How to make your own Snapchat Geofilters

Snapchat recently rolled out a self service platform for individuals and companies to design, upload and host their own paid, geo-fenced filters. Power to the people!

PMG was at the forefront of this release and tested the product soon after the launch. The 4-step setup is quite simple, as can be seen outlined below:

Step 1 – The Upload

Snapchat provides sample templates for you to download to use in crafting your work of art. Don’t freak out when you see the 39.1MB file start downloading; it’s loaded with event-themed PSD’s in formats for both PC and Mac.

The main things you need to remember when designing your ‘asset’ are the specs and general rules which can be seen summarized below:

Upload a 1080 wide x 1920 tall web-optimized .PNG.

Be creative and fun. Make sure your Geofilter is something Snapchatters will share with their friends.

Remember, contact information like URLs, hashtags and social media handles are not allowed.

Step 2 – The Dates

This step is, without a doubt, the simplest. Select your desired flight dates much the same as you would in Kenshoo, AdWords or a Tableau dashboard. Hold on to your hats, step 3 is going to blow your mind…

Step 3 – The Fence

This is the cool part! Plotting the geofence is, for lack of a better word, exhilarating. Testing the boundaries once the filter has launched gives you a good idea of how accurate today’s mapping technology actually is.

A recommendation is to play around with the size of the area, and get a feel of how the pricing models work. You can keep track of this metric in the top left hand corner of the UI. Naturally, the bigger the area, the higher the cost. There is a considerable difference between urban and rural pricing too so do keep that in mind before checkout.

It’s worth noting that there is a limitation on the area size that individuals and companies can buy geofilters against, which happens to be 5,000,000 square feet, for now. See Central Park attempt below:

Step 4 – The Payment

Back to reality. Enter your credit card details, review your filter’s flight times and dates and hit submit. The approval process is around 36 hours.

Post-Campaign Report

Once your filter flight time has elapsed, you’ll receive a report via email. It will state how many times your filter was used (essentially a count of all ‘snappers’ who used the filter) and then how many times the filter was viewed (a tally of all those snappers’ friends who viewed your filter either in Story or DM form.)

PMG’s First Filter:

To get started on making and launching your own Snapchat filter, click here.

Happy Snapping!