Snapchat Advertising

How It Works

Snapchat isn’t for everyone, but that doesn’t mean that you should totally discount it as a method of advertising. It’s easy to dismiss something that you don’t understand, which is why we are going to explain exactly how Snapchat works so that you can gain a complete understanding of this popular platform. 

Snapchat is a mobile social media application that allows users to send and receive pictures and short videos to friends. The keynote feature of this app is its time limit. Content sent through Snapchat can only be seen for a specified amount of time before it “disappears” forever. As a result, the app has a very natural and temporary nature. This is in contrast with apps like Instagram that features extremely posed and tailored content rather than everyday, real-life activities. 

In addition to pictures and video, Snapchat also has a chat feature where messages disappear after sending — keeping in theme with the app’s temporary nature. There’s also a Snapchat Story feature where users can post photos and video to their “Story” for all their friends to see for 24 hours. Finally, there’s a “Discovery” feature on the app where users can browse through content posted by publishers and brands rather than their personal friends. 

Clearly, these features appeal to some more than others. So who is actually using this social media application and what do we know about them? For starters, 51% of U.S. Snapchat users are over the age of 25, making Snapchat one of the best places to capture the attention of Millennials and Gen Zers — who have the direct spending power of more than $1 trillion. 

But younger generations don’t just use Snapchat casually, it’s actually their preferred platform as 34% of teens prefer Snapchat over other platforms like TikTok at 29%, Instagram at 29%, Twitter at 3%, and Facebook at 2%. As a brand, you should be where your customers are — and if your customers are Millennials or Gen Z — odds are they are on Snapchat and you should be too! 

The Benefits of Snapchat Marketing

Committing to a new social media marketing channel shouldn’t be taken lightly. After all, you want to make sure that you’re going to actually benefit from investing in this new area. So is advertising on Snapchat worth it in terms of costs and benefits? Here’s what you need to know:

• Targeting: Snapchat features powerful targeting mechanisms using data from the Oracle Data Cloud. As a result, you can use this data to reach your target audience. Simply targeting based on demographic data isn’t enough, and Snapchat allows you to go a step further through lookalike audiences, geographical location, interests, behaviors, and more.
• Reach: While Snapchat certainly doesn’t have a reach of billions like Facebook or YouTube, it still has a large user base of more than 265 million daily active users all across the world. These users send over 210 million Snaps on the app every day. Not only do Millennials and Gen Z use the app, but they use it frequently and are spending substantial time on it — with the average user opening the app’s camera more than 20 times a day.
• Audio and visuals: If you’re looking for impactful advertising, you can easily achieve this on Snapchat thanks to full-screen advertising visuals with an emphasis on audio. Many brands struggle with audio in advertising, but Snapchat users view more than 60% of ads with audio.
• Results: Finally, Snapchat marketing offers real, tangible results. This is because Snapchatters are primed to convert. In the United States, they will make a purchase at least once a month. Furthermore, Snapchat users are five times more likely to click on your Snapchat ad compared to other social media ads. As a result, you can rest assured that you’re achieving real results from your investment. 

Different Snapchat Advertising Formats

Snapchat is a highly creative and interactive app — features that are reflected in its advertising formats. Here’s what you need to know about some of the different formats to choose from and how you can effectively utilize them for your brand:

• Snap ads: Photo or video ads that appear throughout content on the platform. These ads are typically around five seconds long.
• Collection ads: Photo or video ads that include a number of different slides to swipe through. These ads present more information to the viewer than traditional Snap ads.
• Story ads: Slides that appear within the “Discover” section of the app where users can learn more about news, events, and brands like yours!
• Snapchat lenses: Snapchat lenses are perhaps the platform’s most popular feature. These interesting lenses add cool effects and allow the user to have fun and get creative while interacting with your brand.
• Snapchat filters: Different from lenses, Snapchat filters are added to existing Snaps after the fact by swiping through the different options that may be based on location, events, etc. You can design a branded filter to promote your brand. 

The MuteSix Difference

Creative is the cornerstone of our success. We’ve simplified the process of producing great thumb-stopping ads that drive sales.

MuteSix can capitalize on Snapchat’s advanced targeting tools, allowing your business to reach new audiences that will engage with your ads.

Our Process

Although it may be tempting to jump right into Snapchat marketing to start benefiting from this burgeoning platform, it’s important to take a calculated and intentional approach. Here are the  detailed steps that we follow when developing and placing Snapchat advertisements for our clients:

1. Audit and analysis: We start off the process with a comprehensive audit and analysis that takes a deep dive into your industry, your brand values, and your current advertising practices across all platforms. This allows us to develop a more cohesive marketing strategy that spans across all of your marketing channels — from Snapchat to Facebook and everywhere in between. Finally, our analysis gives us a good idea of which advertisements are working for your brand and which are not.
2. Robust creative development: After the audit is complete, we move on to robust creative development. Snapchat is a highly creative platform, so you want to make sure that your content fits in while also standing out. It can be difficult to strike this delicate balance, which is why we are here to help with eye-catching advertisements that are going to get you views, clicks, and real results.
3. Targeting testing: While Snapchat offers powerful targeting mechanisms through the Oracle Cloud, it can be difficult to pin down who your target audience is and how to effectively reach them through these mechanisms. As a result, we do the background research to help you determine this information before testing different targeting approaches to ensure that we are reaching the right people with the right content.
    
4. Optimize: Even with a detailed and intentional approach, sometimes you still need to head back to the drawing board to make tweaks and improvements to your approach. We do this through optimizing your campaign to ensure that it’s having its desired effect. If anything is off along the way, we will make the necessary adjustments to get the campaign back on track and reach maximum effectiveness.
5. Scale: Once we have determined what works, we can continue doing it to scale your advertising strategy and continue reaching people with effective results. 

But don’t just take our word for it! Here’s a look into some of the results that we have achieved for our clients through our Snapchat advertising services:

• Tripled clients’ return on ad spend to 20% above than digital norms
• Enjoyed a 17% increase in daily user growth QoQ in 2020

Case Study

We constantly help brands grow and scale on Snapchat. One of our most recent examples involves Crown & Paw — a personalized pet portrait company that specializes in renaissance-themed artwork. Crown & Paw’s initial goal was to spend a minimum of $6K per month with a 1.3x ROAS on Snapchat.

We utilized their existing creative and worked to find new audiences on Snapchat that would allow us to scale. For instance, they were looking to target younger demographics that frequently use Snapchat, particularly Millennials who tend to spend a lot of money on their pets and have more disposable income than Gen Z does. But how can you effectively target pet-owners as a group on Snapchat? 

The Strategy

Since we were working with a brand new Snapchat account, we couldn’t optimize for conversions right away and focused on RMK audiences to unlock them. Once we opened the conversion event, we could hone in on winning audiences through Snap’s unique targeting and creating valuable lookalikes. This allowed us to reach pet-lovers who were looking for a conversation piece that featured their furry friends. 

Despite starting from scratch on this platform, we were able to see incredible results. For starters, Crown & Paw saw a 412% increase in spending, a 7,330% increase in revenue, a 1,352 increase in return on ad spend, and a 90.59% decrease on cost-per-action spend. 

These amazing results are only a small piece of what we have achieved for our clients. We have generated over $1 billion in trackable revenue for our clients, including big names like Zumba, Morphe, Adidas, NHL.tv, Disney, PetCo, Theragun, NutriBullet, and more. Our clients experience an average increase of 359% in revenue after working with us for just six months. 

Still not convinced? Click here to see some of our other case studies and testimonials from our satisfied clients. 

MuteSix as Your Snapchat Marketing Agency

Effectively advertising on Snapchat can seem like a pipe dream — especially if you’re not personally a part of the generations that most commonly use this platform. That being said, you definitely don’t have to become a Snapchat expert all on your own. With the help of a Snapchat advertising agency like MuteSix, you can take full advantage of this social media platform that’s loved by both Millennials and Gen Z alike. So reach out and schedule a complimentary consultation today to learn more about how Snapchat can work for you. 

Sources:

1. Gen Buy: Millennials projected to spend $1.4 trillion as influence grows | BizJournals.com
2. Most popular social networks of teenagers in the United States from fall 2012 to fall 2020 | Statista.
3. Snapchat for Business: Everything You Need to Know | Business News Daily