Everything Your Dealership Needs To Know About Snapchat

Every dealer knows that a key to success in this industry is getting your dealership in front of the right shopper at the right time. 

But dealerships are now being faced with a new challenge of reaching the next emerging auto buyers – Generation Z. 

More frugal and well informed than their Millennial counterparts, Generation Z knows what they want, and you better be where they want to shop. 

And with Gen Z entering adulthood with around $3 trillion in purchasing power, it’s high time that we start to focus on how to reach tomorrow’s auto buyers. 

But don’t underestimate the other generations’ usage of Snapchat.

What Is Snapchat?

Founded in 2011, Snapchat gives users a way to express themselves via images without having to worry about a ton of people seeing their content.

You can take a photo or video and send it to one or many people and after a set amount of time, poof, the media would disappear.

Snapchat was also the original way users could easily apply filters, add unique location tags, text, and even draw on their content. Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok have since “borrowed” this concept for their platforms.

Snapchat has evolved immensely since its inception, but never lost its fun creativity, and now that the majority of its users are entering the career field, dealerships are seeing an opportunity to capitalize.  

Why Snapchat?

Where does Snapchat fall in the realm of social giants? Great question.

When it comes to the kings of social, Facebook has always been on top. Back in 2012, Instagram presented a threat to their throne, but Facebook bought them out before they could take it.

In 2013, Facebook also tried to purchase Snapchat for a booku bucks type deal, but Snapchat’s owners respectfully declined.

Snapchat may never take over Facebook and Instagram as social media’s top dog, but the platform is now reaching an astonishing 75% of Millennials and Generation Z.

Instead of simply being present on multiple platforms like traditional “multichannel” advertising, Omnichannel is customer driven and aims to hit the right customer, at the right time, with the right message, where they are shopping, every time.

The platform lays claim to an impressive 93 million US users per day and over 60% of those users are actively “snapping” on a daily basis.

What’s almost more impressive is that Snapchat is increasing their user base by 22% year-over-year.

Over 80% of Snapchat users also share their location with the app, providing a great opportunity to target local auto shoppers to build awareness of your dealership and any current offers or events.

With usage stats like that, it stands as no surprise that advertisers are ready to capitalize on this rising opportunity.

Advertising On Snapchat

Luckily for Snapchat, Facebook has really blazed a trail for social advertising.

So if you know how to advertise on Facebook, Snapchat is a simple next step.

Very much like the Facebook Pixel, Snapchat also uses a “Snap Pixel,” installed on your site so they can create audiences and retarget shoppers from your site on Snapchat.

You can create lookalike audiences (audiences similar to your customers or website visitors), audiences from your CRM lists, retargeting audiences, and engagers of your Snapchat content.

Dealerships can also target in-market Snapchatters using Datalogix auto shopper segments, Edmunds custom audiences, and Placed dealership visitors.

Advertisers can create catalogs to display as inventory ads, which is a BIG win for auto dealerships.

And dealerships can start getting their message and inventory in front of these audiences for as little as $5 a day!

Ready to learn everything about setting up and running successful dealership ads on Snapchat? Click here to download Snapchat’s Auto Dealers Playbook.