Introducing Catalog-Powered AR Shopping Lenses

Catalog-Powered Shopping Lenses have launched on Snapchat, combining the scale and efficiency of commerce catalogs with the personalization and performance of AR.

Starting today, brands can connect their Product Catalogs to their AR Lens experiences on Snapchat. Our new Shopping Lens format combines the scale and efficiency of commerce catalogs with the personalization and performance of AR try-on and product visualization, resulting in a powerful AR experience built to present multiple products from a Product Catalog in a single Lens. Shopping Lenses dynamically pull in product-level information — such as product name and price — from a Product Catalog and visually present this information in new Lens Product Cards on-screen. 

Shopping Lenses are specifically designed to offer Snapchatters a way to seamlessly interact with, try on, and click to purchase multiple products in a single Lens by simply swiping through the Lens Product Cards — a new user interface built just for shopping.  And for businesses, Shopping Lenses are driving scale, efficiency, and performance for their key consideration and conversion KPIs.

A brand’s Product Catalog is the foundation of its digital commerce presence. Through catalog standardization, brands can enable dynamic and scalable experiences across digital channels and advertising campaigns. However, this type of standardization means the product catalog optimizes toward “sameness.”

Regardless of the shopper, products are displayed in the same way, with the same set of model photos and the same descriptions. But, not all shoppers are the same. 

Through augmented reality, products are automatically personalized to the individual shopper — overlaid on their face, their body, their world. And this personalization is driving incredible results, helping shoppers more easily make decisions online while having fun and feeling confident in their decision. In fact, Snapchatters who experience a shoppable AR Lens are 2.4 times more likely to purchase than those who do not.¹ And Lenses have proven to drive a +14% higher share of incremental sales contribution than video.²

Shopping Lenses present near-real-time information pulled directly from a brand’s Product Catalog. If the Product Catalog is updated through a feed or manual file update, the Shopping Lens will read this updated information and automatically present it in the Lens. For example, if a brand’s product has a new price or is out of stock, there is no need to pause the Lens to update it — it will be automatically reflected in the Shopping Lens.

Present multiple products in AR, each with a corresponding URL to purchase: Previously, Lenses only supported a single attachment URL. Shopping Lenses allow Snapchatters to interact with or try on multiple products, each with their own Lens Product Card, which links out to the associated product URL from the Product Catalog.

Review SKU-level engagement for multiple products: Easily review advertising campaign metrics in the Manage Ads Table or check out organic engagement for your Public Profile. 

Log in to your business account and create a Product Catalog by navigating to the ‘Catalogs’ section of the main navigation drop-down. Follow these instructions to set up your catalog. Not currently advertising with us? No problem! Follow these instructions to create your free business account and create a Public Profile by following these easy steps

There are two ways to create a Shopping Lens — Lens Studio or Lens Web Builder. Choose the best path based on your unique business needs. 

Lens Studio is Snap’s free desktop app for AR creation. This is an advanced and technical software tool that requires knowledge of 3D creation. With our new Shopping Module for Lens Studio, any type of product can be visualized in AR and integrated into your Product Catalog. From visualizing a new car in the driveway to trying on the latest pair of sunglasses, anything is possible with Lens Studio. Check out our detailed guides for building Shopping Lenses in Lens Studio here.

Need to create or optimize 3D models of your products? Vertebrae, Snap’s latest product offering for creating and managing your 3D assets across platform, is available for businesses to scale their always-on AR efforts. Find out more information and contact the Vertebrae team here. 

Need help creating in Lens Studio? Connect with top AR creators in the Creator Marketplace to find an expert who can help you build a custom AR Shopping Lens. 

Lens Web Builder is Snap’s free AR creation web-hosted tool that is available via your business manager account. Lens Web Builder does not require any knowledge of 3D assets and lets you create a Shopping Lens for makeup try-ons in just a few minutes! Learn more about Lens Web Builder here. 

Please note: At this time, only makeup try-on Shopping Lenses can be built using Lens Web Builder. If you want to build a Shopping Lens for a different product vertical, please use the Lens Studio approach.

After creating a Shopping Lens, businesses can pay to promote their Lens using any of Snapchat’s self-serve buying methods. From Reach and Frequency to Auction, Lenses can be distributed in a way that’s both cost-efficient and optimized to meet your goals. If the goal is web conversion, we recommend Pixel Purchase for Shopping Lens campaigns.

Sponsoring a Shopping Lens is available to all customers with a business account and Product Catalog. Please contact your Snapchat account team to request access to our beta program to enable organic distribution of your Shopping Lenses via Public Profiles.

Snapchatters play with AR Lenses more than 6 billion times per day, on average.¹ Augmented reality is already a part of their daily lives.  Businesses investing in building AR Lens experiences are capturing the scale and performance that the camera drives for their brand. For more information on how to create Shopping Lenses, click here. And check out these early success stories here.