Snapchat budgets and bids: daily budget, Auto-bid, max bid

Budgets and bid strategies in Snapchat

Budgets. Snapchat documents a minimum daily budget of 20 currency units for a campaign and 5 currency units for an ad squad. Delivery is billed per impression, so the budget buys impressions, and results depend on how well the system can find people likely to take your chosen action. A daily budget that is too small for your goal can leave the ad squad with too little data to learn from.

Bid strategies. The Marketing API lists three: Auto-bid, lowest cost with a maximum bid, and target cost. With Auto-bid you set only the budget and Snapchat chooses bids to get the most results for it. With a maximum bid you cap what Snapchat may bid per auction, which protects the cost but can limit delivery if the cap is below what the auction needs. With target cost you tell Snapchat the average cost you want per result and it tries to stay near that average.

Which to use. For a new ad squad, Auto-bid is usually the least risky: it does not require you to guess a number before you have data. Add a cap or a target only after you have enough results to know your real cost per result, and change one thing at a time. A cap set too low is a common reason an ad squad appears active but delivers almost nothing.

Budget changes. Large jumps in a daily budget make results harder to compare. When you raise a budget, do it in steps and look at cost per result over a full cycle before the next step. The goal is a number you can explain, not a number that merely looks efficient on one day.

What careful settings give you

You stay within the documented minimums and avoid setup errors.
Bidding choices follow data instead of guesses.
Budget changes are small enough to read in the report.

Set and adjust them in five steps

Choose the daily budget for each ad squad so it is at least the documented minimum and affordable for the whole test period.
Start with Auto-bid on new ad squads.
After you have enough results to estimate cost per result, decide whether a cap or target cost solves a real problem.
If you add a cap or target, set it near your observed cost, not at a hopeful number, and note the date.
Review delivery after each change; if impressions collapse, the cap or target is probably too tight.

Good to know

Amounts in the example plans of this blog are illustrative, not benchmarks. Your costs depend on country, audience, season and creative.
AdAce Ads can propose a change to an ad squad's daily budget and, for the max-bid and target-cost strategies, to its bid. It refuses a bid change under Auto-bid. Each change is shown as before-and-after and needs approval (a button or a plain “yes” in the chat, no code). Early access; no live account has been connected yet.

Sources and further reading

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