Snapchat Ads Targeting Options: Reach Your Target Audience on Snapchat

Learn how to target future and current customers to expand your reach on Snapchat.

Reach Your Target Audience on Snapchat

Advertising on Snapchat gives you the ability to connect with 238 million daily active users1. Snapchat’s targeting capabilities help you get the most out of your campaigns, so it’s important to understand how targeting on Snapchat works.  
Leveraging Snapchat’s targeting capabilities allow businesses to connect with Snapchatters based on their online and real world interests and behaviors, target Snapchatters by location, whether that’s multi-country, metros or a point radius around a specific address, and reach Snapchatters by certain demographics such as age, gender, language, device type and more. Additionally, you can layer existing customer data with behavior seen on our platform to fully leverage the power of the Snapchat audience. Below is a guide on different targeting capabilities you can use with your Snapchat campaigns to optimize your digital marketing on Snapchat. 

Reach previous customers with Snap Audience Match

Target customers using a customer list of emails, phone numbers or device IDs - reach Snapchatters who have interacted with your brand or business in the past using Snap Audience Match
  • Best for: Re-engaging customers, driving repeat purchases and customer loyalty.

Reach customers similar to existing customers with Lookalike Audiences

Expand your reach by finding Snapchat users similar to your existing customers. Lookalike Audiences identifies Snapchat users that are similar to your existing customer base on Snapchat. 
  • Best for: Increasing site traffic, boosting sales, driving new customer growth.

Target Snapchatters who have engaged with your app with Mobile App Custom Audiences

Mobile App Custom Audiences are dynamically updating audiences generated from data from your app passed back to Snapchat from your Mobile Measurement Partner (MMP), and created through Snap’s Ads Manager at the Ad Account level. 
  • Best for: Driving app installs and retargeting those who have already installed your app to open it.

Target Snapchatters who have visited your website using Pixel Custom Audiences

Target a group of high-intent Snapchatters who have engaged with your brand’s website  with a flexible lookback window with Pixel Custom Audiences.
  • Best for: Retargeting campaigns, reaching customers who are interested in your products or services. 

Retarget those who have engaged with your Snapchat Ads using Ad Engagement Audiences

An Ad Engagement Audience reaches Snapchatters who have previously engaged with your ads. Retarget Snapchatters who have swiped 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.
  • Best for: Retargeting users who have expressed interest in your Snapchat ads previously, Increasing site traffic and driving sales. 

Reach a highly targeted group with third-party custom audiences

Reach Snapchatters based on their past buying patterns or viewing behaviors. Tap into an expansive data marketplace to develop a segment for an individual campaign, objective, product, or service.  Currently available in the U.S. only.
  • Best for: Reaching a highly targeted group of Snapchatters based off of past viewing and buying patterns and behaviors. 

Snapchat Ads targeting best practices
 

Optimize your targeting with the Snap Pixel

By implementing the Snap Pixel, you can access more robust targeting capabilities to optimize your advertising campaigns with Snapchat. The Snap Pixel is a piece of code that lives in your website and provides insight into who engaged with your ad, what pages they viewed, if they added a product to their cart, and more. Implementing the Snap Pixel also unlocks additional goals you can bid towards using Snapchat’s Goal-Based Bidding within the Snap Auction.
To get started with the Snap Pixel, follow these four simple steps:
  1. Create your Snap Pixel: First, log into your Ads Manager account, select ‘Snap Pixel’ from the navigation, then select ‘Create my Snap Pixel’. For a step-by step guide on how to create a Snap Pixel, watch this video.
  2. Implement the Snap Pixel: Next, find the header tags within your website code and paste the code onto every page you want to track actions on. For a step-by step guide on how to implement your Snap Pixel, watch this video.
  3. Validate your Snap Pixel: Use the Snap Pixel Helper to verify and troubleshoot Snap Pixel implementations. For a step-by step guide on how to validate your Snap Pixel, watch this video.
  4. Analyze Pixel data: To see your Pixel data in Ads Manager, click on ‘Snap Pixel’ from the navigation. This gives you a view of the aggregate statistics and detailed dashboards from your Pixel Data. For a step-by step guide on how to analyze your Pixel data, watch this video.
For more details on the Snap Pixel and how to install it, check out this blog, The Snap Pixel: How It Works and How to Install It.
Once you have set up your Snap Pixel and verified it’s working, you are ready to fully optimize your targeting strategies within your campaigns. Depending on your business goals, you can optimize your campaigns by utilizing additional targeting capabilities on Snapchat. 
 

Test and optimize to scale up campaigns

After you have identified what audience targeting capabilities works best for your business, be sure to create templates of successful audience types with Saved Audiences. Use Saved Audiences to quickly find and apply audience templates. Optimizing your campaign targeting on Snapchat also involves testing different audience types to see what works best for your business, given your advertising goals.  
Advertising on Snapchat gives you access to millions of Snapchatters who are engaged, and ready to take action. Be sure to explore all of Snapchat's advertising targeting capabilities to inform your strategy and make the most of your advertising campaigns on Snapchat!
1 Snap Inc. internal data Q2 2019 vs. Q2 2020. See Snap Inc. public filings with the SEC.