative assets or videos. You can choose from specific templates and create what works best for you, and businesses of all sizes can leverage the tool to build ads and create product catalogs to share with their target audiences.