Brands advertise on Snapchat through Ads Manager. They choose one of five objectives, set the audience, placements and budget in an ad set, then upload full-screen vertical ads such as Single Image or Video, Story or Collection Ads.
The steps in Ads Manager
- Choose an objective: Awareness and Engagement, Traffic, Leads, App Promotion or Sales. The objective decides which ad formats you can use.
- Build your ad sets, with audience, placements and budget.
- Create the ad, add an attachment such as Website, App Install or Deep Link, then review and publish.
Where the ads appear
Smart Placement runs ads across Snapchat, including Publisher Stories, Shows, User Stories, Spotlight, Between Content and the Discover Feed. Snapchat recommends it for scale. You can also edit placements, for example to show ads only between Friend Stories or on Spotlight. Ad sets can also deliver Sponsored Snaps in the Chat feed.
In practice
App and game advertisers usually start with the App Promotion objective and an App Install or Deep Link attachment. Snapchat recommends keeping video in Single Image or Video ads to 3 to 5 seconds, so plan short vertical cuts that show the app or gameplay in the first second. Track installs and in-app events through your mobile measurement partner, test several creatives per ad set, and judge results on retained users, not clicks.
See how we run Snapchat for apps and games on our Snapchat ads agency page.
Sources checked 4 October 2026
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