Advertising on Snapchat. Why not?

Author: Roy Soet

At this moment Snapchat and Instagram are involved in a battle for the same audience. Since the launch of Instagram Stories the engagement on Snapchat went downhill. The application even dropped from the third place in Apple’s Appstore to a spot out of the top 10. Still Snapchat stays a social media platform with a lot of potential for advertising.

The biggest advance Snapchat has when it comes to advertising is the enormous group of exclusive Snapchat users. 92% of the Snapchat users doesn’t use Twitter, 43% doesn’t use Facebook and 31% doesn’t use Instagram. The audience doesn’t feel like they belong on these platforms anymore because of the increase of older audiences. If you want to reach an audience younger than 34 years old, Snapchat is a really promising platform compared to Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

This interaction between users of Snapchat goes mostly through the use of camera’s. As advertiser your campaign will be shown by photos and videos in the feed or Instagram Stories. Snapchat offers you different possibilities in their application. Below a short introduction to all of the options.

GEO filter

GEO filters can be used during events where you want to target a specific audience. Everyone is able to use this filter within the given radius during this event.

Sponsored Lenses

These are special effect and sounds the user can access by augmented reality. The user adds these effects to his/hers own picture or video.

Snap Ads

This way of advertising looks a lot like the function provided by Facebook. These are pictures or videos of 10 seconds or shorter with the option to ‘swipe up for more information’.

When you’ve chosen your way of advertising you can target your audience just like you do on Instagram. Snapchat provides this by lifestyle categories which can be compared to ‘interests’ of Instagram and Facebook. When you place a ‘Snap Pixel’ to your website, you’ll be able to track the data to retarget your audience or create a look-a-like audience. Just like Instagram and Facebook, Snapchat offers this possibility.

Snapchat is a newcomer when it comes to advertising. That’s why the CPM (Cost per Mille) and CPA (Cost per Action) are lower than the costs for Instagram Stories. This effect is caused by the newness of advertising on Snapchat and reaches for an exclusive audience on Snapchat.

In my opinion, Snapchat is a very promising partner in the social advertising strategy of your business, next to Instagram. The CPM and CPA is generally lower and because many Snapchat users this medium exclusively, you do not have to fear huge overlaps in your audience. I call them purposely partners instead of competitor, because I see Snapchat advertising as a strong addition to you strategy.