Snapchat Mobile Advertising Trends and Best Practices for Q2 2022

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By: Wise Marketer Staff |

Posted on April 28, 2022

Once considered just a messaging app for millennials, Snap Inc. reported 319 million daily active Snapchat users for Q4 2021, and an all-time revenue high of $1.3 billion. With Snapchat reaching 75% of millennials and Gen Z, mobile app advertisers willing to test the platform will unlock new audiences with the right ad creative. To help user acquisition (UA) and creative teams thrive in the evolving mobile advertising ecosystem, we’ve compiled the latest updates and guidance for Snapchat UA campaigns.

By: Brian Bowman, ConsumerAcquisition.com

UA teams looking to tap into the Snapchat market have several new features to enhance their advertising capabilities. Here’s the latest in what’s happening in Snapchat mobile advertising:

AR Shopping Lenses

Snapchatters have a new, seamless way to interact with multiple products at once. Brands can now connect a Product Catalog for users to view items directly on-screen and purchase them. Designed to surface a product’s name and price quickly within Snapchat’s UI, Shopping Lenses display dynamic Product Catalog information directly on Lens Product Cards. By swiping through the Lens Products Cards, users can try on an item and purchase it with a single click. Both consideration and conversion KPIs are largely improved thanks to the Shopping Lenses’ efficiency and scale.

Key Features:

AR integration lets users quickly purchase multiple products: Shopping Lenses let users browse multiple products through AR. By then scanning the Lens Product Card attached to any of them, they’ll directly access the associated URL from the Product Catalog.

Dynamic information updates: After the Product Catalog receives an update, the information displayed on the Lens will be automatically refreshed. This allows brands to update product information virtually in real time through a feed or even a manual update and push it directly into a user’s screen.

Easily review performance of multiple products:

The Manage Ads Table offers quick access to SKU-level engagement metrics for every product. It’s easy to see which color schemes or styles are performing better than others, plus you can also review organic engagement for your Public Profile.

Currently, a maximum of 20 products can be loaded on a single Lens. Product Catalog Lenses are likely to earn their place in both small and large businesses, given their capability to drive product sales. The ability to visualize product display via AR will also have a huge impact in verticals such as Apparel, Beauty, Electronics, Accessories and Home Decor.

Conversions API

Using Server to Server (S2S) integration, advertisers can pass on web, app and offline events directly from their servers over to Snapchat. While implementing Snap’s new Conversions API does require some technical expertise, this new privacy-safe interface can improve ad campaign measurement and performance. The overall match rate between the advertiser and Snap will increase as conversion data is shared through multiple channels, resulting in a more robust measurement framework.

New to App Advertising on Snapchat? Get Started Here

Snapchat for Business recommends using the Advanced Create workflow over Instant Create so you can select a campaign objective to specify the kind of targeting you want for your ads. There are three options you can pick to align your campaign objective with your business goals: App Installs, Drive Traffic to App and App Conversions. Depending on where you are in your product lifecycle, you may focus on installs to prove market interest, re-engagement to increase MAU/DAU, or conversions to hit revenue goals.

Once you’ve completed your initial ad setup, you can look into Snapchat’s Goal-Based Bidding to optimize toward the event that matters for your campaign. When configured properly, this feature will serve ads to Snapchatters that are most likely to act the way you want them to. You can either allow Snapchat to automatically set bids relevant to your campaign goals via Auto Bid or leverage your CPA a bit more in-depth with either Target Cost or Max Bid.

Reach your target user with Custom Audiences, which allow you to build highly targeted campaigns based on location, demographics, purchasing patterns, and more. You can select from a range of options that include targeting former or similar users, targeting according to your app data or engagement metrics, or even reach Snapchatters according to their purchasing or browsing history.

Any ad you create should support mobile app advertising:

  • App Install Ads to drive users directly to the app store
  • Re-engagement Ads to drive existing users back to the app
  • App Install Attachments with swipe up functionality to download the app
  • Deep Link Attachments to re-engage users and direct them to a specific place in the app

First run standard single image or video ads to see what creative and messaging performs, then try out more complex Snapchats Ad formats: Story Ads (a series of ads centered around building brand awareness), Collection Ads (feature your latest collection of products), and AR Lenses (interactive AR experiences that can be shared among users).

Want better results from Snapchat UA?

Focus your marketing team on extensive quantitative creative testing to ensure you get the best performance from your Snapchat ads. This will ultimately pay dividends towards your campaign spend optimization and ROI.

Brian Bowman is Founder and CEO of ConsumerAcquisition.com.