Created in 2011, Snapchat has seen steady growth over the past ten years, especially with users in the 14-35 age range. Snapchat is based on the idea that social media content shouldn’t be permanent. The app changed the game with its Snap messages, which were made to self-delete shortly after viewing.
The Snapchat concept gained mass appeal. Its user base has grown to more than 293 million active daily users in 2022, creating over five billion snaps a day. Brands can join the platform to engage with its loyal user base to increase visibility in 2022. This Snapchat marketing guide summarizes:
- What makes Snapchat unique
- Why and how to use Snapchat for marketing
- Snapchat marketing strategy tips
- How much Snapchat ads cost
- Examples of Snapchat marketing campaigns
- How to find the right Snapchat marketing agency and software for your needs
- How to use Wrike to manage your Snapchat marketing plans
What is Snapchat?
Snapchat is a smartphone-only app used to send one-to-one or group-text messages. Its biggest differentiator from other social messaging applications is its messages and media – photos, videos, links, and attachments – disappear after they're viewed.
The sender is notified if the recipient takes a screenshot of their message, although it's possible to take a screenshot without alerting the sender using third-party apps. Most content disappears after 24 hours. This disappearing content style is one of Snapchat's foundational tenets, called ephemeral content.
Before you send a message on Snapchat, you can add fun text, overlays, and even digital stickers to your message. Users can create their own lenses for special events, such as birthday parties or product launches, for guests to use when sharing photos and videos of the event.
How is Snapchat different from other social media platforms?
One feature that makes Snapchat different from other social media platforms is that it doesn't use algorithms to organize feeds or determine who views your content. Users can see all content sent to them either as a one-to-one message or part of a group Snap.
Viewers can respond to Snaps, but the responses go directly to the person who sent that Snap. There is no comment section on Snaps, as on other social media platforms. Instead, conversations take place directly between users.
Snapchat allows users to create short-form videos that last ten seconds or less. It is most similar to the short-form video platform, TikTok. They are both committed to the vertical video format, meaning lenses, overlays, and stickers are designed to be placed over videos and photos taken in vertical, portrait-style format.
Why use Snapchat for marketing?
Snapchat is a great way to connect with and market to users under 35 years old. When brands use Snapchat for marketing, they can form relationships with users loyal to the app. These users open Snapchat multiple times per day, making it a high-engagement touchpoint.
Brands can show off their personality in short, fun interactions with customers. Although it's a challenge for some brands to adapt to a marketing style that focuses on fun instead of sending purely professional messages, users are drawn to authentic content that matches Snapchat's quirky vibe.
Snapchat also enables social commerce. Users can purchase the products they see in Snapchat content with a few clicks without leaving the app. Snapchat's disappearing content stream fits seamlessly into the concept of social commerce and promotes impulse purchases. Users know that they only have a short window to engage with the content, generating a scarcity mindset.
Snapchat has also enthusiastically embraced using Augmented Reality to promote social commerce, bringing together two popular social media trends for 2022.
How to use Snapchat for marketing
Snapchat has made it easy for brands to use its platform for marketing. It's free to create a Snapchat account, though only business accounts can use paid ads. Snapchat promotes creating and using Snapcodes, which function like QR codes and allow users to subscribe to a brand's Snaps.
It's easy to add flair to videos and images on Snapchat. You can create geofilters, which are great for promoting a specific location, and lenses that promote a new product, event, or marketing campaign. Here are five ideas to boost your Snapchat for marketing:
- Promoting a product: Have a new product launch? Use Snaps to share it with your audience and make it easy to purchase directly with an attachment. Don't feel restricted to new products; share older products to encourage repeat purchases.
- Showcasing your brand: Use Snapchat to tell your brand's story in a fun, engaging way. Snapchat thrives on quirky content that's different from traditional and stodgy marketing.
- Showing behind the scenes (BTS) content: Let your viewers see what goes on behind the scenes of your company or product. This can be a sneak peek into how your products get made or day-to-day activities at your office.
- Hosting a Snapchat takeover: Don’t Snapchat alone. Let people outside the marketing team take over your Snapchat account for a day. This could be someone in your organization who can provide a different take on your product, a micro-influencer in your niche, or a devoted fan.
- Creating sponsored geofilters and lenses: Let your brand's creative light shine with geo-filters and lenses. These are overlays that go on top of Snaps to add some fun. Lenses let the user "play" through augmented reality or add fun facial features like cat ears. Geofilters are set to a specific location, so they're only available to people in that location.
Snapchat marketing strategy planning tips
As with most other social media platforms, creating a Snapchat marketing strategy increases your chances of success. Having a plan that accounts for regularly scheduled content while allowing flexibility to participate in trends, conversations, and holidays will help grow your Snapchat following and keep users engaged.
Planning should be an important part of your Snapchat marketing strategy, as this means you always have content ready to post and aren't scrambling at the last minute. Remember that most users open Snapchat multiple times per day, so it's important you post consistently.
You may need to experiment when you start on Snapchat. Play with pacing to see what posting schedule drives the most views. Try adding text or a filter overlay if you usually post plain images. If most of your content is of your brand's products, share Snaps that give a BTS look at your product.
Don’t forget to track and measure your success. Tracking engagement helps you determine which Snapchat marketing experiments are performing well.
How much do Snapchat ads cost?
Snapchat ads cost as low as $5 per day. Paid ads are only available for business accounts and can't be bought by individual accounts. Snapchat offers several bidding types so brands can choose the best strategy for their goals.
One bidding type is goal-based bidding, which allows brands to optimize actions that they want their Snapchat audience to take. These can include installing an app, watching a video, or making a purchase. The brand will set its cost-per-action while creating the ad, and all impressions will be delivered with that goal in mind.
The second type of bidding is automated bidding, which optimizes key performance indicators — with your target audience and budget in mind, Snapchat bids on your behalf to get the most ROI, often adjusting to guarantee good results.
You can also find other traditional bidding strategies, so your Snapchat marketing strategy and ad management meet your specific needs. The cost of Snapchat ads also depends on what kind of ad campaign you choose. They currently have six ad types:
- Single image or video: Single images and videos are a great way to get started with Snapchat ads. They're full-screen ads, and you can add an attachment to encourage viewers to take action, such as visiting your website or clicking a video.
- Filters: Give some artistic flair to your ads with a filter overlay. These filters can add stylized text and images on top of your Snap and are a great way to inject personality into your stories.
- Lenses: Lenses use augmented reality to create interactive moments with your ad. Lenses can be as simple as puppy ears and flower crowns and provide a fun and silly way for viewers to interact with your brand.
- Story ads: Create an ongoing narrative with a series of ads shown to viewers between other content. You can also make a branded tile in Snapchat's Discover section containing between 3-20 images or videos.
- Product catalog ads: Snapchat product catalog ads can lead to purchases by showcasing your products or services.
- Commercials: Commercials last up to three minutes long, with viewers unable to skip until after the first six seconds. Commercials engage your audience and drive brand awareness.
Examples of successful Snapchat marketing campaigns
Snapchat marketing has had a powerful impact on brands across industries. Some of our favorites include:
- E.L.F. Cosmetics: This quirky cosmetics company targets Snapchat’s millennial and Gen Z audience to promote its skincare and makeup products. Rarely more than six seconds long, their Snapchat videos showcase their products with sass.
- Etihad Airways: During the pandemic, in a time tough on air travel, Etihad Airways focused on sharing how the airline puts hygiene and safety first. Their Snapchat marketing strategy prioritized BTS content showing measures to ensure safety for passengers and crew members.
- Taco Bell: Taco Bell increased customer visits to restaurant locations with a four-month-long Snapchat ad campaign. They used Snap and Story ads to promote new products, increasing customer spending per visit.
How to find the best Snapchat marketing agency for you
Snapchat marketing agencies can make it easy to learn to use Snapchat, create beautiful and engaging content, and analyze the results in terms of the business goals.
Look for agencies that have experience using Snapchat with a deep field knowledge of how to meet unique brand needs. There’s no “one size fits all” Snapchat marketing strategy, so you’ll want an agency that has insight into how the platform works and can apply it to your brand.
Snapchat marketing agencies can help you determine realistic Snapchat marketing goals that incorporate your existing marketing materials and create new Snapchat-specific content. Snapchat marketing agencies can help you with:
- Generating leads
- Promoting app downloads
- Promoting a video
- Increasing online sales
- Increasing in-person sales
- Promoting new products
- Increasing overall brand awareness
Features to look for in Snapchat marketing campaign software
When choosing Snapchat marketing campaign software, look for one that can integrate all your social media campaigns across different platforms. This lets you review your social media marketing activities on one dashboard to know which platforms and content bring the best results.
Seek out software that allows you to make and track your marketing goals. You may prioritize Snapchat’s five key metrics for ad campaigns:
- Reach: This is the number of viewers reached and their demographics.
- Viewability: This is the number of viewers who watched your ad.
- Resonance: This is how people feel about your ad, determined by polls.
- Reaction: This is the ad's impact on driving specific actions such as clicks or purchases.
- Verification: This is the number of times Snapchat tried to serve your ad.
Finally, look for software that enables transparent project planning and execution so everyone on your team can see what’s going on and what needs to be done.
Why use Wrike as your Snapchat marketing tool?
If you plan to use Snapchat for marketing, Wrike is the perfect marketing management software to pull all your project planning and marketing campaigns together.
Our premium project management software provides a single source of truth for your Snapchat marketing activities, making it easy for marketing team members to see what’s happening with your Snapchat account. Tasks for campaigns are streamlined, and no one is in the dark about their responsibilities.
Using Wrike as your Snapchat marketing tool, reporting is a snap (see what we did there!) with our automated reporting feature. Select the metrics you’d like to track and monitor results on one dashboard. When you create a Snap or campaign that performs well, you can easily duplicate the project to replicate success. Use Wrike marketing campaign templates to streamline your workflow and reduce rework.
Ready to start using Snapchat for marketing? Pull all your marketing activities together with Wrike’s marketing management software. Get started with a two-week free trial today.
