Advertising on Snapchat – A Guide for Pakistanis

Snapchat isn’t a platform widely used by the older generations, but when it comes to Gen-Z and millennials, this platform is a lot more popular than the likes of Facebook. From lenses to interactive filters and a lot of ways to communicate, Snapchat is an app more catered to the younger generation than even Instagram. And if you’re a brand looking to target the age group below 25, Snapchat is the app you need to be present on.

Snapchat Ads aren’t new, but they are a relatively untapped market when it comes to Pakistani brands. Mostly only well-established, popular brands are using the many benefits that Snapchat Ads provide, but it’s a platform that every small business should also be looking into, especially if your brand is one that wants to have a younger audience. So here’s a detailed article on how you can advertise on this platform.

Why You Should Advertise on Snapchat

Before you get into it, though, you need to ask yourself, is Snapchat a platform you should be advertising on? If your brand is one that mostly has an adult audience, or boomer, as they call it, then maybe Snapchat isn’t the right platform for you. But if you’re a retail or even educational brand or one that’s trying to promote its latest app and gaming services, then Snapchat is where you’ll find most of your audience. Here are some benefits for you to advertise on Snapchat.

Benefit for Retail Brands

Snapchat is a good platform to market for retail brands. According to a report, about 60% of Snapchat users are likely to make impulse purchasing decisions, and 46% of them interact with brands after purchasing anything.

The platform also has options for users to “try on” their new clothes, accessories, and makeup products through its interactive AR features that brands can take full advantage of.

Strong Targeting

About 84% of Snapchat users are under the age of 35, 70% of them being women. On top of that, Snapchat lets you target specific demographics of the audience, from their age, gender, location, etc. to their likes and dislikes, allowing you to also add your own data to search for “Snapchatters”.

Relatively New Market

According to Snapchat Ad stats, about 280 million people use the platform daily. Although Instagram marketing is a lot more popular with a bigger reach, Snapchat is an ideal platform especially for smaller brands since it’s a lot less expensive compared to Facebook and Instagram. Being an untapped market, this platform can be a good source of attracting new and younger audiences.

How much do they cost?

Starting at $5 per day, Snapchat ads can be set according to an advertiser’s needs of a daily and lifetime budget, whichever works best for them. The platform also offers different tools like Snap Publisher, which helps create and edit ads in a short amount of time. Getting started on the platform is easy, you just need a Snapchat account, where you can open an ad account and begin running your ads.

Snapchat charges users based on every 1,000 impressions (CPM) per ad but also offers goal-based bidding, allowing users to optimize the campaigns for specific actions the audience will take, like downloading an app, purchasing, etc.

Ad pricing depends on the following:

• Advertising objectives
• Campaign duration
• Budget
• Bid amount
• Bid goal

Types of Snapchat Ads

Being a dynamic platform for every business, brands can easily leverage multiple options of ad formats based on their needs and objectives, i.e. app downloads, sales, or engagement, etc. Following are the different types of Snapchat Ads any brand can use.

Snap Ads

Snap Ads are full-screen ad content of different types, e.g. videos, GIFs, or photos, etc. They appear between different types of content and urge the user to take action, i.e. either visit your website or app, etc. These ads can be about 3 minutes long, but it’s recommended to keep them 3-5 seconds long, as that’s how much a user is willing to pay attention to your branded content.

Story Ads

Filters

In Snapchat, filters aren’t the usual effects we put in our pictures to make our eyes look bigger or our face look younger or older, those are lenses that we’ll discuss below. Filters are stickers, stylized images or texts, or GeoFilters showcasing a location, etc. These are content that brands customize according to their own goals for the sake of increasing interaction and spreading awareness regarding their different campaigns.

Lenses

Remember the dog selfies or flower crown selfies that are so popular on Snapchat? Those are lenses. A brand can easily create its own lenses by either changing one’s facial features to fit one of its objects, etc., or even display objects into your camera, making it look like they exist in your surrounding.

Dynamic Ads

These are ads run by promoting your brand to people based on their interests and their page views for your brand. So, for example, if a user abandons their cart on your website, Snapchat then shows your brand’s ads on the platform to the same user.

Collection Ads

Collection Ads have 4 tappable titles that allow your users to browse and buy your products. You can showcase a series of products that your user can then just scroll through and tap for more information.

Commercial Ads

Available only in certain countries, commercial ads are ones that your user can’t skip for 6 seconds as they’re running, although the runtime allowed is 3 minutes.

How to Create Snapchat Ads?

1. Navigate to Snap Ads manager

2. Determine the type of ads you’d like to create

Instant create lets you make a single ad quickly. Advanced create gives you more control, allowing you to create several ads in a single campaign.

3. Choose your Campaign Objectives

4. Choose your Ad Campaign goal

5. Choose a Start and End Date and Decide on a Budget

6. Create an Ad Set and Choose an Ad Format

7. Choose your demographics based on gender, age, location, or even interests

Best Practices for Running Snapchat Ads

Trial and Test

Snapchat will automatically optimize your ads based on the goals you choose during setup, make sure to use A/B Testing to keep a close watch on which ads are performing well based on visuals, how much of a part visual content is playing in your ads, and what type of content and which time of the day is your audience most receptive.

Measure Results

Snapchat has some pretty useful analytic tools, from Delivery Metrics to Spending and Conversion Metrics, you have every tool possible at your fingertips that will tell you if your ads have achieved the desired outcomes. You’ll also get tips on how to do better the next time. Although, you need to make sure how to use Snapchat Analytics beforehand.

Know Your Audience

Snapchat is a platform exclusively used by Gen-Z, and if your brand aims to target this audience, you need to be advertising on Snapchat.

This is our guide on how you can advertise on Snapchat. What did you think of it? Is your brand already using Snapchat Ads to its full advantage? Give us your answers and opinions in the comment section.