Brands and digital marketing agencies, rejoice! Six years after the popular image-sharing app launched, Snapchat has now built a tool that allows organisations to buy and manage their own ads. Previously, most of the adverts on the app could only be purchased from Snapchat directly and were created using a Snapchat Partner.
The process, from buying an ad to designing it, wasn’t only time-consuming, but it was also very expensive. The average Snapchat ad costs tens of thousands of pounds, and this has made the platform an exclusive advertising club only for the biggest of brands, including the likes of Taco Bell, Budweiser and Star Wars.
Why Snapchat is the ideal place to advertise for certain brands
With 158 million monthly active users, it’s no wonder the viability of the advertising process has been criticised over the years. According to eMarketer, 61% of Snapchat users are aged between 18-34, while 23% are Gen Z (aged between 12-17 years). For brands seeking to target a younger audience, Snapchat is the place to be, over Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest. This is what has made the advertising process even more frustrating.
As the lure of these hard-to-reach demographics piqued the interest of advertisers, it was up to Snapchat to re-design the app’s functionalities or risk losing valuable ad spend.
Although we don’t know the reason for the latest updates, whether it’s to remain competitive with other platforms or to simply sell shares, Snapchat is evolving in the right way, which is sure to impress advertisers.
Listening to the prayers of advertisers all over the world, Snapchat announced three updates - available in various countries from June. One of these updates includes a much-needed self-serve ads platform.
What type of Snapchat ads will you be able to manage?
Unfortunately, Snapchat’s anticipated updates still won’t give us all advertising capabilities. The new features are solely for Snap Ads. These are the vertical, wide-screen video adverts that play between users’ stories and on Snapchat’s Discover section. Advertisers will not be able to run Snapchat Lenses via the new tool, and Geofilters will remain outside of the new Ads Manager.
What happened when we created a Snapchat Geofilter for our Delineo Alton Towers trip? Find out more.
Snapchat’s key ad updates – what can we expect?
Several updates are in the pipeline, including the launch of Ads Manager, Business Manager, and a brand-spanking mobile dashboard.
Ad Manager
Ads Manager allows you to buy, manage and optimise Snap Ads. This includes setting up ad goals (for bidding) and targeting your audience.
Business Manager
Like Facebook, you’ll soon be able to assign roles to team members on Snapchat, and manage several ad accounts at a time, including billing.
Snapchat Mobile Dashboard
Editing your Snap Ads campaign from the Snapchat app on your phone will be available following the update, including the ability to pause any advertising and review performance.
The pricing of Snap Ads
What can you expect to be paying? Well, that’s not entirely clear. The new updates will make Snap Ads readily available to smaller, local businesses – but will the price? Unlike previously, there will be no Snapchat Partners’ fee or the price for outsourced creative, so in principle, it should be more cost-effective. Reports say the prices are expected to reduce, but we’ll have to wait and see.
It’s clear that alongside redefining price a few more updates will be needed for Snapchat to have the same simplicity of advertising on its rivals. However, for the most part, advertising on the platform has been made considerably simpler, offering an on-demand ad service that provides flexibility, control, and ease. It may even rival Facebook.
While certain brands seek out the most successful way of targeting Gen X and Gen Z, Snapchat is becoming the go-to platform for advertising. And now, the possibilities are in the eager hands of the advertiser. It’s only taken six years.
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