Snapchat already has a variety of advertising formats available: sponsored geofilters, sponsored lenses and Snap ads, but up until recently you needed a big advertising budget to be able to use them (you needed to invest at least $10,000 for an ad campaign on the platform)
Then, late last December, on-demand geofilters became available to everyone. We may have run some tests at the office for our Friday @ 5 meeting, and it looked like this (1st lesson, don’t put your logo on the top right as the timer will cover it):
It was pretty good fun! If you want to try it yourself (because your birthday is coming and you want your whole office to know about it or something…), follow this link.
Still, Snap ads remained out of reach for many brands. Until now, as Snapchat has just announced it is rolling out a self-served platform for Snap ads.
Just to clarify, Snap ads are short vertical videos, that can be enriched with an interactive element on swipe. (links, app install, etc.):
© Snapchat
The new ad manager is aimed at smaller brands and companies that don’t necessarily have the budgets that were previously required to run an ad campaign on Snapchat.
The very much awaited ad manager looks like this:
© Le P’tit Digital
In practice, it will let you:
- create enriched 10-second vertical video ads
- manage active ad campaigns
- track campaign results (spend, impressions, CPM, number of swipes and cost per swipe)
Up until now, a lot of brands were reluctant to use the social network for paid campaigns because of the lack of metrics, so it’s expected that Snapchat ad manager will look to match, or exceed, the data and reporting tools available on other channels.
We haven’t had a look at Snapchat’s approach to targeting yet, but if it wants to drive revenue and stand up to Facebook, it will have to be a key feature – ultimately, that is what will generate results for brands, and drive advertisers to the platform.
You will have to wait until June before you can try it for yourself, but in the meantime, you can already register here to make sure you’re the first to know when it is available.
It seems that this move will enable Snapchat to reverse the roles and start catching up on its main competitor, Facebook. However, it should hurry as Facebook has already got ahead of the game with the launch of its AR studio, which lets developers create their own Snapchat-esque selfie masks (if you missed it, you can read the blog here)
