A Snapchat geofilter is a branded overlay that people in a location you choose can add to their Snaps. It puts your brand inside the photos and videos they send to friends, and a sponsored geofilter typically reaches 40% to 60% of daily Snapchatters in that area. On-demand geofilters start from around $5 an hour, which makes it one of the most affordable ways to get a local audience talking about your brand.
Over 100 million people use Snapchat every day, and because a geofilter arrives from a friend rather than as an ad, people actually want to use it. That is what makes it work: you become part of the story instead of interrupting it.
Sponsored geofilters
Short answer: sponsored Geofilters are branded overlays that Snapchatters can add to their Snaps within a location you choose, such as a mall, venue or event. They spread your brand as users share Snaps with friends. You set the area, dates and design in Snapchat Ads Manager, and cost depends on the area size and duration.
Sponsored Geofilters are tiny pieces of art that always make an impression. When Snapchatters in the location(s) of your choice take a Snap, they’ll be able to see your Geofilter and use it to explain where, when, and why they took the Snap. Whether your campaign covers a specific location, a major event, or a mall in Dubai, Geofilters uniquely allow brands to take part in the hundreds of millions of Snaps sent between friends each day on Snapchat. A Sponsored Geofilter typically reaches 40% to 60% of daily Snapchatters in that location.
On-demand geofilters
Businesses and individuals alike can purchase On-Demand Geofilters for their event, business, or a specific location. Brand logos and trademarks are permitted.
Some ways you can use the geofilters are:- Support Your Personal Brand
- Announce New Product Launches
- Trade Shows Awareness
- Targeting competitor locations
- Share Company Culture
- Announcing special offer or discount
How much do geofilters cost?
Snapchat decides the cost of a Geofilters. There are many factors which include;
- The Geofilters in (area with high levels of competition from other advertisers will cost more than)
- How big the area is that you want to run the filter in
- How long do you want to run the Geofilter for
The cost of Snapchat geofilters starts from $5 per hour (less popular locations) & above. Since you pay by the hour it is important to select the most busy moments for your geofilters to be seen. You can advertise from 1 hour to a max of 30 days. For example, a Snapchat ad around Dubai mall area can cost over $8000 a day.
Someone using your Geofilter is much more valuable and engaging than someone simply viewing a banner ad. Likewise, people receiving snaps using your filter are also much more valuable for branding than standard banner ads. The user is receiving the image from a friend or person they follow rather than being bombarded with them in other traditional advertising locations online.
On-Demand Geofilters can be a powerful marketing tool for businesses, think of them as your personal digital street team. Knowing how to create a design that encourages its use and ultimately its success is vital. A Geofilter should be a graphic that Snapchatters will want to use on their Snaps and send to their friends. See snapchat ads guidelines
Drawing the geofence, and getting it approved
Two practical steps decide whether an On-Demand geofilter works, and neither is the artwork.
The fence. You draw the area on a map, and both the size and the shape matter. Snapchat sets a minimum and a maximum area, so you cannot cover a single shop doorway and you cannot blanket a whole emirate. The useful discipline is to trace where your audience actually stands rather than the boundary of the property: the queue, the concourse, the seating, the car park entrance. A fence drawn generously around a venue spends most of its budget on people walking past outside.
The approval. Every filter is reviewed before it goes live, usually within a day, and rejections are common enough to plan around. Submit at least a couple of days ahead of the event, never the morning of it.
What gets filters rejected most often:
- Phone numbers, URLs and email addresses. A geofilter is a brand overlay, not a direct response ad.
- Photographs, and logos that cover too much of the frame. The snap is the content; your filter is the border around it.
- Hashtags and anything that reads as a call to action.
- Artwork without transparency. A filter that blocks the photograph will not be used even if it is approved.
The design rule follows from all of this: people apply a filter because it says something about where they are, not because it advertises you. A filter that makes someone’s snap look better gets used, shared and seen by their friends. One that looks like an ad gets swiped past.
How to design a geofilter people will use
A geofilter only works if people choose to add it to their Snap, so the design matters more than anything else. A few things that help:
- Keep it simple and leave the middle clear, since people are putting themselves in the frame.
- Tie it obviously to the place or event, with a venue name, a date, or a local landmark.
- Use your brand colours and logo, but lightly, so it feels like fun rather than an ad.
- No phone numbers or hard sells. Snapchat rejects those, and people will not share them anyway.
Good creative is the difference between a geofilter that gets used hundreds of times and one that sits unused. We design geofilters that people actually want on their Snaps.
Our experience with Snapchat geofilters
We tried our first Snapchat Geofilter Ads and it was approved after a few rejections. Good creativity goes a long way.
Snapchat reports two numbers for your geofilter: uses, how many times people added it to a Snap or Story, and views, how many times a Snap carrying your filter was seen. Metrics can lag up to 24 hours, and Wi-Fi-connected devices are more likely to see your filter than those on a weak mobile signal, since location accuracy varies.
Some guidelines for Snapchat Geofilter ads
- On-Demand geofilters can be between 20,000 sq ft and 5 million sq feet.
- Ad limit is from 1 hour to a max of 30 days
- Phone numbers are not permitted in On-Demand geofilters.
- Once a submission is approved it can not be edited, you will need to cancel and resubmit to be reviewed again.
See all our Snapchat ad formats, including Snapchat Lenses ads. Thinking of sharing your story? Contact us to do your sponsored Snapchat advertising
