Snapchat, founded in 2011 by Evan Spiegel, is known as a young person’s app. Why should you take this app seriously if you’re a business owner? Last quarter, Snapchat brought in $298 million in revenue. Snapchat currently has about 186 million daily active users. Snapchat earns about $1.60 per quarter in revenue per daily active user.

Like other free social media companies, Snapchat earns revenue by advertising to its user base. The average Snapchat users open the app over twenty times per day and spend about thirty minutes on the app. The daily average of total Snaps created by users is around 3 billion.

As users spend more time on computers and mobile devices each year, companies are spending more money on digital advertising. According to a recent report by MAGNA, online advertising sales now account for 51.5% of all U.S. advertising sales. Digital advertising allows companies to obtain better data on return on investment (ROI), and precise demographic targeting.

If you are a business owner over the age of 34, chances are you do not personally use Snapchat. But that’s no excuse for dismissing or not understanding the app. 85% of Snapchat’s users are between the ages of 18-34, with just 15% over the age of 34. On a given day, Snapchat reaches 41% of 18-34-year-olds in the United States.

Plenty of Snapchat users are age 25 or older, meaning they have real purchasing power. Snap’s fastest-growing demographic is 25 and up, with more than 50% of Snapchat’s new daily users coming from this group.

If you’ve never used Snapchat but want to reach Snapchatters through advertising, it can be difficult to know where to begin. Luckily you don’t need to become a Snapchat user in hopes of learning the app, because you can hire an agency who has experience in Snapchat advertising.

In this guide, I’m going to teach you everything you need to understand about Snapchat advertising and how to find the perfect Snapchat advertising agency for your needs. I’ve also combed through hundreds of websites and user reviews to bring you a top five list that has the best of the best agencies, so you don’t have to spend hours of your time comparing them.

What You Need to Know About Advertising on Snapchat

If you aren’t already a Snapchat pro, you need to begin by learning the basics about how Snapchat advertising works. Once you grasp the fundamentals of Snapchat’s advertising services, you will be better able to choose the right agency to run a successful campaign on your behalf.

What Does a Snapchat Ad Agency Do?

The best Snapchat advertising agencies bring years of experience, knowledge, and insight to help you choose which type of campaign to launch. You will set goals together, and discuss budgeting. Depending on whether you already have a marketing department, the agency may or may not assist you with branding. Then they will create a branded ad to run on the platform.

A good agency works with you to determine goals, adjust existing marketing materials for Snapchat, and adjust and optimize your ads over time to meet your goals. They will use Snapchat’s metrics as well as their tools to report results to you on a regular basis, so you can understand your return on investment (ROI) and make important decisions with confidence.

What Can a Snapchat Ad Agency Achieve for You?

A Snapchat ad agency can achieve a plethora of different marketing goals for a business. Some business owners have false assumptions about the limitations of digital advertising on Snapchat, but in reality, the platform is a great place to achieve various desirable outcomes:

• Increase in-store sales
• Increase online sales
• Promote new products
• Lead generation
• Promote your app
• Promote videos

At its core, Snapchat advertising is about forming relationships with dedicated daily active users. The platform is conducive to creativity, and a good agency will offer up their creative skill set, paired with an analysis of your needs, to create a vision together with you.

Snapchat can make it easier for users to find out about your business and share what they’ve learned. It can help you find new online or in-person customers or leads, and create deeper relationships with existing customers, improving your conversion or sales rate.

The app is also great for creating excitement and momentum around the launch of new products, services, and even apps. If you design and launch a great app, Snap is the perfect way to keep users engaged and telling the world about your app.

Precise demographic targeting on Snapchat helps to ensure that your target audience views your advertising videos, and the built-in metrics (as well as in-house ad agency tools) allow you to customize further and target the appropriate demographics, building on your success.

Options for Advertisers

Snapchat offers different options for advertisers, so another reason you probably want to go with an agency is that the various options can get a little bit overwhelming. There are three main types of ads:

• Snapchat Ads
• Lenses
• Sponsored Geofilters

All Snapchat advertising is interactive to varying degrees.

With Snapchat Ads, advertisers get to decide between Web View (also known as interactive Discover Ads), Long-Form Video (used to drive traffic to trailers, for instance), Articles, and App Install (a short video with a call-to-action to install an application at the end).

Snapchat Lenses are a perfect example of Snapchat’s innovation. Users taking selfies use lenses a LOT. They are a visual overlay of an image or animation that shows up on the phone screen of anyone viewing an image, and they have shown excellent results for increasing brand awareness and purchase intent. Snapchat Lenses can reach about 16 million users per day.

Geofilters are similar to lenses but linked to a specific place or cause. If you run a restaurant, for example, an ad agency could create a geofilter campaign to help promote brand loyalty among existing customers when they visit and increase brand awareness among their friends. National delivery campaigns have resulted in exposure to 40-60% of daily users!

3V

Snapchat’s 3V philosophy, or “Vertical Video Views,” is another feature that sets it apart from other social media platforms. Because most users capture and view the video in a vertical or portrait (as opposed to conventional horizontal or landscape) orientation, Snapchat has embraced this tendency and applied it to advertising.

Native Snapchat ads are vertical-made and mobile exclusive, filling up the whole device screen. Short video ads are perfect for telling your company’s story. The ads are always full-screen with the sound on, and Snapchat’s internal studies show that vertical ads perform up to nine times better than traditional mobile video ads!

3V means your company probably can’t use its existing videos for Snapchat advertising, but a good Snapchat advertising agency will set you up with everything you need to understand and meet Snapchat’s unique creative requirements for future ad video submissions.

Ad Pricing

Snapchat offers advertisers daily, weekly, and annual rates and their minimum daily spend budget is $100 to get on the platform.

Snapchat uses a pricing approach called goal-based bidding (GBB). The pricing structure varies depending on what type of ad you purchase (Web View, Long-Form Video, App Install, Article, Lenses, or Geofilters).

Goal-based bidding is offered by cost-per-thousand, which is called “CPM” for short. You can place CPM bids for swipes (which are like clicks), impressions, or app installs depending on the type of ad. The CPM price will vary with different kinds of advertising and different user actions.

You can also purchase each type of ad several different places: from Snap Ad Manager, Snap Ads API partners, the ad auction, or direct from Snapchat via an Insertion Order. If you hire a professional Snapchat advertising agency, they’ll help you decide the best strategy to use, and the best place to buy your ads.

Demographics, Targeting, and Metrics

Snapchat features excellent built-in demographic insights and targeting techniques, which makes it a capable platform for precisely targeting your advertising to the appropriate user and getting a good ROI.

Here are some ways Snapchat allows you to target user demographics:

• Interests – Snapchat has 60+ interest categories including topics like festivals, news, politics, and parenting, all based on users’ actions on the app
• Classic demographics – based on factors like name, age, language, household income, and education
• Location
• Device Attributes – device, OS, carrier, and network
• Snap Audience Match (SAM) – Create a custom list, discover a new audience similar to your current audience, a list of all customers who have engaged with your content, and more.

An agency that specializes in Snapchat will know the ins and outs of running a targeted Snapchat campaign with these built-in features and pass the savings on to you, the advertiser.

Snapchat’s metrics allow for instant feedback on the effectiveness of an ad campaign. An agency will share these metrics with you, and work with you to apply the valuable lessons contained within the data.

There are five significant metrics Snapchat uses to verify your ads’ effectiveness:

• Reach – users reached by the ad, and their demographics
• Viewability – the number of users who have viewed your ad
• Resonance – information on people’s thoughts and feelings about your brand derived from Snapchat and partner polls
• Reaction – the impact of the ad on driving purchases or other actions
• Verification – the number of times Snapchat has attempted to serve your ad

With dozens of ways to target demographics and numerous ways to verify the effectiveness of an ad campaign, Snapchat can be a treasure trove for advertising just like Facebook advertising or a complicated nightmare, depending on your comfort level with the platform.

Instead of trying to learn from the ground up, most businesses looking to advertise on Snapchat or advertise on Twitter should choose from among the top ad agencies that specialize in Snapchat.

Top FIVE Snapchat Advertising Agencies

Take the guesswork and anxiety out of winning customers on Snapchat by going with a proven ad agency. If you haven’t already gotten an idea of what you want out of an agency from the previous sections, here are our top picks.

#1 Firebelly Marketing

Firebelly Marketing is a social media marketing agency initially founded in 2007 in Indianapolis, IN. Their singular mission is making brands more likable and profitable via social media. Firebelly is our top pick for Snapchat advertising; they offer social media audits, social media management, ad management, blogging, community management, and influencer marketing.

The marketing director of a rug and furniture company hired Firebelly to increase the growth of their audience. Their customer base and traffic grew throughout the social media campaign, and Firebelly was able to deal with any conflicts that arose. The client was impressed with the way Firebelly exceeded expectations in a tight and competitive market.

Firebelly is the 2018 winner of Sprout Social’s distinguished CULTIVATE award for going above and beyond in providing excellent social media services to clients. They aren’t cheap, but their premium services are of great value.

#2 Media Bounty

Hailing from London, Media Bounty is the U.K.’s leading social media marketing agency. They focus on long-term growth through deep insights, outstanding strategies, and “kick-ass creative.” Media Bounty only works with bigger companies with an ad buy budget of at least $10,000 per month.

The marketing manager of Cellar Trends, a beverage distributor company, hired Media Bounty for SMM and digital branding. They say that the “number of video views has increased markedly since Media Bounty was first engaged” and find the team’s exceptional understanding of marketing technology to be “a hallmark of their high-quality work.”

Media Bounty isn’t an inexpensive agency, but they regularly handle campaigns in the millions of dollars, so you know they’ll bring a winning perspective to meet your advertising needs. They have received three awards from The Drum’s Recommended Agency Register, and two awards from RAR Digital Awards.

#3 Viral in Nature

Viral in Nature, based in Calgary, Canada, is multiple award-winning ad agencies entirely focused on SMM. Three different market research companies have selected Viral in Nature as one of the top social media and agencies in the world.

The owner of an outdoors lifestyle brand hired Viral in Nature to increase his company’s social media presence. The agency oversaw social media campaigns and created relevant video content. The owner says Viral in Nature were excellent listeners, and the campaign went smoothly with excellent results.

If you run a smaller company with a tight budget, Viral in Nature is a good choice. Their relatively low cost per hour makes them attractive for smaller organizations, and they will bring you a good return on your investment.

#4 AdvertiseMint

Based in Hollywood, CA, AdvertiseMint is another agency that focuses exclusively on social media marketing. Depending on whether you have other needs, that could be a pro or a con. Some companies choose to merge their Snapchat advertising into their overall marketing campaign, but others benefit from allowing an SMM specialist to manage their social channels (Instagram, Facebook, Google Ads).

If you need a new perspective on digital marketing via Snapchat or need a campaign rolled out ASAP, you can’t go wrong with AdvertiseMint. They pride themselves on their agility and fast-paced ad campaigns.

#5 i76 Solutions

When i76 Solutions began as a digital marketing shop in Philadelphia, PA they were tightly focused on strategy, execution, and analytics. They later grew into a full-service marketing agency that delivers their customers results in all areas of marketing, but they maintain a strong focus on digital marketing and social media marketing.

AAA Mid-Atlantic, a car insurance and emergency roadside assistance provider, ran a seven-figure campaign with i76 Solutions. Within six months, they had earned significant upticks in brand awareness and membership rates. AAA says that the i76 team was “innovative, detail-oriented, and knowledgeable.”

I76 is a top marketing agency in Philadelphia. Their skilled team of designers and developers can work with you on every aspect of the digital process.

Wrapping Up

In the world of Snapchat advertising, the learning curve is long, but you shouldn’t let that discourage you from targeting customers through the platform. Unlike the old days of digital marketing when a company could handle everything in-house, the current climate dictates that it is wiser to delegate.

If you are willing to look for an agency outside your company to run your Snapchat advertising campaign, you can reap all the rewards offered by Snapchat: innovative features, relationship-building with a loyal user base, precise demographic targeting, extensive metrics, and enough options to suit nearly any type of advertiser.

If you’re having trouble deciding which agency to go with, we recommend Firebelly Marketing as the overall top pick. They’ve been around a while, but they know how to adapt to new trends. Because they focus exclusively on social media marketing, Firebelly brings the depth of knowledge you’ll require to run a successful Snapchat campaign.

Advertising Guides

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Best Snapchat Advertising Agencies
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If you are interested in online advertising, it pays to understand and consider Google AdWords. Google earned over $95 billion (approximately 86% of its revenue) from advertising last year because their pay-per-click (PPC) advertising model is highly effective. Whether you are an entrepreneur who’s just starting or have millions to spend on advertising each month, you need to have AdWords on your radar.

If you’re already proficient at online advertising and promotion, you may be able to learn AdWords on your own or hire a suitable employee. Some people run their paid search strategy in-house.

But most business owners and managers already have their hands full with running a successful business or even already using a Facebook advertising agency, and the complexity and long learning curve of AdWords are obstacles to successful PPC campaigns.

Big and small businesses often choose to hire a professional agency to assist with implementing and running an AdWords campaign. Hiring or training one employee may be less cost-effective than going outside your company.

A PPC agency that specializes in Google AdWords can provide you with valuable advice, devise short- and long-term strategies, and save you time and money navigating the world of pay-per-click advertising.

Unfortunately, when it comes to choosing an agency to assist with AdWords, beginners may find it difficult to select the right agency – or even to understand what the differences are between one PPC agency and another. There are hundreds of agencies out there, but unless you know a thing or two about AdWords, it’s hard to choose the right one.

I’ve put this guide together to make your life easier. I’ve compiled the most important facts to consider when choosing an AdWords agency, so you can learn the basics without putting in hours of research. I’ve also combed websites and read hundreds of reviews of different providers to bring you the best of the best in the world of AdWords agencies.

What You Need to Know About Google AdWords

Before you hire an agency, you need to understand some of the basics of Google AdWords. The whole point of hiring an agency is for you to focus on the things you’re good at, but without a basic understanding of AdWords, you won’t be able to find the right agency for your business.

Hire an Agency Experienced in Your Industry

You may encounter dozens or hundreds of different AdWords agencies as you search for the perfect match. Here’s a simple test to narrow that number down: does a given agency have experience in your industry? If so, they’ll know norms and benchmarks like typical cost per click (CPC) and return on investment (ROI) for your specific niche.

You don’t need someone with direct experience in your precise area of focus; experience in a similar area works, too. For example, if you sell and install vinyl siding, an AdWords agency that’s worked with a roofing contractor would probably be a good match.

Before you hire an agency, be sure to check if they’re more experienced with sales as a service (SaaS), lead generation, mobile marketing, e-commerce or Instagram marketing. Even if the agency is the best in the world at lead generation, if you need PPC management for an e-commerce business, you may need to look elsewhere.

AdWords Certified and Google Partners

At a minimum, you want a firm that’s AdWords certified and part of the Google Partners program. That isn’t the only relevant criterion in selecting a provider; it’s a relatively low bar, so anyone who doesn’t have these credentials should be ruled out automatically.

Any agency that’s AdWords certified has passed certification exams and must maintain a minimum monthly AdWords expenditure of $10,000. If an agency has this certification, you can know they have some level of competence. Google Partners get inside tips from Google as well as beta-testing opportunities, both of which can provide your business with a competitive edge.

Hire a Multidisciplinary or Networked Agency

For best results, you need to hire an agency with a multidisciplinary team, or one that has established connections with other high-powered specialists. Pay-per-click (PPC) is a huge part of advertising for many businesses, but it’s not a standalone proposition.

If you hire a PPC specialist, you’re also going to need to track conversions, design a landing page, probably engage in email marketing or e-commerce design, and the list goes on.

If you hire a multidisciplinary agency, you’ll save money through sheer efficiency as opposed to hiring multiple contractors. If you don’t, you’ll face some of the same downsides you would have faced going with the do-it-yourself approach: juggling vendors and trying to coordinate the AdWords project when you’d prefer to be managing other facets of your business.

Different Agencies Have Different Pricing Models

The PPC advertising industry has multiple pricing models that will determine how an agency gets paid. Here are the most popular models:

• Hourly
• Percentage of ad spend
• Performance-based
• Milestone-based

Hourly is the most common pricing model, and also the most straightforward. It’s easy to understand what you’re paying, and therefore the hourly pricing model is attractive to small businesses with low budgets who are interested in keeping PPC advertising costs manageable.

Percentage of ad spend is the second-most common pricing model among AdWords agencies. With the percentage of ad spend, you will typically pay the agency between 15-30% of your total PPC expenditure.

Percentage of ad spend is an excellent choice if you want to stick with a set budget, and let the agency take care of the rest. If your business is large or if you have plans to scale, you can get better deals with the percentage of ad spend.

Performance-based pricing is similar to a sales commission for the agency. They get paid based on a predetermined performance metric like impressions, clicks, conversions, or revenue from ads.

The best part about performance-based pricing is that you know the agency will work hard to give you results. Some agencies combine performance-based pricing with a base rate or minimum rate per month.

Milestone-based pricing is similar to performance-based pricing, but it is based on agreed-upon medium- and long-term goals. Companies that offer milestone-based pricing will typically require longer-term contracts and have a detailed approach to onboarding you and understanding your company’s needs.

Is There a Contract?

Some AdWords agencies require contracts, and others don’t. This decision is best left to your gut instinct and personal preference. If you own a small business and want to test the waters of AdWords advertising, you may be more comfortable with a month-to-month commitment. That way, the agency has to earn your repeat business each month.

Not all contracts are created equal. If you get involved with a contract-based agency, make sure the arrangement suits your needs. If you know you want to commit to PPC advertising, you may be attracted to performance-based or milestone-based pricing with a detailed long-term contract that benefits both parties.

Ad Rank = Quality Score x CPC Bid

“Pay per click” sounds simple and easy, but there is more to running an AdWords campaign than just paying for clicks or conversions! Google computes your actual ad rank from the CPC (cost per click) bid and Quality Score.

For AdWords, you want the highest possible ad ranking and the lowest possible cost per click bid (CPC bid). That means you need a high “Quality Score.” The Quality Score is Google’s hidden metric that takes into account your click-through rate per 1000 impressions or views, time spent on page by customers, and more.

A good AdWords agency can help you with all of this, meaning you can save money buying clicks if you hire a professional rather than do it yourself.

Don’t Neglect Organic SEO

According to Clutch’s 2018 Small Business survey, 45% of small businesses invest in pay-per-click advertising. Of those that do invest in PPC, 90% also use organic search engine optimization (SEO) strategies.

You will get a better return on investment (ROI) by spending your advertising money on PPC and SEO together, and even coordinating your strategies (for example, applying lessons learned from PPC campaigns to your SEO approach).

PPC is an excellent choice for short-term return and a wise way to direct your growing revenue to accelerate growth further, while organic SEO is an essential long-term strategy if you want to become an online leader in your industry.

Track ROI

Any good AdWords agency will track all sorts of variables for you like cumulative ad spends, quality score, conversions, impressions, and cost per click. But you must not neglect the most important outcome of all: return on investment!

If you are getting a positive ROI, you can learn from your success to get even more revenue. If you aren’t getting a positive ROI, it’s important to know so you can stop wasting money and fix the problems.

To track your ROI, you need to keep a record of every single cent you put into AdWords and PPC advertising, including costs other than ad spend. You also need to use tools that allow you to see data like cumulative sales from advertising leads or e-commerce clicks, or ensure that the agents you’re working with show you that data.

Some agencies will help you track ROI, but you need to discuss this up front.

Top FIVE Best Google AdWords Advertising Agencies

Here are our top five picks, narrowed down from thousands of listings and hundreds of user reviews.

#1 Disruptive Advertising

Founded in 2011, Disruptive Advertising is an industry leader in PPC advertising and Google AdWords. They are industry pioneers in A/B testing, scaling, geo-targeting, and other revenue-building tweaks that can improve your ROI. Disruptive is known for working with businesses of all sizes, from nationally-known retailers to companies with relatively low monthly advertising budgets.

Ryan A. says he appreciates Disruptive Advertising’s proven systems and the way everyone he’s worked with has been on the same page. Since he switched to Disruptive a few months ago, his sales are at record highs, and his overall costs – including the agency fee – have come down. He says he cringes when he sees the missed opportunity in not beginning work with Disruptive sooner.

Some clients reported that their account was repeatedly moved from one client manager to another as Disruptive was recently reorganizing, but Disruptive has since resolved this situation. They deserve their reputation as perfectionists.

#2 Ignite Visibility

Ignite Visibility is an online marketing agency based in San Diego, CA, founded in 2012. They specialize in pay-per-click, website design, web development, social media marketing, and viral marketing.

One of Ignite Visibility’s clients, the Chief Marketing Officer for a boutique cosmetic company, says that the agency helped the company meet its goal of sales conversions. Ignite visibility used a strategy that combined PPC digital marketing, content creation, social media, and organic SEO. The client was particularly happy with the high-quality reports that Ignite generated throughout the campaign.

Ignite’s main selling points are their versatility, excellent communication, and reporting.

#3 AdVenture Media

AdVenture media belongs to a small and exclusive group of Premier Google Partner agencies. They were awarded that credential because they have produced outstanding results for their clients. AdVenture is 90% PPC-focused, and as one of New York city’s fastest-growing PPC ad agencies, they currently manage over $50 million in advertising budgets.

The director of marketing for a medical oxygen group reports that under the management of AdVenture, the company’s ad spend has decreased while the number of leads has stayed constant. He says their clear communication, quality deliverables, and excellent results justify the investment.

AdVenture’s online marketing educational content has reached over 900,000 students and is worth checking out if you want to learn more about digital advertising.

#4 Loud Mouth Media

Loud Mouth Media is a top-ranked pay-per-click agency in the UK and is also a Premier Google Partner agency. They have offices in Belfast, Dublin, and Glasgow. The agency provides a fully-managed digital marketing service that is 70% focused on PPC. They earned awards for “Best Small PPC Agency in the UK” two years in a row at the 2017 and 2018 UK Search Awards.

An online clothing store manager who approached Loud Mouth with a limited budget says business is growing and website traffic is on the rise. She says Loud Mouth Media went above and beyond to accomplish all goals, and is a reliable partner.

Loud Mouth is a good choice for an all-in-one solution if you want to combine your PPC strategy and organic SEO, as I recommended earlier.

#5 CPC Strategy

The appropriately-named CPC Strategy agency is 100% focused on providing pay-per-click services. In particular, they focus on e-commerce and PPC for various retail channels.

The owner of a retailer specializing in cooling products says that CPC Strategy has increased the number of customers and revenue per customer, and is an excellent deal.

They excel in responsiveness and are always available, providing answers to his important questions immediately. He appreciates their transparency of operations and extensive experience.

CPC Strategy is our top pick for a Google AdWords agency if you run an e-commerce business and check if they can also do Amazon advertising.

Wrapping Up

Whether you’re an entrepreneur running a brand-new startup or the CEO of a high-revenue established company, you can benefit from hiring the right AdWords agency to handle PPC advertising for you.

Look for a multidisciplinary agency with specific experience in your niche. Consider what pricing model best suits you, and whether or not you’d like to enter into a contract. Be sure to track your return on investment so you can be confident your dollars are being put to work properly.

If you haven’t already settled on an AdWords agency check out our top pick, Disruptive Marketing. They have the perfect blend of experience, innovation, reliability, and scalability to work well for almost any size or type of online business.

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