Snapchat Advertising – The Five Tips for Getting the Most Out of Your Ads

Snapchat has great potential for advertising as its users love to engage with brands. Check out the following tactics that work every time.

If you’re to ask any Millennial or Gen Z which social network they use the most, the answer would probably be – Snapchat. In comparison to other social platforms, Snapchat is a faster and easier way to communicate. It also gives them a lot of space to express themselves using filters and disappearing videos.

Snapchat is much more than a platform for young people to have fun and entertain themselves. They also use it to interact with brands and browse new offers. Snapchat advertising is a great way to reach Millennials and Gen Z, who are an important audience for the majority of businesses. What’s more, one study found that the engagement rate on Snapchat is higher than other platforms.

You can use Snapchat to grow brand awareness through humorous campaigns or branded filters. You can also use it to sell your products or invite people to visit a landing page or two. However, there are two conditions: you have to be creative, and you have to be familiar with the best practices of Snapchat advertising.

You don’t have to spend hours trying to figure out how Snapchat campaigns work. It’s enough to read this article to learn how to advertise on Snapchat.

The Tips

Snapchat is different than Instagram and other platforms, and what works there might not work here. However, the good news is that Snapchat actually offers you more ways to promote your product or service. Here’s a list of best Snapchat advertising tips you can try in your next campaign.

Have a Clear Goal

Before you choose an ad format, you have to be clear on what do you want to achieve. If you want to build brand awareness, that shouldn’t be difficult. You could publish Story ads or create a branded Lens AR Experience. Once again, Snapchat users like interacting with brands and all you have to do is provide useful/fun content.

If you want to get more leads or to sell something, there are various formats you can try. Video ads can be a great idea if you want to explain more about your product. And if you have a collection of products, you can create a Product catalogue and target audiences that have bought something similar.

Finally, don’t forget to nurture your relationships with current customers. Snapchat is an ideal place for building customer loyalty and it offers you many tools for retargeting. You could create quizzes, polls, and filters that they’ll enjoy playing with.

Mirror the Platform’s Storytelling

You have much better chances to reach your customers if your ads look similar to Snapchat’s organic content. Why? Because people already interact with that kind of content daily and they like it. That’s what they’re on Snapchat for.

Your goal shouldn’t be to confuse them and make them think that it’s an organic post. However, you should make your ads look natural and in alignment with other content. You don’t want to distract them as they’re watching other stories – you want your ads to be natural.

The ideal duration of a Story ad is around five or six seconds because that’s how long most videos last. Also, Snapchat is more casual than other platforms. You should use a friendly conversational tone in your ads and not make them “too perfect”.

Have Your Own Discover Channel

Gen Zs don’t watch TV, they don’t read newspapers, and most of them don’t use Facebook. Then where do they get their information? How do they know what’s going on in the world or which band is performing in their home town? They use Snapchat’s Discover feature.

You should think of it as a news feed for the young generations. They can find everything there – from current events to the latest products. You should partner with Snapchat and create your own Discover channel. Bear in mind that Snapchat doesn’t allow partners to use salesy language or sound too promotional when using this feature.

What’s the point then? The point is to be natural and spontaneous and provide information about your offer. Snapchat users agree that that’s the kind of communication they want to have with brands. They prefer informal communication instead of official press releases and similar.

Work with Influencers

While influencers on other social media are starting to fade, they’ve never been more popular on Snapchat. How come? Because they’re real. They’re human. Even though they may have millions of followers, they still share funny situations that happen to them every day and make people laugh.

There are various ways to partner with influencers, from paid ads to product placement. The best way is a brand takeover when an influencer takes control of your account for one day. You just have to be careful and choose an influencer whose values are in alignment with your audience. But if you do so, it’s impossible for the campaign not to be a success!

Even big brands like Nike and Adidas use this strategy. Nike was the first brand to pre-release products on Snapchat – the Air Jordan III Tinker. They partnered with influencers and created special discounts codes, only for Snapchat users.

Measure Your Results

If you don’t know where to start, you can experiment with different types of ads. But it’s essential to understand your analytics, as that’s the only way to see what works and what doesn’t. Snapchat not only has very detailed analytics, but there’s also a very organized layout.

Snapchat’s analytics, or Snapchat Insights, get displayed in yellow. Moreover, they go one step and highlight all the parameters you should pay attention to. That is if you want to get important insights and ideas for your next campaign.

Stay Natural

As you can see, Snapchat advertising is all about natural communication and being spontaneous. Instead of polishing your images to make them look perfect, think about what Snapchat users want to see. What kind of brand do they want to engage with? These tips can help you become that kind of brand.

If you want more Snapchat advertising tips, don’t hesitate to schedule a free consultation.