Using the Snap Pixel

You’ve got an idea of what your audience looks like and you’ve designed an ad campaign that you feel stands a good chance of reaching them. But how will you know if your ads are effective? Without proper insights, it's like shooting in the dark.
Fear not! The Snap Pixel can shine a light on your ad performance, providing invaluable information and enabling more precise target audiences. Once implemented on your site, the Snap Pixel can help you see how well your ads are performing and whether they're driving actual results. 
Armed with that knowledge, you can then make informed decisions and optimize your campaigns to reach the people who are the most likely to take the actions you want through your website.

What is the Snap Pixel?

The Snap Pixel is a free, powerful tool Snapchat provides that helps you track the effectiveness of your ads. To utilize it, you place a piece of JavaScript code within your website that tracks the actions Snapchatters take while browsing your site.
If you have an e-commerce site that runs on Shopify or BigCommerce, or if you use the Google Tag Manager or Ensighten tag management software, click one of the preceding links to learn how to use the Snap Pixel with that solution. If you want to keep reading, you’ll also find those links at the end of this blog post.
After you install the Snap Pixel, you start gaining insights into your ad performance, such as how many people completed purchases or took other actions on your website. That data helps you understand what's working and what's not, enabling you to refine your strategies and allocate your budget more effectively.
Mobile device showing someone adding a item to their shopping cart

The Snap Pixel in Action

The Snap Pixel lets you create Custom Audiences based on user behavior, so you can target your ads to people who have already shown interest in your business. The result: You increase the chances of conversions and maximize your return on investment. (When we say “conversions,” we mean any website actions you find valuable, such as purchases, add-to-carts, page views, and so forth.)
Want to run retargeting campaigns? Let's say someone visited your website but didn't make a purchase. The Snap Pixel enables you to retarget those users with relevant ads, reminding them of what they were interested in and encouraging them to come back and complete the action.
For example, when a Snapchatter adds a product to their cart, a Snap Pixel event is triggered and reported within your ad account. This allows you to attribute conversion events — like an add-to-cart event — to your campaigns and re-engage Snapchatters who have visited or completed a similar action on your site.
As the Pixel measures more conversion events, Snapchat learns more about the types of people in your audience who are most likely to take similar actions, greatly improving your ability to unlock conversion optimization for your campaigns.
You can also create a type of Custom Audience called a Lookalike Audience, which seeks out people who are similar to the people in an existing Custom Audience. That’s a great way to help you find new customers who are similar to your best customers. In fact, there are many kinds of Custom Audiences, including Pixel Custom Audiences.
Valyou Furniture have seen an 80x return on ad spend (ROAS) by using the Snap Pixel to help increase their reach, get more sales, and reduce advertising costs.

[Advertising on] Snapchat allowed us to get in front of a highly targeted, tech-savvy e-commerce audience at a lower cost-per-action.

Eddie Castillo, Chief Marketing Officer - Valyou Furniture
How can Custom Audiences help your business?
group of people looking at their mobile devices

Benefits of Using the Snap Pixel

As we’ve seen, the Snap Pixel measures a range of actions that directly tie back to business goals like driving product views, leads, subscriptions, purchases, and more. Because the measurement takes place across multiple devices and site visits, you’re able to understand the actions Snapchatters take on their path to conversion.
To review, key benefits of installing the Snap Pixel include:
  • Measuring conversion events that matter: See all the actions that take place on your site, across all devices, and attribute conversions back to your ad campaigns to understand their true impact.
  • Reaching the perfect audience: Create Pixel Custom Audiences and Lookalike Audiences based on the specific actions Snapchatters have taken while visiting your site.
  • Optimizing campaigns to reach people most likely to take action: Use real-time insights to optimize delivery of your campaigns for results that matter most to your business.
various software application icons

How to Install the Snap Pixel

There are a few ways to enable the Snap Pixel on your website, but the most common method is to manually place the Snap Pixel in your website code on all your website’s pages.
While the setup might vary slightly, there are four key steps to installing the Snap Pixel:

Step 1: Create your Snap Pixel

Generate your Snap Pixel code within Ads Manager. For step-by-step instructions (in English), watch this video

Step 2: Set up your Snap Pixel

Implement the Snap Pixel on your website. For step-by-step instructions (in English), watch this video.

Step 3: Validate your Snap Pixel

Use the Snap Pixel Helper to verify and troubleshoot Snap Pixel implementations. For step-by-step instructions (in English), watch this video (in English). You can also use the diagnostic section of Events Manager to understand if the Snap Pixel is set up and parameters are being sent back correctly.

Step 4: Attach your Snap Pixel to campaigns and analyze data

Enable Pixel tracking in Ads Manager. For step-by-step instructions (in English), watch this video.
As you run ads, you’ll want to pay attention to your Event Quality Score (EQS). That metric indicates how effectively conversion events are being matched to our Snapchat account, using customer parameters and identity signals from your data. A higher EQS means your ads are being delivered to more Snapchat users who are more likely to take the action you want — which can help you get more conversions at a lower cost. Read our guide to learn more about the Event Quality score.
If you’re using one of the common platforms or tag management solutions below, we also offer custom integrations that make it even easier. Click any of these links to learn how to get started:
Ready to deploy your secret weapon? Learn how to install your Snap Pixel.
Or visit Events Manager and click “Setup Snap Pixel”
1 U.S. Households Have an Average of 11 Connected Devices — And 5G Should Push That Even Higher (Variety). https://variety.com/2019/digital/news/u-s-households-have-an-average-of-11-connected-devices-and-5g-should-push-that-even-higher-1203431225/