Here’s how to make your Snapchat Story Ads stand out

Stories have proven to be a great way for brands to effectively reach customers across social networks. They can help you regularly connect and interact with audiences both from an organic and an advertising point of view.

Snapchat is the very first network to have introduced the Story format, which they launched back in 2013. Stories are now available on a variety of other platforms like Instagram and Facebook. Twitter has even jumped on the bandwagon, recently launching their own Stories equivalent, called Fleets.

But despite the format being available across other networks, Snapchat Stories retain a lot of value for advertisers, particularly since Snapchat has a unique audience that’s difficult to reach elsewhere, and one that tends to skew young. Snapchatters also use the network as they shop and make purchasing decisions, so it can be a great place to reach customers and drive sales. Currently, Snapchat is also seeing particularly high usage rates.

Snapchat Story Ads

Story Ads on Snapchat appear as a branded tile in the Discover section of the app that opens to a collection of between 3 and 20 images or videos.

What can you do to maximize the impact of your Story Ads on Snapchat? Here are some best practices to keep in mind to make them stand out!

MAKE SURE YOUR CONTENT FITS THE PLATFORM—AND THE FORMAT

This is a good rule of thumb for any platform, but Snapchat stands out among social networks in that there are no likes, and Snapchatters tend to share content with a relatively small circle of people. They’re on Snapchat to have fun and share moments with friends, so your ads should blend with the kind of content people are sharing themselves. Get creative and design fun content that will keep users watching.

QUALITY MATTERS

On Snapchat, having attractive content can make a difference in driving performance. When designing your Story Ads, you should use videos, images, and audio that is high quality to stand out and appeal to your audience.

GET TO THE MAIN MESSAGE FAST

Snapchat users are looking through content on the platform quickly—even when it comes to organic content from their friends. That means you don’t have any time to lose in getting your brand messaging in front of your audience. The first two seconds of your Story Ads matters the most, so you should get straight to the point with your offer and your call-to-action.

KEEP IT SHORT

When it comes to Story Ads, single image or video ads can be up to 10 seconds for a total of up to 180 seconds, but the shorter the better to avoid losing your audience’s attention. We recommend keeping the length of each Snap to 5 seconds or less.

CREATE A CURIOSITY GAP

Since Story Ads can consist of up to 20 tiles, you have the opportunity to create a compelling narrative. Take advantage of this to create an interesting and cohesive story that progresses through your Snaps. If your Story Ads tell an engaging story, your audience will be curious enough to keep watching all the way to the end.

USE AUDIO

Unlike other networks, Snapchat has audio on by default, which is a great opportunity for advertisers. Make the most of it in your ads! Use music and voice overs to bring your Story Ads to life.

BUT DON’T FORGET CAPTIONS AND TITLES

Even if a majority of Snapchat users have audio on, make sure your ads work without audio so you don’t miss any opportunities. That means adding titles and captions to your creatives so your message comes across no matter what.

New on Paragone

Here at Paragone, we’re all about making sure you can drive even better results with your online ads. To help you better optimize your Snapchat Story Ads, we’ve added an exclusive feature that lets you see metrics for each individual snap in your Story Ads. Get a demo to try out our brand new feature for yourself!