Snapchat shared advice for brands on why it’s the right ad platform for their business as the app looks to promote its unique audience reach as a key consideration for marketing budgets.
As explained by Snapchat: “[U]sing Snapchat Ads provides access to highly engaged Gen Z and Millennial audiences through immersive ad formats. The platform gives advertisers high-intent targeting and complete self-serve budget control, ensuring you only spend what you are comfortable with.”
Snapchat said its platform is great for reaching this specific audience subset, though the trade-off with Snapchat ads is that its campaigns require vertical, visual-first creative, which “is not suited for complex corporate targeting.”
This focus on specific audience reach within a younger audience cohort is not so good for service providers or bigger brands.
Snapchat added that small businesses in particular need to manage their time and budget effectively. “Small businesses often see better results when they concentrate their spending on a single, well-matched platform to gather meaningful analytics,” Snapchat said.
So SMBs aiming to reach younger audiences should use Snapchat ads. Though conversely, that also suggests that any brand not in this group may not be suited to Snapchat ads.
“Snapchat Ads represent a best-fit scenario for lifestyle e-commerce, mobile applications, and consumer brands prioritizing Gen Z and Millennials,” Snapchat said. “It is highly effective for businesses utilizing e-commerce platforms, thanks to global integrations that allow them to seamlessly manage product catalogs.”
This is logical advice, but it’s odd that Snapchat’s pitch here seems to be advising against bigger brands using Snapchat ads.
But that’s what Snapchat’s going with as the company looks to enhance its appeal to SMBs that are working on their end-of-year campaign planning.
This push also suggests that brands looking for broad reach should look to bigger platforms, and not to Snapchat, while service businesses should consider search ads instead.
This seems like counterintuitive guidance for Snapchat, which is a business that really needs to maximize its ad revenue. However, Snap is essentially looking to focus on its young audience reach as a key driver for SMB ad spend.
Snapchat is also offering a $75 ad credit when brands spend their first $50 on the platform, as another incentive to lure SMB advertisers to try Snapchat ads.
