Snapchat advertising launches in India. Should advertisers jump in?

Based on thorough insights and statistics, the article explores if Indian brands should dive head first in Snapchat Advertising

Short answer;

If your product/service appeals to the urban 13-34 year old then you must, otherwise, you can wait, for now.

Examples-

1. Dating apps, online grocery, electronics, education products, gaming products should totally do it.
2. Real estate, Investment companies, pension funds, golf courses maybe should wait.

You get the point, Urban, young - Hell yes!; everyone else - Not so much.

Long answer below;

Why advertise on Snapchat? Because it still commands a lot of attention.

1. An average Snapchatter spends about 25-30 mins using the app daily.
2. More importantly, 60% of them are creating new stories rather than consuming their friends stories, the content creation on Facebook is dropped while consumption has gone down.
3. An average Snapchatter opens the app more than 18 times a day.

Those are impressive figures after Instagram copied them and delivered a punch to the gut.

Snapchat India Statistics

1. Total advertisable audience size in India is 7,050,000. The United States is at 92M.
2. 2,475,000 males and 2,025,000 females. Snapchat couldn't determine gender for the rest.
3. One in every 4th user on Snapchat is on iOS.
4. 94% of users are between 13-34.
5. The 18-20 age category is the most populated with 1.75M people.
6. The audience is highly urban and has high disposable income.

The population of Snapchat users in the Indian States.

Only state level targeting is available for now, city and pin code targeting would be available in India soon.

Note - Treat the below data as relative because as the number of Snapchat users grow these numbers would change

How are Snapchat ads different from Facebook or Insta ads?

1. Two-thirds of all Snap ads play with audio on
2. Truly vertical video format optimised only for the phone
3. 5x swipe up rate vs average CTR on comparable platforms
4. Audio on by default, this is a big upside against Facebook where most ads have audio off.
5. 100% native, no browser, preloaded mobile websites, instantaneous use leading to an 80% lift in on-site time
6. App Install ads actually install the app in the background without leaving Snapchat

What are the advertising options?

Snapchat has the following three advertising options. Out of these three Lenses and Filters are not yet available in India, only Snap ads are available. Snap ads are not yet out on a self serve model in India so you have to contact a Snapchat Agency to run the ads.

Ad Objectives available in India

Targeting Options available in India

1. Age targeting

13-17

18-20

21-24

25-34

35+

2. Languages - Major languages of the world, hindi not available

3. Custom audiences - upload the email IDs of people you want to target

4. OS - Android, iOS

5. Device make - The exact phone you want to target

6. Gender - Male, female or both

7. Interests - Similar to Facebook but not too accurate I believe. How would Snapchat know if I am interested in entrepreneurship if that sort of content is not consumed by me on Snapchat?

Hope this information gives you an understanding of the ad formats and options available.

The article is authored by Syed Mamoon Hasan, CEO,  A&B - Digital Marketing Agency.