Three weeks ago, we talked about the difference between organic and paid social marketing. Last week, we talked about 3 distinct ways to advertise on Instagram. Today, we’re going to talk about how to advertise on Snapchat, and how advertising on Snapchat is different than advertising on other social media platforms.

How Advertising on Snapchat Works

Advertising on Snapchat is unique because, according to Peter Naylor, Vice President of Sales at Snapchat, 95% of advertising on Snapchat is auction-based. Snapchat explains Snap Auction as a Goal-Based Bidding model, “which means you will be bidding on a specific goal such as Swipe Ups, Impressions, or Shares.” From there, Snapchat will deliver your advertisements to those Snapchatters who are most likely to help you reach your goal of x amount of Swipe Ups or Y amount of Impressions.  

How to start you auction campaign

There are a few ways to go about setting up your auction-based ads on Snapchat:

1. Auto-Bidding: Auto-Bidding puts the bidding process in the hands of Snapchat; they set the bid for you based on your goals, budget, and target audience.
2. Max Bid: The Max Bid strategy lets Snapchat know the most you’re willing to spend while keeping the CPA (cost per ad) as low as possible.
3. Target Cost: The Target Cost strategy tells Snapchat that you want your average CPA to stay “at or below the amount set by the ad set end date.” Snapchat warns that this strategy might be risky if your target cost is set too low.

Other Ways to Advertise on Snapchat

There are other bidding strategies available on Snapchat such as Minimum Return on Ad Spend and Suggested Bids. Before you decide how you want to manage your ad campaign on Snapchat, though, you need to decide what type of ad you want to run. At present, there are more than 10 different types of ads that exist on Snapchat from Single Image Ads to Swipe to Call or Text Campaigns. To get started, visit Snapchat’s For Business site.