Snapchat Sponsored Snaps: keep video under 10 seconds, how to cut

Snapchat's ad formats page lists Sponsored Snaps as 9:16, 720x1280, accepting mp4, mov, jpg and png, with video up to 180 seconds, but it recommends under 10 seconds and caps the headline at 34 characters. The practical task is a short cut that still ends with a clear action.

The Sponsored Snaps limits

Only the numbers the page states are listed. It does not give a file size limit in the text I read.

Make the under-10-second version

Take a longer ad, find the strongest moment, and trim it. Video trim is async by default, with mode: sync waiting up to 30 seconds; poll GET /v1/jobs/:id/status and then /result. Each trim is $0.02.

To produce several candidates from one source, call it once per start time. The Idempotency-Key must be unique for each cut or the second call returns the first job.

curl -X POST https://api.sume.com/v1/video-trim \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SUME_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Idempotency-Key: snap-sponsored-8s-a" \
  -d '{"video_url":"https://media.sume.com/artifacts/artf_demo/ad30.mp4","start":9,"duration":8}'

Check the file and the headline

Keep the headline outside the video. Count characters before you submit, since 34 is a hard cap on the page. If a line must appear on screen, use video captions with cues so the text is exact.

Finally, confirm the cut is the length you intended with a probe-only video inspect call. Rounding at cut points is the usual reason a clip lands a fraction over its target.