Snapchat has 158 million daily users, with a growth rate that remains on an upward trend. While this social media platform is known for attracting a younger demographic, one of the biggest areas of growth has come from the 35+ age range. B2C marketers have many ways to incorporate this unique social media platform into their strategies, but they often find it difficult to generate a positive return on investment.

If you're running into problems justifying the time and resources your team is spending on Snapchat, you should follow these tips.

Track the Right Key Performance Indicators

Calculating an accurate ROI depends on having the right information to start with. Trying to choose and track Snapchat KPIs can be difficult due to the nature of the platform, as your content is only available for a limited time. While some analytics platforms do cover Snapchat, in general. you're trying to stay on top of the data before it's unavailable. Here are some of the metrics to keep an eye on when you want to improve your ROI calculations:

• Views: This is a basic statistic that shows how many people have seen a particular snap.
• Engagement: See how many people engage with content such as a Snapchat filter.
• Screenshots: This metric indicates the users are saving your content to look at later.
• Story completion rate: You learn how many people are viewing Snapchat stories in their entirety.
• Viewing trends: How are your current views comparing to previous ones?
• Story opens: How many users open up your Snapchat stories, even if they don't end up completing them?

Understand How Your Audience Uses Snapchat

Snapchat's disappearing content concept adds a sense of immediacy and fear of missing out to the user's experience, but that may not be everyone's reason for enjoying the platform.

You can't take a one-size-fits-all approach if you want to generate a positive ROI. When you know how and why your audience is using Snapchat, you can offer the right content to serve that need. Here are a few things that users may be looking for:

• Exclusive discounts: The only people who have access to a Snapchat promo code are the ones online at the time you send it out. You attract budget-minded buyers who enjoy being a part of the “cool club” and getting something that no one else can.
• Unique filters: Taco Bell is the poster child for achieving amazing success with Snapchat filters. The company hit the right combination of fun and on-brand messaging, and it really took off with their followers.
• Behind the scenes: Snapchat users don't expect highly polished content that's professionally staged, shot and edited. After all, it's just going to disappear in a few minutes. They seek to engage with their favorite brands and learn more about what happens behind the scenes, with plenty of candid shots that offer an honest and authentic look at things.
• Sneak peeks: Snapchat's platform is perfect for new product teasers and similar content.

Look at competitor brands to see how they're interacting with their Snapchat audiences. In particular, note the content formats that they rely on the most to make a good impression.

Harnessing the Mobile Demographic

Another aspect of Snapchat is that it gets you access to mobile users. Put together your Snapchat marketing campaigns with these devices in mind so you can get better-targeted results. Short and to-the-point content that quickly gets your message across works the best for users who are rapidly checking out Snapchat before getting back to another activity.

Putting a Price on a Community

How much is a highly engaged community actually worth to your company? You may have a hard time putting concrete numbers to this particular aspect of your Snapchat marketing efforts, but building your followers has an impact throughout the buyer's journey. You improve brand awareness, extend your reach and increase revenue by direct sales and better retention.

Use Snapchat in an Integrated Marketing Campaign

Quantifying the ROI of Snapchat is difficult when you look at it on its own. However, when you incorporate it into an integrated, multichannel marketing campaign, you have an easier time showing how it's beneficial to your overall ROI goals.

Snapchat can fit into your existing campaigns as a way to get immediate attention and add a sense of urgency to product launches, special sales and other time-sensitive strategies.

You can show behind-the-scenes footage that teases something you're getting ready to promote through search ads, with the help of an end-to-end AdWords ad system. Snapchat users go from checking out these candid pictures on their phones to switching over to their computers and seeing your new ad campaign.

This social media channel easily complements your efforts and supports consistent messaging throughout the campaign. Repurpose content from other channels into Snapchat-appropriate pieces to cut down on creation costs.

You can view its influence throughout an integrated campaign and show exactly how it's generating a positive ROI.

Snapchat is a simple platform in concept but proves challenging for marketers trying to get hard ROI numbers. Use these tips to enhance your Snapchat efforts and prove that it's worth the resources you're putting into it.

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