Creator Audience Targeting

Target a creator's followers and engagers with your ads—without requiring the creator to post content.

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Overview

User Story: "I want to show my ads specifically to people who follow this Creator, or people who look like them."

Creator Audience Targeting lets you build audiences based on a creator's followers and engagers, then use those audiences for ad targeting. This requires an AD_LEVEL partnership but does not require the creator to post anything—just their initial approval.

Before following this guide, you must establish an AD_LEVEL partnership with creators. See Partnership Setup for the complete invitation and approval process.

Use Cases

Sponsor a Creator's Audience

Run your brand ads directly to users who already follow a creator in your industry—high relevance, proven interest.

Conquest Competitor Fans

Target followers of creators who work with competing brands to introduce your alternatives.

Amplify Partnership Campaigns

When running Ad Partnerships, also target the creator's existing audience for maximum impact.

Test Influencer Fit

Before committing to a full partnership, test ad performance with a creator's audience to validate alignment.

Workflow Summary

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Key Details

Audience Types Available

Audience Type	Description	Creator Action Required
Subscribers	Users who follow/subscribe to the creator's Public Profile	Initial approval only
Engagers	Users who viewed, interacted with, or engaged with the creator's content	Initial approval only
Lookalikes	Users similar to the creator's subscribers or engagers	Initial approval only

Permission Requirements

BRAND_LEVEL partnerships do not grant audience targeting permissions. You must have AD_LEVEL access to create audiences from a creator's profile.

Permission Level	Can Target Creator's Audience?	Where to Set Up
BRAND_LEVEL	No	Not supported
AD_LEVEL	Yes	Partnership Setup

Audience Sizing Considerations

Factor	Impact on Size
Creator follower count	Larger creators = larger subscriber audiences
Retention window	Longer windows = larger engager audiences
Lookalike type	REACH > BALANCE > SIMILARITY
Geographic targeting	Country restrictions reduce available audience

Minimum Audience Sizes

Audiences must meet minimum size thresholds for targeting:

Audience Type	Minimum Size
Direct segments	1,000 users
Lookalike seeds	1,000 users

If a creator's audience is too small for direct targeting, consider using it only as a seed for lookalikes, which can expand to much larger sizes.

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Best Practices

Practice	Reason
Layer subscribers AND engagers	Captures both loyal fans and casual viewers
Use BALANCE lookalikes for campaigns	Best trade-off between quality and scale
Refresh audiences periodically	Subscriber/engager bases change over time
Combine with contextual targeting	Demographics + creator audience = precision
A/B test direct vs. lookalike	Find optimal performance for your goals

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Implementation Tracks

Choose the track that matches how you'll be working:

• Marketing UI — Step-by-step walkthrough using Snapchat Ads Manager. Best for marketers building audiences manually.
• Developer API — Code samples and endpoint references for programmatic audience creation. Best for engineers building automated workflows.

Switch between tracks using the tabs below — Choose Marketing UI for manual workflows or Developer API for automated integrations.

Marketing Track

Marketing Track

Complete Partnership Setup — You must have an active AD_LEVEL partnership before proceeding

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Step 1: Create Profile Engagement Audience

Build an audience from the creator's subscribers or engagers.

1. Navigate to Main Menu → Assets → Audiences

2. Click "New Audience"
3. Select "Profile Engagement" from the audience type selector

4. Configure your audience:

Audience Name: Give your audience a descriptive name (e.g., "Creator X - Subscribers")

Public Profile: Type the creator's name

• Only pre-approved creators (with AD_LEVEL permission) will appear in the dropdown
• If a creator doesn't appear, verify they're added as an Ad Partner in Partnership Setup

Audience Definition: Choose one:

Option	Description
Subscriber to Profile	Targets all of the creator's followers
Snapchatters who have done an action	Targets followers who completed a specific action (viewed story, viewed profile, played with lens, etc.)

Duration: Select how long to keep this audience active (retention window)

5. Click Create — The audience will be available immediately for use in campaigns

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Step 2: Create Lookalike Audience (Optional)

Expand your reach by finding users similar to the creator's audience.

1. Navigate to Main Menu → Assets → Audiences

2. Click "New Audience"
3. Select "Lookalike Audience" from the audience type selector

4. Configure your lookalike:

Seed Audience: Select the Profile Engagement audience you created in Step 1

Location: Select the country where you want to target this audience

Lookalike Type: Choose your audience size/quality trade-off:

Type	Audience Size	Match Quality	Use Case
Similarity	Smallest	Highest	Maximum relevance, limited scale
Balance	Medium	Medium	Recommended — Best trade-off
Reach	Largest	Lower	Maximum scale, broader targeting

Audience Name: Give your lookalike a descriptive name

5. Click Create — Lookalike audiences take time to process (typically a few hours)

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Step 3: Apply Audiences to Campaign

Use your creator audiences when setting up ad campaigns.

1. Navigate to Advertise → Create Ads

2. Select your campaign objective

3. Choose Manual Build (required for custom audience targeting)

4. Configure your campaign details (name, budget, schedule)

5. In the Ad Set, scroll to the Audience section
6. Click Custom Audiences → Select "Profile Engagement Audience"
7. Choose the audience(s) you created (you can select multiple)

You can select multiple audiences at once (e.g., both subscriber and engager audiences, plus lookalikes) to maximize reach.

8. Enable Partnership Ad and configure creative:
   • Follow the steps in Ad Partnerships - Step 3: Upload Creative and Enable Partnership to:
     • Upload your media
     • Toggle "Partnership Ad" to ON
     • Select the creator's profile whose audience you're using
     • Use "Swap Primary" to choose the ad sender

The "Partnership Ad" toggle must be enabled when using creator audiences. Your campaign will fail publishing without it.

9. Review and publish your campaign

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Developer Track

Developer Track

The Creator Audience Targeting workflow uses the Segments API to create profile-based audiences and apply them to campaigns. This guide focuses on when and why to call each endpoint—for full parameter details, see the linked API references.

Complete Partnership Setup — You must have an active AD_LEVEL partnership before proceeding

APIs Used:

• Profile Engagement Audiences — Create audiences from creator profiles
• Lookalike Audiences — Expand reach with similar users
• Ad Squads API — Apply audiences to campaigns

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Step 1: Verify Partnership Status

Before creating audiences, confirm you have AD_LEVEL access to the creator's profile.

What to do:

1. Call GET /v1/public_profiles/{profile_id}/ad_partner_profiles
2. Verify the creator shows partnership_status: "ACCEPTED"
3. If not accepted, see Partnership Setup to establish the partnership

Only AD_LEVEL partnerships grant audience targeting permissions. BRAND_LEVEL partnerships will not work for this feature.

API Reference: List Ad Partner Profiles

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Step 2: Create Profile Engagement Audience

Build an audience from the creator's subscribers or engagers.

What to do:

1. Call POST /v1/adaccounts/{ad_account_id}/segments with segment_type: "PROFILE_ENGAGEMENT"
2. Set engagement_type to either:
   • SUBSCRIBERS — All followers of the creator
   • ENGAGERS — Users who interacted with the creator's content (stories, spotlight, lenses)
3. Include the creator's source_profile_id
4. Optionally set retention_in_days to limit how recent the engagement must be (default: 30 days)
5. Response returns segment_id with status ACTIVE (ready to use immediately)

API Reference: Profile Engagement Audiences

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Step 3: Create Lookalike Audience (Optional)

Expand your reach by finding users similar to the creator's audience.

What to do:

1. Call POST /v1/adaccounts/{ad_account_id}/segments with source_type: "LOOKALIKE"
2. In the creation_spec, set:
   • seed_segment_id — The segment ID from Step 2
   • lookalike_type — Choose SIMILARITY, BALANCE, or REACH
   • country — Target country (e.g., US, GB)
3. Response returns segment_id with status PENDING
4. Poll GET /v1/segments/{segment_id} until status is ACTIVE (typically a few hours)

Unlike profile engagement audiences, lookalikes require processing time. Poll every 10-15 minutes until status: "ACTIVE".

API Reference: Lookalike Audiences

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Step 4: Apply Audiences to Ad Sets

Use your creator audiences when creating Ad Sets.

What to do:

1. Call POST /v1/adaccounts/{ad_account_id}/adsquads
2. In the targeting object, include your segment IDs:

   "targeting": {
     "segments": [
       {"segment_id": "profile-engagement-id", "operation": "INCLUDE"},
       {"segment_id": "lookalike-id", "operation": "INCLUDE"}
     ]
   }

3. Critical: Set creator_partnership_type: "AD_PARTNERSHIP" in your creative
4. Critical: Enable partnership settings in the creative by setting primary_profile to either:
   • BRAND — Ad appears from your brand
   • CREATOR — Ad appears from the creator's profile

Ad Sets using creator audiences must have associated creatives with creator_partnership_type set. Without this, the campaign will fail to publish.

API Reference:

• Create Ad Squad
• Create Partnership Creative

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Next Steps

• Ad Partnerships — Combine audience targeting with creator-branded ads
• Technical Reference — Detailed schemas for audience endpoints
• Troubleshooting — Common errors and solutions