Awareness

Awareness is the objective that optimizes for reach and impressions, buying the most eyeballs for your budget.

You pick it when the job is to be seen by as many of the right people as possible, not to drive a click or a sale. Snapchat optimizes toward impressions and reach and usually charges you on a cost per thousand impressions basis, so you are paying for exposure rather than action.

Say you are launching a new drink and want the whole city to recognize the can. You run the awareness objective with a wide age and location target and a short, bold video. The report shows reach and frequency climbing for a low cost per thousand, which is the point, even though nobody is buying yet.

Awareness will not tell you whether it moved sales. It is measured in reach and frequency, not revenue, so judging it on purchases will always disappoint. If the business goal is transactions, awareness is the wrong tool no matter how cheap the impressions look.

Buy attention with awareness, but do not ask it to close.