How to Run Snapchat Ads in 2026

The short version

Snapchat suits brands selling to teens and young adults with products that can be shown quickly on camera. It is usually a poor fit for B2B or long, considered sales.
Creative decides most results: full-screen 9:16 video, a hook in the first second or two, sound on with captions as backup, and one message per ad.
Set up your Public Profile and the Snap Pixel first, start with a broad audience and a controlled budget, and avoid edits while the campaign is in its exploration phase.

Snapchat is built around the camera. People open it to message friends, watch Stories and Spotlight, and play with Lenses, and Snap positions it as a place to reach teens and young adults (Snapchat for Business).

Ads there are full-screen and vertical, sit between content people chose to watch, and are usually seen with the phone in one hand. Creative made for a desktop banner or a landscape TV spot won't work.

This guide walks through running Snapchat Ads step by step: who they suit, how to set them up, and what creative works on the platform.

Who Snapchat Ads Are Right For (and Who They Aren't)

Snapchat tends to suit:

Brands whose customers are younger adults: fashion, beauty, food delivery, entertainment, gaming, events, education and consumer apps
Products that can be shown quickly on camera
Ecommerce brands with a product catalogue and a mobile-friendly checkout
Apps, where installs and in-app actions can be measured
Brands willing to make vertical video that looks like it belongs on a phone

It is usually a weaker fit when:

Your buyers are mostly older, or are businesses making a considered purchase
Your sale needs long explanation, documents or a sales call
You can't produce vertical video regularly
Your product falls into a category Snap restricts or doesn't allow, or must be age-gated

For B2B audiences, read our guide on LinkedIn Ads instead.

What You Need Before You Start

A Snapchat account and a business account in Ads Manager
A Public Profile for your brand
A payment method
Vertical 9:16 creative, ideally several short videos
A mobile landing page that loads quickly and matches the ad
The Snap Pixel on your site, and ideally the Conversions API
A clear goal, and a figure for what a customer is worth

Ad availability differs by market, and some advertising rules apply only in certain countries. Snap's policies say ads must respect the laws and cultural norms of the targeted location, that some locations have language requirements, and that Snap won't accept ads targeted to or paid for by entities in countries under US trade sanctions (Snap Advertising Policies). Check availability in your target country, and in the country your business pays from.

Step 1: Set Up Ads Manager and Your Public Profile

Go to Snapchat Ads Manager (ads.snapchat.com) and log in with a Snapchat account, or create one.
Create your business account and first ad account, and add a payment method.
Set up your Public Profile. Snap says it is created as part of the initial setup if you followed those steps; if not, you can create one from Ads Manager under Public Profiles (Snapchat for Business).
Complete the profile with a photo, bio and cover image, and link it to your ad account.
Install the Snap Pixel before your first conversion campaign.

The Public Profile is your brand's permanent home on Snapchat. Snap says you can have one Public Profile per email and username, and that it is free to create (Snapchat for Business). Your brand name on Sponsored Snaps is pulled from it, and people who engage with your profile can later be targeted as an audience.

Step 2: Choose the Objective

Snapchat Ads Manager groups objectives into five:

Awareness & Engagement: reach, video views and engagement
Traffic: send people to a website or app
Leads: collect contact details
App Promotion: installs and in-app actions
Sales: website conversions and catalogue sales

Choose by the result you need. If you want purchases, use Sales with the Pixel installed, not Traffic. Swipe-ups are not orders.

Step 3: Set Up Targeting

Snap lets you target by location (down to postal code), demographics such as age range, and predefined audiences based on interests and behaviour. Custom audiences include ad engagement, Public Profile engagement, customer lists, website events from the Snap Pixel, mobile app events and lookalikes (Snapchat for Business).

Start broader than feels comfortable. Snap's delivery system goes through an exploration phase at launch, learning who in your audience is likely to respond, and Snap recommends giving it enough time and avoiding changes early on. Narrow audiences built from stacked interests can make that harder.

If you target several countries, say the UK, Canada and Australia from a business in Pakistan, use separate ad sets per country so you can see where results come from.

Step 4: Make Vertical, Sound-On Creative

This is where most Snapchat campaigns succeed or fail.

The basics

Snap's specs for Single Image or Video ads are 9:16, 720×1280 resolution, .mp4, .mov, .jpg or .png, with a brand name of up to 25 characters and a headline of up to 34 (Snapchat for Business). Videos can be longer, but Snap's guidance has long favoured short ads: get the main message and any offer in at the start, keep it brief, and design for sound on.

What tends to work

A hook in the first second or two. People tap past quickly.
Phone-shot, person-to-camera video. Ads that look like something a Snapchatter made often feel more natural than polished studio work.
Sound with a purpose. A voice-over, a testimonial or a product demo with real audio.
Captions as backup for anyone watching silently.
One message per ad. If you have three messages, make three ads.
A clear call to action that matches the landing page.

Our content production team shoots vertical video in batches so you have enough variations to test.

Step 5: Pick the Right Ad Format

Single Image or Video: the format Snap recommends for new advertisers, shown in Stories and Spotlight placements.
Story Ads: a series of images or videos people tap through, useful for explaining a product.
Collection Ads: a main video or image with product tiles, for ecommerce.
Commercials: non-skippable for the first six seconds, shown within Snap's curated content, mainly for awareness.
Sponsored Snaps: delivered in the Chat tab, where recipients can reply.
AR Lenses and Filters: interactive camera experiences people use and share.

All of these are described with current specs on Snap's ad formats page (Snapchat for Business).

When AR is worth it

AR Lenses are the format most specific to Snapchat. They suit products people want to see on themselves or in their space, such as eyewear, make-up, trainers or furniture, and launches where you want people to play and share. Snap requires a visible logo or brand name on Face and World Lenses, and its Lens Web Builder lets you make a simple Lens from ready-made objects and animations (Snapchat for Business). For a first sales test, start with video and add AR once you know the audience responds.

Step 6: Budget and Bidding

Snap says the minimum spend is $5 a day, while recommending a higher daily amount so the ad can complete the exploration phase; check the current figure (Snapchat for Business). You can set daily and lifetime spend limits, and Snap suggests choosing a goal-based bid that matches the result you want.

For a first test:

One objective, one market and a broad audience
Three to five vertical videos testing different hooks
A fixed test period, without edits in the first few days
A budget you can afford to learn from

Our guide to how much digital marketing costs explains how to set a budget from customer value.

Step 7: Track Results With the Snap Pixel and Conversions API

Create the Snap Pixel in Events Manager and add it to your website header, either directly with the Pixel Setup Tool or through Google Tag Manager or Shopify. Check it with the Snap Pixel Helper and the Test Events tool, and watch your Event Quality Score. Snap recommends using the Conversions API alongside the Pixel to capture events the Pixel may miss (Snapchat for Business).

Then compare Snap's numbers with real orders, especially if you sell with cash on delivery. Our piece on which numbers actually matter explains why.

Advertising to a Younger Audience Responsibly

Snapchat is a 13+ app, and Snap rejects ads aimed at or likely to appeal to children under 13. Some products can't be targeted by age, gender or location, and categories such as alcohol must be age-targeted to the legal age in each country (Snap Advertising Policies). Read the policies for your category before you make creative.

Common Mistakes

Running landscape or square video made for other platforms
Putting the offer at the end, after most people have tapped away
Treating sound as optional
Targeting too narrowly and editing during the exploration phase
Running Sales campaigns without the Pixel
Launching an AR Lens before knowing whether the audience responds at all

When to Hire Help

It is worth getting help when you need a steady supply of vertical video, when tracking needs a developer, when you want to build an AR Lens, or when Snapchat is one of several channels and you need one view of results. Buzzcraft runs social media marketing and paid social for businesses in the UK, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Pakistan. If your audience is on Instagram as well, see our guide on Instagram Ads; for niche communities, see Reddit Ads.

How to Run Snapchat Ads in 2026: A Step-by-Step Guide