How to Reach the Right People on Snapchat

Create targeted ads to reach new and current customers on Snapchat — the place where you’ll find 9 out of 10 young people.¹

Create Account

Start With What You Know About Your Customers

Think about who your current customers are and add these details when you create your ad.

Locations

Cities, states, countries, and postal codes

Demographics

Age range, gender, education, income, and marital and parental status

Predefined Audiences

What your customers like to do, where they like to go, and where they shop

Pro Tip

Create and save audiences to build campaigns faster.

Use the Audience Insights tool to create and save an audience based on those details. It has advanced settings, too.

Get More Specific By Adding Unique Data

Add Custom Audiences with more details about who you want to reach.

Ad Engagement audiences

Target people who’ve engaged with your Snapchat ads. Take advantage of the data from your ad account, a campaign, or an ad set.

Profile Engagement audiences

Reach people who’ve engaged with your Public Profile and organic content. You can target all profile subscribers or focus on people who’ve taken at least one action.

Customer List audiences

Connect with your current customers by finding them on Snapchat. Use data from your uploaded customer list to match it with people on Snapchat.

Website Events audiences

Reach people who’ve taken specific actions on your website, like adding an item to their cart. Use your Snap Pixel data to create an audience.

Mobile App Events audiences

Target people based on certain actions they’ve taken, like installing your app. Start by learning how to create a Mobile App Events audience.

Lookalike audiences

Reach customers who are similar to your current customers on Snapchat. Use the data from your uploaded customer list, your Snap Pixel, or a third-party audience.

Create an Audience

Reach the Right People in Your Audience

Set your goal. We’ll find people who are the most likely to take action.

Get Purchases

City Boutique uses a Website Events audience to reach people who are most likely to make a purchase on their website.

Collect Leads

This cleaning service uses broad local targeting to reach people who are most likely to visit their website and fill out a lead form.

Pro Tip

Give the ad delivery system enough time to maximize your results.

Run your ad for at least 15 days to get the best results from the exploration phase.

When you launch your ad, the delivery system starts learning how to identify people in your audience who will be receptive to your ad. Then it finds more people like them. This exploration phase will help you reach the right people.

Create an Ad

“We’ve been able to reach a younger demographic on the platform, which we see as a core audience of our brand.”

Richie Mashiko, Head of Growth, She’s Birdie

Frequently Asked Questions

Who’s the target audience for Snapchat ads?

Nine out of 10 teens and young adults (ages 13–24) are on Snapchat.¹ That makes targeted Snapchat ads ideal for reaching young people.

You won’t find many of those young people on other social media networks. A majority of daily Snapchat users ages 16 and older don’t use Twitter every day, and nearly half of them don’t use TikTok either.²

Creating targeted Snapchat ads will help you reach younger customers and get leads, online purchases, app installs, and more.

Can I find new and current customers on Snapchat?

Yes. All six types of Custom Audiences can be used to find new and current customers, but some of them are better for one purpose or the other.

Ad Engagement, Profile Engagement and Lookalike audiences are useful if you want to gain new customers.

Ad Engagement audiences help you retarget people who’ve engaged with your Snapchat ads. These audiences include people who’ve shown interest by swiping up on an image or video ad, viewed a full video ad, opened a story ad, shared or saved a lens or filter, or were served a paid impression.
Profile Engagement audiences are for targeting people who’ve engaged with your Public Profile’s organic content — any free content you’ve shared, including posts, videos, and stories. You can use these audiences to target people who’ve viewed your profile, viewed a story, viewed or played a profile lens, viewed a spotlight, or subscribed or unsubscribed in a certain period of time.
Lookalike Audiences help you reach customers who are similar to the people in any of your other Custom Audiences. You can create three types of Lookalike audience with different focuses:
- High similarity (a smaller audience that has the closest resemblance to your current customers)
- Wide reach (a larger audience that has the broadest resemblance to your current customers)
- Balance (a midsize audience that balances resemblance and reach)

Customer List, Website Events, and Mobile App Events audiences are useful if you’re trying to reach current customers.

Customer List audiences help you connect with your current customers by finding them on Snapchat. For example, you could target customers who haven’t made a purchase in a while or tell customers about new products they might be interested in.
Website Events audiences help you reach people who have taken specific actions on your website. For example, you could target people who added an item to their cart but didn’t complete the checkout process. Or you could target people who visited certain product pages.
Mobile App Events audiences help you target people based on certain actions they’ve taken. For example, you could target people who’ve just installed your app or opened it for the first time.

How can I be sure that my ad will be shown to the right people in my audience?

When you launch your ad, the delivery system will enter an exploration phase — the first step in a process that helps you reach the right people in your audience.

This phase uses machine learning to explore ways to optimize delivery based on your unique criteria. This is how it finds the people who are most likely to take action, based on the objective and the goal-based bidding you chose.

Reach people who are interested in your business on Snapchat.

Create an Ad

¹90% of 13-to-24-year-olds in 20+ countries. Snap Inc. internal data Q2 2022. Penetration calculated as MAU divided by 2021 population estimates, per United Nations World Population Prospects, 2022.

²Source: GWI Q1 and Q2 2022. Sample Size: 11,147 Snapchatters aged 16–64 who use the platform daily. Market: USA.