Snapchat ads: formats, targeting and objectives to understand before you try it

A business owner searching for Snapchat ads in the UAE usually wants to know two things: what the ads look like, and whether the platform can reach the people they want. I can tell you what Snapchat says about its own product. I cannot tell you how many people in the UAE use it or what it will cost you, because I did not open a source that states either for this market, so I leave both out.

The formats Snapchat lists

On its ad formats page, Snapchat lists seven: Sponsored Snaps, which are ads sent to the Chat tab and can be replied to; Single Image or Video Ads, which appear in Stories and Spotlight and are described as recommended for new advertisers; Story Ads, a series of images or videos; Collection Ads, which showcase several products; Commercials, non-skippable ads where the first six seconds cannot be skipped; and AR Lenses and AR Filters, which are camera-based experiences. Snapchat links each format to goals such as awareness, website visits, engagement or conversion.

The objectives it lists

Snapchat's advertising page lists App Downloads, Online Sales, Lead Generation and Brand Awareness, and also lists store sales for Shopify, Zid and Salla stores. If what you want is an enquiry, Lead Generation is the closest named match. If you pick Brand Awareness, you are asking for something different, and a report built on it will not show you leads.

The targeting it lists

On its targeting page, Snapchat lists three options: standard targeting, which covers location and demographics such as age, gender and language; Custom Audiences, built from an uploaded contact list or from the Snap Pixel; and Lookalike Audiences, which find people similar to your best customers. If you sell to named job roles in companies, check whether the platform can describe them the way you do before you spend anything, because that list is the only targeting I confirmed from Snapchat.

Questions I would ask

Do you have a customer list or website visitors to build Custom Audiences from, or would you start on standard targeting? Can you produce the images or video that these formats use? Is the thing you want, an app install, an online sale or an enquiry, one of the objectives above? Can you record that result outside the platform?

If you cannot answer those yet, score the channel honestly in the paid channel picker and see how it sits against the others you are considering. The wider process is in how to shortlist two paid channels.

A word about me

This site is published by Web Marketing International FZCO, which sells PPC management. Nothing on this page says Snapchat will or will not work for you. If you want help weighing the options, you can see how I describe the work on the PPC management page of my own site, and I would ask you to weigh my view knowing that I sell it.