What Marketers Need to Know About Snapchat Advertising

Snapchat advertising is rapidly improving its offerings for brands, while being careful not to alienate its user-base. This week marked Snapchat’s release of an API that hugely benefits advertisers looking to pursue a paid presence on America’s fastest growing social media platform.

Although they do not yet have an ad platform, you can contact Snapchat about these opportunities on their website. Brands that have seen success using Snapchat advertising include Gatorade, Vans, ShockTop, Trolli, Empire, Kraft, and bareMinerals.

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Here’s what you need to know about Snapchat advertising!

What are Snap Ads?

Snap Ads are typically 10 second videos that can appear in between stories, Discover articles, and during Snapchat Live features. Brands can include a “swipe up” option to reveal extended content such as a mobile website, article, longer video, or app install ad. Snapchat claims that the swipe up rate for Snap Ads is five times higher than the average click-through rate on comparable platforms, giving Snapchat advertising a significant comparative advantage. Snap Ads can be targeted by location, age, gender, mobile network carrier, device or operating system, and type of content users engage with.

What are Sponsored Lenses?

Snapchat lenses use facial detection to adapt interactive filters to your face, or other human faces you select. The available lenses change from day to day. However, face swap (exchanging faces with someone) or photo face swap (exchanging faces with a photo) are here to stay (for now).

Brands can now pay for a Sponsored Lens to appear in the selection of Snapchat lenses when users create a snap. Snapchat says that users experiment with a lens for about 20 seconds, on average.

What are On-Demand Geofilters?

Geofilters come after photo and video filters when you swipe right after taking a snap, and may be available based on where you are located. Snapchat makes new geofilters available on special occasions, particularly for holidays.

You can also create an original geofilter for your brand! Snapchat advertising offers on-demand geofilters as a great way to brand snaps at your headquarters or a special event. For example, my colleague created a geofilter for TrackMaven’s annual marketing conference, Spark.

Here’s how to create your own:

• Create an image that is a web-optimized PNG file, 1080 pixels by 1920 pixels, and under 300KB. (Check out Snapchat’s guidelines for more information.)
  
• Select the area (under 5 million square feet) and the time range in which the geofilter will be available and submit it for approval on Snapchat’s website.

The price of an on-demand geofilter depends on the location, the time range, and the size of the area selected. It can take a couple of business days for Snapchat to approve geofilters, so plan ahead. After the geofilter has run its course, you can go back and review the number of times it was used and viewed.

What are Sponsored Geofilters?

If you’re looking to create a geofilter for an area larger than 5 million square feet, you’ll have to request to sponsor a geofilter outside of the normal On-Demand Geofilter request process. “In the U.S., a single National Sponsored Geofilter typically reaches 40 percent to 60 percent of daily Snapchatters,” states Snapchat on their website.

What’s next for Snapchat?

As Snapchat continues to evolve, marketers should be on the lookout for new app developments, features, and capabilities. Its popularity shows no signs of stopping. Bloomberg reports that Snapchat has even surpassed Twitter in its number of daily active users. If you’re going to invest in Snapchat, start sooner rather than later.

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