How to Advertise on Snapchat in the UK: A Small Business Guide
Updated: 5 days ago
TL;DR: Snapchat is a low-cost way for UK businesses to reach a young, mobile, hard-to-find audience. Snap's own ad tools reach around 23.9 million people in the UK; you can launch full-screen Snap Ads from roughly £5 a day in Snapchat Ads Manager, target by age, location and interests, and measure sales with the Snap Pixel. It works best for consumer brands selling to the under-35s with native, vertical video.
Why Snapchat still belongs in your media plan
Snapchat is easy to dismiss as "the app teenagers use", but the reach tells a different story. Snap's advertising tools reached roughly 23.9 million users in the UK at the start of 2025 — the sixth-largest Snapchat ad audience of any country — out of around 709 million people the platform's ads reach worldwide (DataReportal's analysis of Snap's own data, January 2025).
More importantly, it reaches people other channels struggle with. Roughly four in five of Snapchat's global ad audience sit in the 13-to-34 age bracket. If your customers are students, young professionals or parents of teenagers, Snapchat can often deliver attention more cheaply than an increasingly crowded Meta or TikTok feed.
It is also a full-screen, sound-on, vertical-video environment, with content spread across Chat, Stories, the Discover feed, Spotlight and even Snap Map. That rewards brands willing to make native, lo-fi creative rather than reposting a landscape TV ad or a static banner.
Who it's right for (and who should skip it)
Snapchat suits consumer brands aimed at a younger audience: fashion, beauty, food and drink, gaming, events, apps, education and local experiences. App installs and e-commerce both tend to perform well, and it can be a strong channel for driving awareness and footfall around a launch, sale or opening.
It's a weaker fit if you sell to older decision-makers, run a B2B service, or have no appetite for video. You can run a single still image, but you will leave performance on the table against advertisers using motion.
A simple test: if a meaningful share of your customers are under 35 and effectively live on their phones, Snapchat is worth a proper trial rather than an afterthought.
The ad formats you can run
Single image or video (Snap Ads) are full-screen vertical ads and the best entry point for most businesses, suiting almost any objective.
Story Ads place a branded tile in the Discover section that opens a sequence of three to 20 Snaps — useful for telling a longer story.
Collection Ads pair a hero image or video with four tappable product tiles, ideal for shops, though they need a product catalogue.
Dynamic Ads are generated automatically from that catalogue and are well suited to retargeting people who browsed your website.
AR Lenses and Filters are branded augmented-reality experiences and location-based overlays that people apply to their own Snaps and share.
Commercials are non-skippable video spots in Snapchat's premium Shows and Games content, usually reserved for larger budgets.
Most small businesses should start with single image or video Snap Ads, then graduate to Collection or Dynamic Ads once a catalogue and some performance data are in place.
What it costs to get started
Snapchat is one of the more accessible paid channels to pilot. Sprout Social notes that advertisers can begin testing Snap Ads "for as little as $5 a day" (roughly £5), so you can validate the channel without a big commitment. Premium formats such as sponsored Lenses cost far more and aren't where a first-timer should begin.
As with any auction-based platform, your real cost per result depends on your audience, your creative and the competition — not the headline minimum. In practice, set aside a few hundred pounds over two to four weeks so the system has enough data to optimise, and treat that early spend as a learning cost rather than a performance verdict.
How to set up your first campaign
1. Create a free account at Snapchat Ads Manager (business.snapchat.com) and add your business and payment details.
2. Choose Instant Create for a quick, guided ad, or Advanced Create for full control over objective, audience, placements and budget.
3. Pick an objective that matches your goal — website traffic, sales, app installs, awareness or lead generation.
4. Build your audience. By default you can target by age, gender and location; Advanced targeting adds interests, device type, custom audiences (for example, by uploading your email list) and lookalike audiences built from them.
5. Set a daily or lifetime budget and a schedule, then upload your creative in a vertical 9:16 format.
6. Install the Snap Pixel on your website (or use the Conversions API or app SDK) so Snapchat can measure actions like purchases and optimise delivery.
7. Launch, then give campaigns time to exit the learning phase before you judge the results.
Getting results, not just impressions
Snapchat rewards native creative. Shoot vertically, lead with movement in the first second, keep it short, add captions, and finish with a clear call to action. Polished, obviously-corporate ads tend to get swiped past.
Test two or three creative variations against the same audience, give each enough budget to gather data, and let the Snap Pixel guide optimisation. Review your cost per result weekly and move spend to the winners rather than tinkering every day.
If you also run paid search or social elsewhere, use Snapchat for upper-funnel reach and retargeting — and make sure your tracking lets you see its true contribution rather than crediting everything to the last click.
Quick FAQ
How much does it cost to advertise on Snapchat?
You can start Snap Ads from around £5 a day, but budget enough over a few weeks to gather meaningful data. Your cost per click or sale depends on your audience, creative and competition, not the minimum spend.
What's the best Snapchat ad format for a small business?
Single image or video Snap Ads. They work for most objectives and are the simplest to produce. Move to Collection or Dynamic Ads once you have a product catalogue.
Do Snapchat ads only reach teenagers?
No. Around four in five of Snapchat's ad audience is aged 13 to 34, so you'll reach plenty of adults in their twenties and early thirties, not just under-18s.
How do I track sales from Snapchat ads?
Install the Snap Pixel on your website, or the Conversions API for server-side tracking. It records purchases and sign-ups so Snapchat can report results and optimise who sees your ads.
Snapchat is the channel most UK small businesses overlook, and that's exactly why it can be such good value. If your customers are under 35, a modest test budget and a few native vertical videos will often teach you more in a fortnight than months of guessing ever will. — Daniel Nikolla, Founder of Merx Marketing
The brands that win on Snapchat aren't the ones with the biggest budgets — they're the ones that make thumb-stopping, native vertical video and let the Snap Pixel do the optimising.
Have you tested Snapchat ads for your business yet — and if not, what's holding you back?
If you would like to know more about this topic, please contact us on danieln@merxmarketing.co.uk
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Written by Daniel Nikolla, Founder of Merx Marketing Ltd and Marketing Minute
