Advertising on Snapchat - Step by Step
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Snapchat ads are a great way to build brand awareness, boost engagement, and drive sales. Let us guide you step-by-step on how to get started with your Snapchat advertising!
Social media is used by over 53% of the world's population, according to the latest research by Hootsuite. Snapchat is highly popular with a younger audience, offering a massive opportunity to reach active buyers, since 60% make impulse purchases directly in the app. In this post, we’ll run through how to get started with Snapchat ads. Snapchat is a fun social platform where users can share photos and videos with stickers and filters, video call, or chat. Launched in 2011 in the US, the app is now used daily by 238 million people worldwide, according to Hootsuite. These active users open the app more than 30 times a day on average. Snapchat has a young user base compared to other socials, with a whopping 82% under the age of 34. According to a Hootsuite study, 60% of Snapchatters make impulse buys. Let's dive into how you can get started below.
Getting started with Snapchat ads
To get started, you'll need to set up a business account to access Snap's ad tool: Snapchat Ads Manager. Once you're ready to create an ad, you'll choose a goal based on who you want to reach. Next, you set your campaign objective—like website traffic, app installs, or brand awareness—and then set your budget and ad placement. Install a pixel.
To measure your ad performance and retarget existing customers, you need to gather data on your audience. You can easily do this by installing a pixel via Snapchat Ads Manager. We’ll slice and dice the details further down in this post.
Strategy – Snapchat Ad Goals
You need a clear purpose to choose the right goal for your campaign. This usually depends on where your audience is in the customer journey. Most campaigns align with a classic marketing funnel choosing between these three steps:
Awareness
Consideration
Conversion
Audiences.
When picking your audience on Snapchat, you can target people by demographics, interests, and habits. A good tip is to create a persona based on your current customers and then define who you want to reach. This is the most critical step—if you don't reach the right people, your campaign won't pay off.
Content.
Snapchat is all about creative, engaging content, and fast-paced video is the biggest trend. Just remember that your content needs to be mobile-first to look right in the app.
Step-by-step – Snapchat Advertising
Head over to Snapchat Ads Manager to launch your ads. Here is how you do it, step-by-step. Step 1 – Choose a goal. Before you launch, you need to set your campaign objective. In Ads Manager, you can choose from these options:
Awareness:
Build brand awareness
Introduce new customers to your brand
Showcase new products or services to new or existing customers
Consideration:
App installs
Website traffic or app traffic
Engagement
Video views
Lead generation
Conversions:
Website conversions or Catalog sales
Step 2 – Budget. You can set a daily budget or a lifetime budget. Once your goal is set, Snapchat will use goal-based bidding to optimize your ads and control costs. You can choose: Auto-bidding – Lets Snapchat manage your budget to get as many interactions as possible. Max bid – Sets a cap on how much Snapchat can spend to get you the most cost-effective CPA possible.
Step 3 – Formats. In Snapchat Ads Manager, you can choose between these formats:
Single Image or Video – Drive users to your website, app, video, AR Lens, or App Store when they swipe up on your photo or video.
Story Ad – A collection of 3-20 images shown in your audience's Discover feed. Collection Ad – A gallery of products that drives traffic to your site. AR Lens – A custom filter or lens created by you using Snapchat Lens Studio.
Sponsored Filter – Create your own filter with branded graphics that users can apply to their own Snapchat videos and photos.
Dynamic Ads – Dynamic Ads are a great way to target warm audiences. By showing people products they've already looked at on your site, you boost your chances of making a sale. Step 4 – Target Audience. After choosing your format, it's time to find your crowd. There are four main ways to segment your audience. You can also turn on “Expand Audience Automatically” for maximum reach.
Lifestyles – Reach people based on their interests and the content they interact with.
Shoppers – Target people based on what they buy in-store, at restaurants, or from online retailers.
Viewers – Reach audiences based on the TV shows, movies, and videos they watch.
Visitors – Reach people based on real-world places they visit, like stores, restaurants, or events.
Step 5 – Measure Performance. With your pixel installed, you can track how well your ads perform and optimize them toward your campaign goals. To do this, you'll want to watch your KPIs. Here are some of the most common metrics to track:
Impressions – How many unique times was your ad shown?
Completion rate – How many people watched your entire video ad on their stories?
Screenshots – How many people grabbed a screenshot of your ad? Cost per click (CPC) – What does it cost when someone swipes up on your ad?
Cost per mille (CPM) – What is your cost per 1,000 views?
Swipe Ups – The total number of times users have swiped up on your ad.
Use these KPIs to make sure you're hitting your targets and to tweak your ads as your campaign runs.
A/B Testing
Just like on Facebook, you can run A/B tests to see what resonates best with your audience. Create two similar ads, change a single detail—like the color, the text, or the call-to-action—and see which one performs better. Summary. Like all social media advertising, success takes a little time and testing. Focus first on understanding your audience and targeting them correctly—otherwise, even the best-looking ad won't convert. Get to know what makes your audience tick, run some A/B tests, and keep optimizing as you go. There's no single secret formula, so test, learn, and keep improving!
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