1st Snapchat Ad Is Here, When Can We Expect to Buy?

Snap. Snap. Ad. Snap.

So it goes with the new face of Snapchat, the rocket-fueled social platform where 400 million photos are shared per day. With a $10 billion valuation, Snapchat’s day for advertising has been a long time coming. This past Saturday, the first official Snapchat ad – a trailer for upcoming horror film Ouija – was released to the platform’s users, who primarily consist of the 13-17 year old demographic (the movie’s target audience). You can watch the ad as a GIF here.

Advertising On Snapchat – When? Where? How?

Naturally, many marketers want to know when advertising on Snapchat will open up to a wider audience. For now, the answer remains unknown. In fact, the Snapchat leadership team, themselves, may very well be undecided. It’s most likely that we’ll see advertising capability trickled out to engaging, high-influence brands who are already using the platform organically, including brands like Taco Bell.

Once these brands work through some of the kinks of pulling results out of an entirely new advertising platform, we may see a broader rollout. Remember that it was approximately one year ago that Instagram introduced advertising, and these options are still only limited to a very select pool of advertisers (with costs ranging from several hundred thousand to one million dollars per month).

Snapchat Advertising For Everyone Else

So, if you aren’t invited to advertise with Snapchat – or don’t have an extra six-figures hanging around in your marketing budget! – how can you take advantage of the platform? For starters, create an account for your brand. Because Snapchat doesn’t offer much of a “discover” function (like Instagram), you need to let potential fans know through another medium (such as Twitter) that you’re using Snapchat.

Motivate people to “friend” your brand by making an exclusive offer for the first 100 users. What types of content should you share? Special behind-the-scenes shots and coupons work well, as do some types of content suggested here.

As for metrics… Snapchat doesn’t have much to offer in this department. So, while Snapchat is highly unlikely to be your primary advertising platform, it does offer unique opportunities for brands wishing to experiment and reach Millennials.

Have you used Snapchat for your brand? We’d like to hear about your experience. Feel free to share what you learned in the comments below.