Media plans built in the UAE and carried across to Saudi Arabia often underweight Snapchat. That is a mistake. Snap's own figures put its Saudi audience at a scale few platforms anywhere reach: in October 2025, Snap's chief executive Evan Spiegel told an audience in Riyadh that its community in the Kingdom had grown to 26 million people, in a country of about 33 million.
Snap has measured that audience in different ways, and it is worth quoting them precisely. In November 2024 it reported 25 million monthly active users in Saudi Arabia, reaching 90 percent of 13 to 34 year olds, and opened an office and creator hub in Riyadh. Earlier, in July 2024, it cited a monthly addressable reach above 22 million. Users, monthly actives and addressable reach are different measures, so use the one that matches the claim you are making in a client plan.
The formats
- Snap Ads, which Snap now calls Single Image or Video: a full-screen vertical ad between Stories and in Spotlight. The workhorse.
- Story ads: a branded tile in the Discover feed that opens into a series of Snaps.
- Collection ads: a video or image with product tiles underneath, for shopping.
- Commercials: non-skippable for the first 6 seconds, and up to 3 minutes long, shown within premium content.
- AR Lenses and Filters: interactive camera effects people use and send to friends.
- Sponsored Snaps: full-screen ads delivered to the Chat inbox, covered in a separate article.
In March 2026 Snap added Total Snap Takeover, which gives a brand the first ad slot across the Map, Chat, the camera, Stories and Spotlight, and it has been testing an Offers format in Spotlight and Stories.
Snap Ad specs
Snap Ads are 9:16 at 1080 by 1920. Video should be MP4 or MOV in H.264, up to 1 GB; Snap's help pages accept anything from 3 seconds to 30 minutes, and clips under 3 seconds loop. A still image, JPG or PNG of at least 720 by 1280 and up to 5 MB, is turned into a 5 second video.
- Brand name: up to 32 characters, though 25 displays safely. It sits at the top left, and tapping it opens the brand's public profile.
- Headline: up to 34 characters, shown under the brand name. It cannot be the same as the brand name.
- Safe zone: keep the top 150 pixels and the bottom 330 pixels of a 1080 by 1920 frame clear of anything important.
Buttons have their own names
The call to action is a pill at the bottom of the ad, and Snap's labels do not match Meta's. For website ads the choices include Apply Now, Book Now, Buy Tickets, Get Now, Listen, More, Order Now, Play, Read, Shop Now, Show, Showtimes, Sign Up, View and Watch. There is no Learn More: More is the nearest. App install ads have their own list, including Install Now and Download. Snap can also restyle and move the button for each viewer with Dynamic CTA, which does not show in the ads preview.
What Snap's own studies say
Snap has published two studies about the region that are useful when planning a mix. An attention study it ran in Saudi Arabia with Lumen, published in September 2025, found AR Lenses held about eight times the attention of the social media average, and Commercials about 5.7 times. A market-mix study for Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, published in May 2025, recommended putting most of the budget into Snap Ads, a large share into Story ads, and a smaller share into AR. These are the platform's own findings about its own ads, so treat them as a starting point to test rather than a conclusion.
Budgets
Snap's Ads Manager has a minimum spend of 5 US dollars a day, and Snap recommends 20 to 50 dollars a day for a campaign to learn. For smaller clients, Snap Promote lets a business boost a Spotlight post, a public Story or saved content straight from its public profile, with goals such as more followers, views, website visits, and calls and texts. Snap does not state a minimum budget for Promote.
Making Snap creative for the Kingdom
- Plan it vertical and full screen from the start. A resized feed ad looks like one.
- Put the brand and the point in the first second or two; people tap past Snaps quickly.
- Use sound, and shoot for the phone rather than for television.
- Plan Arabic creative natively, with the words inside the safe zone.
- Build a public profile for the brand before running ads, since tapping the name opens it and Sponsored Snaps require one.
The ad mockup generator on this site draws a Snap Ad full screen, with the brand and headline at the top, Snap's own button label at the bottom and the safe zone from Snap's specs, so a cut can be checked before it goes into Ads Manager.
