Have you realised the potential of Snapchat?

Posted on June 15, 2020 by Daniel Farrell

With the increasing popularity of TIKTOK it seems that some marketers have forgotten about Snapchat.

It’s not surprising as the initial Snapchat “buzz” happened in 2018, which was the same year that the app also attracted a lot of negative press due to its controversial update. However, as a digital marketing specialist for the education market, we like to look above the noise, whether positive or negative, and actually bring you reliable data and facts of what is currently working within your target audience and trust us when we say Snapchat is a platform you should include in your media strategy right now.  

Let’s talk about results:

Snapchat has evolved as an advertisement platform over the last few months especially in terms of its algorithm, as a result we have seen a significant improvement in results with a particular growth in conversions. We need to be honest, there are bits that could be polished in terms of targeting (similar to every other social media platform) but the improvement of its algorithm is evident. The conversions demonstrate that the ads are being served to a high-quality audience that truly engages with educational institutions.

Every campaign that we are currently running or that we have recently run on Snapchat achieved incredible results. It is important to understand the use of each platform and where it fits within your strategy, as well as which KPI you are using to measure its success. CTR is no longer a metric of success or at least not by itself so how can Snapchat deliver better data:

• Awareness: High traffic – Very competitive Cost Per Click CPC
• Consideration: Extremely good time spend on page which makes the cost per click even more attractive
• Conversions: This is the biggest improvement that we have seen in Snapchat. It does generate conversions and it is not surprising given the good time spent on pages

Here is some data on snapchats performance that shows why we trust the platform and wholeheartedly recommend it:

For this specific example Snapchat added great value to the campaign, with an average session duration of 3+ mins and a bounce rate of 77%. The metrics show good performance, especially when considering we were sending traffic to a landing page built for the campaign and to collect student information.

The number of conversions we see here is extremely promising, but we know in terms of overall conversion rate Snapchat is still not at the same level as core platforms such as Facebook or Google. The conversions generated are at a good rate which makes it a competitive platform. It is also a step above other platforms such as Display, YouTube and TIKTOK, especially when targeting 15 to 25-year olds.

It is important to highlight that the effectiveness of any platform and any campaign depends on additional variables that we area also able to build for you, advise and give you our support on. We help with campaign set up, relevant ad creative/copy with a clear and engaging call to action plus a good landing page that contains clear and relevant information.

How is Snapchat performing in the wider market?

To confirm Snapchat’s success in the wider market we have analysed additional statics from trusted sources like Statista to show that the platform has long recovered from the slow decline in users that we saw in 2018

The number of daily active users has increased to 229 million by Q1 2020:

The US is the largest market for Snapchat but the UK is not too far behind with a reported 18.6m users by April 2020.

Is it the right audience?

Snapchat has a very specific demographic of users. 53% of Snapchat users are 15 to 25-year olds. They were the early adopters and continue to be the primary users of the platform

If you are university or college looking for students, Snapchat should form an essential part of your marketing strategy

At Educate we have been working with clients to develop their Snapchat strategy since its inception and have gained valuable about how to effectively target their users. If you’d like to make use of this expertise, then please get in touch with us here and we’ll help you make the most of this lucrative audience