Snapchat ads deliver results, making viewers 34% more likely to purchase after watching. With over 800 million monthly users, primarily under the age of 35, Snapchat is an ideal platform for reaching young shoppers. Mobile shopping becomes the norm, making these video ads essential for brands.
This guide shows you 10 real ad examples from successful companies. You’ll see why they worked and learn how to create your own winning campaigns with proven strategies that get results.
Snapchat Video Ads
Snapchat video ads are crucial in 2025, reaching 460 million daily users, primarily ages 18-25. Unlike crowded platforms like TikTok, Snapchat offers space for new brands. Users prefer genuine, casual content over polished videos. Everything appears vertically on full screens, making ads hard to ignore.
The audience actively buys products; 63% purchased after seeing ads. Interactive features, such as filters, make ads more engaging and fun. The winning approach is to keep videos three to six seconds long, making them look authentic, and including sound, as most viewers watch with audio on. Brands that run ads using this formula connect with young shoppers ready to spend.
Understanding Snapchat video ad formats
Before we dive into examples, let’s look at the main ad types you can use on Snapchat:
- Snap Ads (Single Video). These are full-screen, vertical videos that range in length from 3 seconds to 3 minutes. They appear between stories and in Discovery. They’re best for getting direct responses and driving website traffic. In 2025, Snapchat expanded these to include First Snap takeovers and creator-led campaigns.
- Story Ads (Snapchat Story Ads). These utilize 3 to 20 images or video tiles in sequence. You get a branded tile on the Discover page. They’re perfect for brand storytelling and product launches.
- Commercial Ads. These are non-skippable vertical videos. Standard ones are 3-6 seconds, while extended ones are 7-180 seconds (with the first 6 seconds unskippable). They’re designed for maximum reach and brand awareness.
- Collection Ads. These show a main video with tappable product tiles underneath. They’re ideal for e-commerce and driving sales.
- AR Lens Ads. These utilize face lenses and world lenses with augmented reality capabilities. They’re best for engagement, brand interaction, and letting people try on products virtually.
For technical specifications, use a 9:16 vertical video format with a minimum resolution of 1080×1920 pixels, in MP4 or MOV format, and keep the video length under 6 seconds for optimal results.
Now, let’s see how authentic brands utilized these formats to achieve significant success.
10 Best Snapchat Video Ad Examples
1: e.l.f. Cosmetics – “For Every Eye, Lip, Face”
e.l.f. Cosmetics ran a successful Snapchat campaign called “For Every Eye, Lip, Face” to boost brand awareness and website traffic. They used six-second video ads that matched the speed at which young users scroll through content. The message celebrated diversity, which Gen Z loves, while quickly showing multiple products in action. The ads felt fun and friendly, just like the brand itself.
This short, energetic approach paid off in a big way. Website visits jumped 20% compared to earlier months, and the company spent 39% less money reaching each thousand viewers. Even better, 60% more people remembered seeing the ads, and overall brand awareness grew by 10%.
The winning strategy was simple: capture attention in the opening frame, feature products within the first three seconds, and let the brand’s personality come through naturally in every frame.
2: Tinder – “Single Life” Commercials
Tinder launched a “Single Life” campaign to attract more Gen Z users through non-skippable commercial ads. The videos showed young people enjoying dating and single life in ways that felt genuine and relatable. Instead of explaining app features, Tinder focused on selling an exciting lifestyle experience. They smartly targeted people who use both Snapchat and TikTok, knowing that these audiences overlap and tend to engage more.
The clear message was simple: download the app and join the fun. This strategy worked incredibly well. Tinder cut its cost per view by more than nine times while exceeding its goals by over four times. Since viewers couldn’t skip the ads, completion rates remained high, leading to a significant increase in app downloads.
The key takeaway is clear: sell the lifestyle and experience rather than boring technical features, and always target users across multiple platforms for stronger results.
3: BACARDÍ – Summer Lens Campaign
BACARDÍ launched a summer campaign called “Do What Moves You,” which combined various ad formats for maximum impact. They ran the campaign for ten weeks, utilizing AR lenses, six-second videos, and festival filters that all worked together. The AR lens lets users create fun, personalized content they want to share with friends. Meanwhile, the short video ads and filters maintained the brand’s message consistency and visibility throughout the summer.
This multi-format approach created a strong connection with the audience. The campaign reached over 2.5 million Snapchat users who genuinely engaged with the content. People spent real time playing with the lens and creating user stories with festival filters to send greetings to friends, which spread the brand naturally without feeling forced.
The success stemmed from allowing users to participate actively rather than simply watching passively. The main lesson is that combining multiple ad formats yields better results than using just one, and providing users with creative tools to share branded content organically fosters stronger awareness.
4: The Ridge – Minimalist Wallet Cross-Selling
The Ridge wallet brand launched a targeted campaign to attract new customers and increase sales using Story Ads with tracking technology. They installed Snap Pixel to track users from viewing ads to purchasing wallets. This data helped them build custom audience groups based on actual buyers, then find similar people likely to buy through lookalike targeting. Surprisingly, when testing different formats, single-image ads performed better than videos for their product.
The results were impressive and profitable. Using lookalike audiences cut their cost per new customer by 55%, while return on ad spend jumped 78%. Overall, they earned $4.10 for every dollar spent on ads. Even better, finding customers on Snapchat costs 20% less than on other platforms.
The key lessons are clear: always test both video and static images, since video doesn’t automatically win; use tracking pixels to understand your customer journey; and build smart audience groups based on real purchase data for better targeting and lower costs.
5: Ralph Lauren – Collection Ads Elegance
Ralph Lauren utilized Snapchat to demonstrate that luxury brands can thrive on casual social platforms through Collection Ads. They designed elegant, catalog-style ads with muted, sophisticated colors that matched their classic brand identity. When users tapped products they liked, they were taken directly to the specific product page, with no confusing extra steps in between.
This smooth shopping experience maintained the brand’s prestigious image while making purchases quick and straightforward for younger audiences. The strategy delivered strong results across the board. Click-through rates stayed high, and many people who clicked actually completed purchases.
Ralph Lauren successfully connected with Snapchat’s young users without compromising their luxury positioning or elegant brand feel. A separate campaign using AR lenses even boosted sales by 19%. The main takeaway is that staying authentic to your brand identity is more effective than trying to appear casual when you’re not, and removing obstacles to viewing. Purchasing makes customers more likely to complete purchases on any platform.
6: Depop – Story Ads Showcasing Sellers
Depop, a fashion resale app, created Story Ads featuring genuine sellers with unique personal styles, rather than professional models. Young women could see themselves represented in the ads, which made the marketplace feel authentic and trustworthy. The download buttons for Google Play and App Store were prominently displayed and easy to spot, removing any confusion about next steps.
This user-generated content approach created a genuine community vibe that resonated strongly with the target audience. The campaign delivered exceptional results, changing Depop’s entire advertising strategy. They earned over three million impressions with an impressive 2.8% click-through rate, and about 15% of viewers actually installed the app after seeing the ad. These numbers proved so successful that Depop moved half of its total advertising budget to Snapchat. The winning formula combined authentic representation with simple action steps, demonstrating that featuring real customers instead of polished professionals builds stronger trust and connection with audiences seeking genuine experiences.
7: Taco Bell Canada – Multi-Product LTO Strategy
Taco Bell Canada promoted limited-time menu items, such as Double Layered Tacos and Grande Stacker, using an innovative combination of Snap Ads and Story Ads. They displayed the Taco Bell logo immediately in the first frame, allowing viewers to recognize the brand name instantly.
The campaign incorporated various video creative styles, including cinemagraphs, motion graphic elements, and still photos, to keep the content fresh and engaging. The “limited-time only” messaging created a sense of urgency that prompted people to visit stores quickly before the items disappeared. The results proved incredibly effective and cost-efficient.
The campaign generated over 30,000 additional store visits, representing a 6% increase, while reaching 2.6 million Snapchat users. Impressions cost less than one Canadian dollar per thousand views, making it extremely budget-friendly. Story Ads achieved a 2.29% open rate, which beat typical industry benchmarks. The winning approach combined variety in creative formats with time-sensitive offers that motivated immediate action rather than passive scrolling.
8: Bespoke Post – Subscription Growth via Catalogs
Bespoke Post utilized catalog ads to showcase their curated subscription boxes and efficiently grow their customer base. They tested multiple Snapchat ad formats simultaneously to discover which ones delivered the best results for their business.
The ads clearly explained what subscribers would receive in each box, making the value proposition obvious and easy to understand. This testing approach helped them keep costs low while attracting quality subscribers who genuinely wanted their products. The strategy produced outstanding results that exceeded industry standards. Bespoke Post gained eleven times more new subscribers compared to typical benchmarks, while their cost per signup dropped by 57%.
This meant they spent far less money to acquire each new customer while successfully reaching Snapchat’s young audience at scale. The key takeaway is that running multiple ad format tests simultaneously helps you quickly identify what resonates best with your specific audience, allowing you to invest more in winners and cut losing formats before wasting your budget.
9: Wish – Catalog-Connected Performance
Wish connected its entire product catalog directly to Snapchat, which automatically generated ads from its product feed without manual work for each item. This automation saved a massive amount of time while showcasing diverse products that appealed to a wide range of shoppers with varying interests.
Snapchat’s goal-based bidding system automatically optimizes campaigns to find the most cost-effective cost per app install, eliminating the need for constant manual adjustments and monitoring. The automated approach delivered exceptional cost savings and efficiency. Story Ad costs per install plummeted by 76%, while catalog ads cost 57% less per install than traditional manually-created ads.
These impressive results were so profitable that Wish confidently increased its daily advertising spending by 25% to capture even more customers. The main lesson is that connecting your product catalog enables easy scaling without added work, and using automatic bidding optimizes costs continuously in the background, freeing you from constant manual campaign management while delivering better financial results than hands-on approaches.
10: Starling Bank – AR Brand Awareness
Starling Bank, a UK mobile-only bank, used augmented reality to make banking feel modern and approachable for younger audiences. Their AR lens brought their TV commercial to life by creating a “murmuration of starlings” that flew around users’ heads in the camera.
People could flip to the rear camera and watch birds form the Starling logo in the sky, making the experience interactive and shareable. The campaign specifically targeted UK Snapchat users aged 18-34, perfectly matching their mobile-first banking approach.
The results proved AR works even for serious financial services. Starling Bank achieved costs per app install that were 61% lower than those of other advertising platforms they tested. Brand awareness increased by seven points, while ad awareness jumped twelve points among their target audience. Each completed view costs only £0.02, making it incredibly budget-friendly.
The campaign demonstrated that making your brand interactive and memorable through creative technology is effective regardless of industry, even in traditionally unengaging sectors like banking.
Capping off
These ten examples reveal what makes Snapchat advertising successful in 2025. Whether using e.l.f. Cosmetics’ quick inclusive spots, BACARDÍ’s interactive AR experiences, or The Ridge’s smart data tracking, winning brands share key traits: keeping videos between three to six seconds, staying authentic, showing products immediately, and making next steps obvious.
The best Snapchat ads resemble natural platform content rather than traditional corporate advertisements, utilizing vertical video content optimized for sound-on viewing while speaking directly to young audiences. Brands that test different formats, track results with Snap Pixel, and refresh their creative regularly see the biggest successes.
When planning your campaigns, hook the viewer’s attention within the first three seconds, choose authenticity over polish, test both static images and videos, and always include clear calls-to-action.
Suppose you need professional help creating scroll-stopping Snapchat content that converts. In that case, Vidpros specializes in platform-optimized video editing that captures the fast-paced energy young audiences crave, helping turn your advertising strategy into tangible results. Book a call with the team today!
