Social Commerce for Retail Marketers: Focus on Snapchat

Snapchat never really wanted to be a social network. From the beginning, it pitched itself as a camera company—even going so far as to sell its own hardware with Spectacles, a pair of sunglasses that could shoot and share video. That mindset hasn’t changed. And it shows in how the platform thinks about commerce.

You won’t find a big native checkout rollout or a push toward becoming the next Amazon. Instead, Snap has taken a more visual, behavior-first approach. It’s built around scanning, trying on, tapping to learn more. Commerce is there—just embedded inside discovery, not layered on top of it.

It also helps that the app’s audience is massive: 453 million daily active users globally as of Q4 2024. And 77% of them say they’ve used AR to interact with a product.

But perhaps the biggest unlock isn’t what happens inside the app. It’s what happens when a Snapchat user leaves it.

As Michelle Urwin, EVP of Marketing at Skai, explains in the blog post ‘Retail Media Marketers Ignore Social Commerce at Their Own Peril’, there are two sides to social commerce: 1) transacting directly on a social platform, or 2) using its ad ecosystem to drive users to a retailer or brand destination. Snapchat clearly falls in the second camp. And in a world where first-party signals matter more than ever, getting a shopper to your product detail page (PDP)—even once—can set off a whole cascade of downstream value.

Whether it’s powering smarter retail media bids, enabling clean room measurement, or lighting up custom audiences for retargeting—Snapchat isn’t just a conversion engine. It’s a signal starter.

Snapchat’s social commerce stack: behavior-first, not button-first

Snapchat doesn’t treat commerce like a separate experience. It treats it like an extension of curiosity. You see a bag you like? Scan it. You’re trying on lip gloss in a Lens? You can tap through to buy. There’s no storefront moment because there doesn’t need to be.

Its product catalog integrations and AR Shopping Lenses do the heavy lifting. Brands can link SKUs to 3D try-on assets, overlay real-time pricing, and connect to purchase paths directly from the Lens itself. Recently, Snap rolled out AI-powered tools that turn 2D product images into shoppable AR assets in minutes—a move that dramatically lowers the barrier to entry for smaller brands.

Snapchat “…has now reduced the time it takes to create these AR try-on assets, which will allow brands to quickly turn more of their 2D product catalogs into try-on experiences,” according to the TechCrunch article, ‘Snapchat launches new AR and ML tools for brands and advertisers’.

But here’s the thing: even when the experience starts in AR, the transaction rarely finishes in Snapchat. Most Lenses and product ads send users off-platform—to a product detail page (PDP), an app store, or a branded microsite. Snapchat doesn’t handle payments. It doesn’t process orders. It’s not a marketplace.

That’s by design.

Snapchat does offer a Shop tab on public business profiles, where brands can showcase items and connect a product feed. But even that is just a curated front end. The actual transaction still happens elsewhere. 

So, yes, while transacting directly inside a social platform can reduce sales friction, there’s a different kind of value in sending shoppers to your retailer’s product detail page. It’s not as seamless in the moment, but the payoff downstream can be far greater. Retail media marketers know this well. Getting someone to a PDP isn’t just about converting them on the spot—it’s about setting off a longer chain of events that your full media stack can build on.

A shopper landing on a PDP gives the brand and the retailer a chance to:

• Add the user to a retargeting pool for retailer ad placements
• Build a custom audience based on engagement or product interest
• Generate a lookalike audience to find high-propensity shoppers
• Influence bid strategy in retailer media platforms based on PDP behavior
• Power sequential messaging through sponsored product or display units
• Tie that visit to omnichannel conversion modeling, especially in clean rooms

This is the shift. Not every impression needs to close the loop. But the right impression—delivered with the right intent signal—can light up an entirely new path to purchase.

And that’s the angle marketers should be thinking about. Snap isn’t just helping people discover products—it’s quietly handing off shoppers into ecosystems that can capitalize on that attention.

Creator commerce: camera-led, not affiliate-first

Unlike other platforms, Snapchat hasn’t leaned hard into storefronts or affiliate links. But it is rewarding creators who drive attention in native formats.

Its unified monetization program now allows creators to earn from both Stories and Spotlight content, with monetization expanded to videos over one minute starting in 2025. According to Snap, the number of creators posting publicly has more than tripled year-over-year.

As of April 2024, Spotlight had seen 125% year-over-year growth in watch time, thanks in part to improvements in content discovery and AI-driven Lens engagement.

Meanwhile, the Snap Creator Collab Studio makes it easier for brands to connect with creators to build sponsored content and branded Lenses. It’s still early, but the signals are strong.

Snapchat’s global footprint is especially strong in the Gulf. During Ramadan, the platform relaunched its AR Ramadan Mall, drawing 16 million unique shoppers in 2024. In Saudi Arabia, Snapchat is opened 45+ times per day per user.

And on the culture front, Snap is extending into live events and content franchises with programs like Snap Nation (in partnership with Live Nation), which brings brand integrations to 30+ music festivals, and Snap Sports Network, where e.l.f. and Taco Bell are among the first sponsors.

“Snap Sports Network is a new kind of content program that brands can leverage through sponsorships and product integrations,” according to the Snapchat Newsroom article, ‘More from Snapchat NewFronts 2024’.

Advertising: immersive formats that still perform

Snapchat’s social commerce story doesn’t work without its ads—and that’s especially true with the recent evolution of its performance formats. That’s the infrastructure powering the handoff between Snap and the online retailers and brand websites to which marketers are sending those users.

Campaigns can link directly from Stories, Lenses, or even Chat. The platform’s new Sponsored Snaps deliver vertical video ads into the Chat inbox itself—a format that drove 52 million impressions in a single day for Wendy’s during Q4 2024 testing. “Wendy’s recorded nearly 52 million impressions in a single day, marking the highest view rate of all U.S. takeover advertisers,” according to the Marketing Dive.

Other tools like Snap Promote automatically boost high-performing organic content, and Camera Kit integrations give brands new ways to embed AR try-ons into their own apps.

But the biggest leap might be on the back end.

Snapchat’s Conversions API, Pixel enhancements, and 7–0 optimization model are all designed to help performance marketers drive better outcomes. And it’s working. GoWish, a digital wishlist app, used Snap’s system to grow from 300K to over 10 million users.

“GoWish… leveraged 7–0 app install and in-app purchase, which resulted in a 70% decrease in cost-per-install and an increase of over 3,000% in app installs,” said Snap CEO Evan Spiegel.

It’s not just about reach anymore. It’s about proving what happens after the tap.

Measurement: connecting the dots to value

Snapchat has never been loud about its attribution tools, but it’s been busy upgrading them behind the scenes. And lately, those upgrades are starting to look a lot more retail media–ready.

Through its Conversions API, advertisers can now connect online and in-app activity to campaign performance, while pixel enhancements help track lower-funnel actions—add-to-carts, purchases, app installs—across the entire path to purchase. For larger brands, Snap also offers first-party lift studies, giving marketers a more directional view of real business impact.

But what’s becoming more important is how Snapchat connects to what happens after the ad. It’s not just about proving in-platform efficiency. It’s about feeding signals back into larger performance ecosystems.

That’s where the PDP handoff becomes critical. When a user taps from a Lens or Sponsored Snap to a retailer product detail page, that single session becomes a trigger point—one that can inform future bids, kick off a clean room match, or populate an audience list for retail media retargeting. Even if the conversion happens two days later in a totally different channel, Snapchat can still be the source of that downstream value.

But that handoff only works if the retailer supports it. For off-app commerce plays like Snapchat, the measurement loop depends heavily on retailers enabling inbound tracking—like Amazon Attribution, which lets brands see what happens when traffic from outside Amazon lands on an Amazon PDP. Without those frameworks in place, even high-intent engagement risks getting lost in the mix.

This is the shift. Not every impression needs to close the loop. But the right impression—delivered with the right intent signal—can light up an entirely new path to purchase.

What marketers should take away

Snapchat isn’t building a social marketplace. It’s building a commerce signal engine—where try-on moments, camera behavior, and off-app clicks all generate useful, actionable data. That’s a valuable role in a fragmented media landscape.

For marketers, the opportunity isn’t just what happens in the app. It’s what that attention enables elsewhere.

Whether that means delivering high-intent traffic to retail PDPs, lighting up a new segment for retail media remarketing, or just getting a Gen Z shopper to explore a category they weren’t thinking about—Snapchat is worth more than the impressions it reports.

It’s what those impressions unlock next.