Snapchat ads help you build brand awareness, boost engagement, and drive sales. Let us walk you through how to get started with your Snapchat advertising, step by step!

Over 53% of the world’s population uses social media, according to recent data from Hootsuite. Snapchat is especially popular with younger audiences, making it a great place to reach eager shoppers—60% make impulse buys right in the app. In this post, we'll show you how to get started. Snapchat lets users share photos and videos with fun filters and stickers, video call, and chat. Launched in 2011 in the US, it now has 238 million daily active users worldwide, according to Hootsuite. These users are highly engaged, opening the app more than 30 times a day on average. It also skews young compared to other platforms, with 82% of Snapchatters under age 34. And as the Hootsuite study shows, 60% are ready to make impulse purchases. Let’s dive into how you can start advertising on Snapchat.

Getting Started with Snapchat Ads

To get started, you'll need a business account to access Snap Ads Manager. Once you're ready to create an ad, pick a goal based on who you want to reach. Next, choose your campaign objective—like website traffic, app installs, or brand awareness. Finally, set your budget and pick your ad placements.

Install a pixel.
To track your results and retarget existing customers, you need to collect data from your visitors. You can do this by installing a pixel via Snapchat Ads Manager. We'll cover the details further down.

Strategy – Advertising on Snapchat

Goals

You need a clear purpose for your ads to choose the right campaign goal. This usually depends on where your audience is in their customer journey.

When picking a goal, it's common to look at the three main stages of the classic marketing funnel:

• Awareness

• Consideration

• Conversion

• Audiences.

Like other platforms, Snapchat lets you target people based on demographics, interests, and habits. A good tip is to build a persona based on your current customers, then decide who you want to reach. This step is crucial—if your ads don't reach the right people, you won't see a good return on your spend.

Content.
Snapchat is all about creative, engaging content, and video is definitely king. Just keep in mind that everything needs to be mobile-friendly to look great in the app.

Step by Step – Advertising on Snapchat

Head over to Snapchat Ads Manager to get started. Here's how to do it step by step:

Step 1 – Pick a goal

First, decide on your campaign goal. Snapchat Ads Manager offers options across three main categories:

Awareness:

• Build brand awareness

• Introduce new people to your brand

• Showcase new products or services

Consideration:

• App installs

• Website traffic

  App traffic

• Engagement

• Video views

• Lead generation

Conversions:

Website conversions

Catalog sales

Step 2 – Budget
You can set either a daily or lifetime budget. Your ad costs will be optimized based on your chosen goal. There are three main bidding strategies:
Auto-bidding – Lets Snapchat manage your budget to get the most interactions possible.

Max Bid – Caps the maximum amount Snapchat can bid, keeping your CPA cost-effective.

Step 3 – Ad Formats
You can choose from several formats in Ads Manager:

Single Image or Video – Drive users to your website, app, AR Lens, or app store with a simple swipe up.

Story Ad – A series of 3–20 images or videos featured in the Discover feed.Collection Ad – A showcase of product images that drives traffic directly to your site.AR Lens – Custom interactive filters created with Lens Studio.

Sponsored Filter – Branded overlays that users can add to their own snaps.

Dynamic Ads – Dynamic ads let you retarget warm audiences with personalized products they've already viewed, boosting your chances of a sale.

Step 4 – Target Audience

Next, choose who you want to reach. Snapchat offers four key targeting categories, plus the option to "Expand audience automatically" for maximum reach.

Lifestyle – Reaches users based on their interests and past activity.

Shoppers – Targets people based on their real-world shopping and dining habits.

Viewers – Targets users based on the TV shows, movies, and videos they watch.

Visitors – Reaches people based on places they visit, like restaurants, shops, and events.

Step 5 – Measure Your Results

With your pixel set up, you can track how your ads perform and optimize toward your goals. Keep an eye on your key metrics (KPIs) to see what's working.

Here are a few common KPIs to track:

Impressions – How many times your ad was seen.

Completion Rate – How many people watched your entire video ad.

Screenshots – How many users took a screenshot of your ad.

Cost Per Tap – How much you pay when someone swipes up on your ad.

CPM – Your cost per 1,000 impressions.

Swipe-Ups – Total number of times users swiped up on your ad.

Tracking these numbers helps you see if you're hitting your goals and gives you the insights you need to tweak your ads along the way.

A/B Testing
Just like on Facebook, you can run A/B tests to see what resonates best with your audience. Simply create two similar ads with one key difference—like a new headline, image, or call to action. Compare the results and stick with what works!

Wrapping Up

Like all social media marketing, success takes time. The key is understanding your audience and making sure your ads actually reach them. Great visuals and catchy copy won't help if they're shown to the wrong crowd. Take the time to know your target market, run tests, and keep optimizing as you learn!

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