As the recent marketing trends require the active involvement of social media in advertising, Snapchat is one of the most interesting representatives in this field. Companies of diverse directions and types actively use the growing popularity of Snapchat to earn more. However, this social media is a rather specific one in the pool of SMM and requires an accurate approach in its usage. GBC Time continues reviewing the major business daily issues in marketing direction, now explaining the features of advertising via Snapchat.
Being one of the most popular social media, Snapchat gladly joined the global marketing pool. As this social media has a rather specific engaging direction via disappearing content in some time (from a few seconds and up to 24-hour postponed deleting), it gained a huge audience. According to the statistics, about 60% of the regular users are up to 24 years old, another 26% are between 25 and 34, while only about 14% of the customers are 35 and older.
This creates a rather clear social stratum and makes it easier for advertisers to reach the needed target audience. That is why the conversion rates of thoroughly planned advertising campaigns are huge and can reach a few dozen percent and be twice more effective than other ways of promoting brands and products. However, let’s review this interesting field in more detail and highlight the possibilities that are open for the gambling industry in particular.
Snapchat advertising types
Before explaining the advertising procedure via Snapchat, one has to know what this platform can suggest to the marketer. The disappearing visual content allowed to be developed in six different types:
- single image or video;
- filters;
- lenses;
- story ads;
- product catalog ads;
- commercials.
Let’s review all the types in more detail.
Single image or video
That is the simplest and most flexible type of advertising that can appear on Snapchat users’ screens. Full-screen visual information can be used for reaching multiple objectives, including all three key directions:
- awareness increase;
- consideration;
- flexible conversion.
A unique feature of this promotion type is that it never competes with other ads because the image or video appears in full-screen format between the stories and other Snapchat content. While the requirement for the video is no longer than 3 minutes, the recommendation is to make clips 3 to 5 seconds only.
Filters
It is vital not to confuse filters and lenses (described hereafter). In Snapchat, filters refer to the overlays that appear on users’ screens in specific locations and can be activated by swiping left or right. By choosing between on-demand filters and those in ads manager, the marketer can choose the advertising’s appearance and set secondary parameters like gender or age. This type of advertising is working in tight contact with geo locations to suggest the nearby product or service.
Lenses
This type of advertising is often called augmented reality (AR) lenses due to the turned-on camera’s real-time effect. This approach fully relies on the marketer’s creativity and how they can amaze the customers who use the lens. As filters work on the activated camera, it helps to attract the audience’s attention to the product that looks like it is real. For instance, it’s a perfect way to advertise food that can be previewed before ordering.
Story ads
Here all the marketing creativity should be applied as stories are a rather traditional way of reaching the target audience. In this case, the few seconds rule for attracting attention is extremely important, while the further opening messages or images have to deliver all the benefits of the product or service shortly and effectively. The “discover” feed is highly competitive, so one has to be creative enough to lure the audience for further clicks.
Product catalog ads
That is one of the simplest ways of delivering the offer to the targeted audience as the marketer can use quite a traditional format of presentation. Catalog assumes adding a few variants of services with the further possibility fast to register or buying the product. Of course, all the tricks of creating appealing content are still welcomed and should be applied to reach the needed conversion or a CPA marketing objective.
Commercials
This is unskippable. It’s probably the word that explains almost all the ideas of this type of advertising, which will appear on the screen for at least six seconds. If the marketer is sure that six seconds is enough to hook the customer, the video can last up to three minutes, but after six seconds it can be skipped. However, the most straightforward approach doesn’t mean that it’s the most costly or ineffective one – again, everything depends on the marketer.
What to know before creating ads on Snapchat?
Like most social media, the developers created a particular application called Snapchat ads manager, a control panel for everyone who wants to promote products via the platform. However, this tool will be reviewed a bit later, while now we will focus attention on more general aspects that will help create a consistent Snapchat advertising image.
Snapchat target audience
Even though we’ve touched on the issue of target audience at the beginning of this material, the chart below gives a visual understanding of how things are going on Snapchat.
For instance, it’s important to mention that more than 70% of Snapchat users are females. Adding to this the age specifics of users, the most widespread client’s picture becomes clearer. Of course, there are multiple filters in the Snapchat ads manager to adjust the reachable target audience, but the major direction is clear.
Snapchat ads cost
Like the price spreading of Facebook ads, Snapchat developers also came to determining the cost of advertising. The daily investments into the advertising start from a few bucks and end with a few thousand dollars spent per 24 hours.
If to focus on a particular example, the scales are just like the following (for filters type):
- One-day geofilter can cost about $5.
- Two-day ads around a single building can be up to $15.
- Similar filter for city block triples/quadruples the previous price.
- The city coverage can roll up the cost to a few thousands of dollars.
That is a rather rough estimate as the price also depends on the length of the advertising and approximate coverage/density of users in a particular region. Nonetheless, the marketer will see the designed campaign’s cost on the Snapchat ads manager before activating it.
Tough moderation procedure
Although Snapchat is regarded as the freedom-like social media for youngsters, one of the biggest concerns related to creating a campaign is a tough moderation procedure. It is especially vital for the gambling sector, which is often regarded as a suspicious offer and significantly depends on the needed location.
Among the best tips of how to go through the moderation procedure are the following items:
- New accounts without any former bans are more preferable.
- A marketer has to present the clearest possible offer.
- Adding a firm/product logo increases chances to go through moderation.
- Be attentive with the title of a campaign and name it without stop-words.
- Unreal suggestion and misleading content must be avoided.
That is not the full list of the useful tips that can be used when creating the advertising for Snapchat. Of course, one has to understand that social media is developing, and terms and conditions are changing in parallel.
How to create Snap ads for online casinos?
While the previous item is dedicated to highlighting the troubles, the current one will help to be aware of how to advertise a gambling platform via Snapchat. Here everything begins with filling the special form that is dedicated to promoting gambling services on the platform. Except for obligatory contact information, the marketer of a betting website or a casino has to mention the information about the gambling venue’s registration or platform. One of the fields is dedicated to the authorized region where the advertising can appear.
Also, Snapchat developed a particular webpage for terms and conditions related to gambling ads. It is divided into two sections: one is for the US region and the second one for the outside locations. Interestingly, but the variety of legislation of online gambling in Europe can astonish an unprepared person as about half of the states have developed their own laws.
Nevertheless, the platform requires gambling business owners to send notifications if some licensing changes happen. At the same time, social media puts additional responsibility on the marketer if the ads have appeared in the restricted jurisdictions. In simple words, one has to read attentively terms and conditions before using Snapchat ads manager for gambling promotion.
How to use Snapchat ads manager?
If all the aforementioned aspects haven’t changed your mind and you plan to utilize Snapchat for advertising purposes, it will be necessary to go to the ads manager web page and go through a login procedure. The following steps look like the following:
- Choose ads type (out of six).
- Determine the objectives you want to achieve.
- Add URL’s page you want to promote.
- Fill in the basic information (like headline and call to action).
- Set demographics settings and location.
- Add narrower options (interests or custom audience settings).
- Adjust financial setting to your needs.
As a rule, it’s better to try once than read twice, so going directly to the Snapchat ads manager will help to create a campaign faster than reading tons of descriptions. However, one has to consider all the information mentioned above as it will help set the best advertising product.
Read more: Top CPA networks
