What should marketers expect from Snapchat Ads?

In this article, we are going to review how Snapchat Ads work, how effective they can be, and how to get the maximum from them. Set your marketing expectations accordingly and plan your strategies, considering what this platform can provide you with. All in all, Snapchat has almost a billion monthly active users (1/7 of the total Earth population), and statistics show it will only increase its numbers. Seems like a great time to get more to know about it.

Snapchat advertising is very similar to what we see on Instagram: short videos popping up when people scroll through the feed or stories. Considering Snapchat’s audience (the biggest share belongs to Gen Z - people between the ages of 15 and 30), you can hardly ever see ads for medication, real estate, or gambling. Instead, it focuses on goods attractive to youth: fashionable clothes, music, food and drinks, entertainment, and technology.

On the contrary, it is very strict to all types of political and social advertising. There are strict rules about its transparency, and content that promotes hate or division is not allowed on the platform. Gambling advertisements are allowed only in certain regions. Tobacco and alcohol have no access to this social media at all. Of course, we are talking here only about the official rules, and if someone finds a way to bypass them, remember it is illegal. Your advertisement on Snapchat will be banned anyway sooner or later, but in this situation, it will be banned together with your account.

A logical question may arise: “If I have never used Snapchat advertisement before, why should I start doing this now?” Of course, the main reason is the number of people on the platform: from around 40K in 2014, it has risen to almost 500K in 2024. The dominant age category on the platform is Gen Z, whose yearly spendings are estimated to be around $3 trillion in 2025. Thus, Snapchat users represent a “very considerable” (softly speaking) buying power that cannot be ignored. 

You may say all these numbers do not matter if people do not open the app often enough, and you are totally correct in this question. However, they do. The average number of times users open the Snapchat app on their phones daily is 40. So, is Snapchat good for advertising? In our opinion, it definitely is.

Depending on what you want to achieve with your Snapchat ad campaign, there are 6 advertisement types you can launch on the platform.

This type of ad is the most flexible one and may generally fit any goals. There are 4 types of visual content you can use for it:

• images;
• GIFs;
• videos;
• cinemagraphs (videos and images combined in one file).

This type of ad is shown between the stories or in the discover mode (an analog for the well-known feed). Although suitable for any case, this ad type is mostly used for increasing brand awareness, boosting website traffic, or encouraging users to install an app. 

Advertisement on Snapchat can look like a big picture or video of a product and 3 clickable thumbnails of other products below it. It is used to increase sales and promote products from one brand, shop, or company. For instance, you can get a sneakers ad with one model represented in the main frame and 3 other products from the same seller and category - below it in a smaller size. Upon clicking on any of them, you will be redirected to the corresponding page in the online store.

This type of ad is shown between pieces of content people view in the Discover section. Story ads can consist of 1 to 10 videos and pictures combined and are often used for marketing on Snapchat through storytelling, introducing new products, and promoting specific goods or services. There is a “VIP” option to add the CTA or download button at the bottom of such an ad. For instance, it can be a teaser of a new movie with a button to buy tickets in the local cinema.

The development of artificial intelligence allows people to interact with brands and products to increase awareness and promote something. Lens Studio offers hundreds of filters Snapchat users can apply to their videos or even their faces using the frontal camera to add more dynamics and engagement to the ad. A good example here is the advertisement for cosmetic products that people try on with the help of the phone camera.

Another popular application of filters in Snapchat ads marketing is organizing contests using specific lenses or filters. It helps to engage more people and promote specific products during certain periods and in certain areas.

Commercials are probably the most premium way to use Snapchat for advertising. They look like a well-made full-screen video masterfully tied between stories and other types of user-generated content in the Discover section aimed at introducing a product and engaging users in the most natural way possible. 

There are two types of Snapchat commercials: a 6-second one (with the first 3 seconds non-skippable) and up to 180 seconds (with the first 6 seconds non-skippable). Commercials are commonly used to introduce a brand or product or to promote time-sensitive and limited offers.

We have already casually mentioned the importance and attractiveness of Snapchat for business marketing. However, now we want to systematize everything and discuss all the points (both already touched on in this article and not) in more detail.

1. 1.
   Engaged audience. Snapchat has a huge audience of mostly young users who are interested in modern trends and have high buying ability. Most of them spend at least half an hour per day on this social media platform and consume tons of content monthly. Younger generations are also more loyal to advertising, as they associate it with helping them choose something, not with the irritating commercials on TV in the middle of a movie.
2. 2.
   Targeting options. Companies and brands that decide to use Snapchat for advertising can benefit from its advanced targeting options based on localization, age groups, and behaviors. You can also create custom groups with attributes that are important only for your particular advertising campaign.
3. 3.
   Interactivity. AR filters and lenses allow you to create engaging and unusual campaigns to attract more people. You can create contests using brand masks and filters to boost it even more. This usually results in a bigger number of interactions and clicks.
4. 4.
   Low competition. Compared to Meta platforms, Snapchat has lower competition in many spheres. For advertisers, this means smaller budgets can lead to better results than on other social media. CPM and CPC also go down.

The Snapchat team constantly works on adding new filters, masks, and inventing new ways to engage its audience. Thus, we can expect the platform to become even more popular and effective in the near future.

Snapchat provides all advertisers with a convenient dashboard to analyze all the key ad data:

• campaign performance and strategy effectiveness;
• demographic statistics;
• information on the individual performance of each launched ad;
• scheduling and budgeting nuances.

However, to squeeze everything possible from the ads, you need to dive into the matter even deeper and add some additional tools to your arsenal. For the most accurate data and conversion tracking, you need to set up Snap CAPI. 

You can turn to our services and use the Snap CAPI tag or a Gateway, which are the best immediate solutions for businesses to set up Snapchat tracking.

With its help, you can not only measure the success of your Snapchat ads marketing campaigns but also plan your next steps and understand the areas you need to focus on. In addition, it is a convenient tool for creating custom login profiles and incorporating PPC markups.

We can discuss Sephora's case as an example of how profitable understanding Snapchat advertising essentials can be. It is even more interesting to us because it concerns a market that is not so familiar to Western middle-lance marketers: Saudi Arabia.

The company wanted to strengthen its position in the local market. During the 2022 Ramadan, they collaborated with Saudi artists and created unique Snapchat lenses to engage Snapchat users during the holy month. For instance, Sephora’s marketing experts and their partners developed an interactive Snapchat-based game that utilized the platform’s augmented reality. People who took part in this activity received a discount voucher for their products.

This activity was supported by the “Who inspires you” movement, launched on Snapchat in 2024. Local influencers and celebrities shared their stories about how makeup increased their self-confidence, helped them present themselves to the audience, and inspired them.

These campaigns resulted in a 12% increase in brand awareness and a 5.6% increase in add-to-cart action in Saudi Arabia. These impressive results prove that Snapchat advertising can be effective and is worth investing in.

We would place its audience in the first place: young people interested in modern brands and trends with higher-than-average buying ability. Snapchat actively interacts with its users, engaging them in different activities and contests tailored to its ads, increasing their engagement. Add to this lower competition, attractive pricing, and active usage of augmented reality - you get an attractive and promising platform for advertising.

As of January 2025, Snapchat’s CPM was $8.85, and the average CPL - $1.93. For comparison, Instagram's corresponding numbers are $6.70 and $2; Facebook’s - $14.4 and $0.44. Some may claim such a price is one of the cons of using Snapchat for marketing purposes. However, upon closer examination, the prices are competitive and may also vary depending on the season and the product advertised.

Affordable pricing and a focus on a younger audience make Snapchat a perfect choice for small businesses to launch their ads. Advanced targeting capabilities and active use of augmented reality only increase the chances of receiving better results.