Statista reports that Snapchat had 347 million daily users in quarter two of 2022. However, Snapchat has 557 million active monthly users. The largest demographic age group is 18-24. Snapchat allows you to send pictures and videos to friends that disappear once viewed. Users can also post a story to their profile that is viewable by their friends for 24 hours. Snapchat conducted a survey that reported Snapchat is the #1 social media where people enjoy showing what their life is actually like.
Snapchat Main Ad Formats
Snapchat has plenty of advertising features, such as:
- Single-image or video ads
- Filters
- Lenses
- Story Ads
- Product catalog ads
- Commercials
Marketers use single-image or video ads to promote their businesses on Snapchat. These advertisements are found in between stories. They can take different formats, such as images, videos, gifs, or cinemagraphs. Links can be attached to these advertisements so your audience can take action immediately, increasing conversion and sales.
Filters allow marketers to take part in Snapchatters’ conversations. Filters are artistic overlays that appear when you take a snap and swipe left or right. Filters can contain text or images depicting where a Snapchat was taken, such as a retail store or restaurant.
Snapchat lenses allow users to have an interactive experience with the advertisement. Lenses use an AR (augmented reality) experience that can provide users a wide variety of experiences. There are two types of lenses, world lenses and face lenses. Face lenses use the front facing camera and the world lens uses the outward facing camera. Some retailers have used the world lens to allow customers to “try out” an outfit before purchasing a product.
Tips to Have a Successful Advertising Campaign
Carefully define your target market
Keep in mind the primary demographic of Snapchat users. 39% of Snapchat’s advertising audience is between the ages of 18-24. If your business is not trying to market to this demographic, you should look for other social media to foster more success in your campaign. Also, consider how you want your target market to interact with your ad. Do you want to drive sales? Generate app installs? Build brand awareness? Showcase a new product to existing customers? All these questions will lead you to the format(s) you should use to begin your advertising campaign. For example, a simple single-image or video ad in between stories could be successful if you want to increase sales from existing customers. However, if you are aiming to build brand awareness, you could use a filter or lens, considering over one billion filters are viewed every day. Additionally, over 180 million Snapchat users engaged with augmented reality. Once you have selected the ad format you would like to use, it is important to keep in mind some of Snapchat’s guidelines for each format. These guidelines include image file type, aspect ratios, and character limits.
Select your bidding strategy
Snapchat uses a bidding strategy to place ads. Snapchat has a few options when it comes to biding on ads.
- Auto-bidding
- Target Cost bidding
- Max Bid
- Minimum ROAS (Return On Ad Spend)
- Suggested Bids
Auto-bidding lets Snapchat set the bid on your behalf to get the most goal actions with your given budget and target audience. Snapchat recommends that you select the Auto-bidding feature if you want to use your whole budget and don’t have a strict cost-per-action objective.
Target cost bidding tells Snapchat to make the best effort to keep the average CPA (Cost Per Action) at or below the amount set by the end date of your advertisement. Some things to keep in mind when using this bidding strategy is changing your target cost in the middle of the campaign will skew your actual CPA to your target CPA since the target altered in the middle of the campaign. Also, if your target cost is too low, you may not be able to spend your whole budget.
Max bidding tells Snapchat the maximum amount they can spend while trying to achieve the most efficient CPA for you. Snapchat will suggest a bid range for you if you select this strategy. This suggestion is based on many factors, such as current auction dynamics and your targeted audience. This suggested range is meant to give you a reference point when selecting a maximum bid amount.
Suggested bids are the most simple bidding strategy that Snapchat offers. Snapchat will suggest a low-end and a high-end number to bid. There is no targeted audience available to select because the suggested bid range is based on all advertising formats and demographics across Snapchat. This strategy helps build brand awareness and to see which markets interact with your ads the most.
Analyze your ad analytics
Snapchat allows you to measure your campaign’s results on one page, Ads Manager. Ads manager allows you to view your campaign performance, and other key metrics such as total money spent, daily spend, and paid impressions.
Ads manager allows you to analyze your ad performance and tweak your campaign schedule, audience, budget, and goals. Adjusting the variables, as mentioned earlier, can help your campaign immensely. Changing your ad campaign to your goals is vital. If your ads aren’t reaching your target audience, spending is wasted and not bringing more customers to your business.
Why Advertise on Snapchat?
There are multiple reasons why Snapchat is a great tool to market your business.
- 76% of Snapchat users purchased a product online in the last month. Snapchat users aren’t afraid of purchasing online.
- Snapchat reaches 75% of millennials and Gen Z
- Snapchat ads are 1.3 times more effective than YouTube
You can get started advertising on snapchat for as little as $5, daily minimum allows you to test, learn, and optimize your ad campaigns on a budget before you decide to spend more.
Snapchat is a great place to advertise your business to a younger demographic. Not sure your campaign will be successful? With Snapchat’s minimum low daily spend, there is no reason not to try your luck on Snapchat.
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