TikTok is one of the most popular and engaging social media platforms in the world, with over 2 billion downloads and 689 million monthly active users. If you want to reach a young, creative, and diverse audience, TikTok ads can be a powerful tool to promote a new product. In this article, you will learn how to use TikTok ads to create awareness, interest, and action for your new product.
TikTok offers various types of ads to cater to your goals and budget. In-feed ads are short videos that appear on the user's For You page, with a call-to-action button that can link to your website or app. Brand takeover ads are full-screen ads that can be either a 3-second image or a 3-5 second video, and they link to your website, app, or hashtag challenge. TopView ads are similar to brand takeover ads, but appear after 3 seconds of the user opening the app and can be up to 60 seconds long with sound. Branded hashtag challenge ads invite users to participate in a creative challenge using your branded hashtag and appear on the Discover page. Lastly, branded effects ads allow users to add custom stickers, filters, or effects to their videos and appear in the effects panel.
Before even starting to select your ad formats take a step back and consider what objective you are looking to achieve. Are you looking to drive engagements? Video views? Depending on your answer your selection of Ad Format should be very different. TikTok as a social media platform offers many different Ad Formats for you to select - from TopView, Brand Takeover and In-Feed Ads to Branded Hashtag challenges and Branded Effects - your objective/goal for TikTok will need to align with a selection of these formats if you are looking for success on the platform.
TikTok ads can help your brand to spread awareness or sell products. Most common form of TikTok advertising is the full-screen sound-on video format that can be served to users via In-feed ads, Spark Ads or Shopping ads. The videos blend in with regular TikToks and can be created by brands or creators. Carousel ads have recently rolled out and allow advertisers that do not have video assets to start testing out Tiktok advertising. Alongside with auction ads, TikTok allows your brand to make a big impact with TopView, Branded Hashtag Challenge and Branded Effects ads.
TikTok's ad manager provides a wide range of criteria for targeting your audience, such as location, demographics, interests, behaviors, and even custom audiences. You can target users by country, state, city, or zip code; age, gender, language, or device; music, sports, gaming or beauty interests; videos they watch, hashtags they use, or accounts they follow; and even your existing customers, website visitors, app users, or email subscribers. With this sophisticated ad manager you can create the perfect target audience for your campaigns.
Similar to other social media marketing platforms, use TikTok's ad manager or your Ad Creation tool to ensure that you have built a robust, targeted audience using demographic data such as age, gender, location, interests and hobbies. By taking the time to build your target audience properly you are investing in the quality of the audience that will be served your social media marketing content. The better aligned your content to your audience the better your results should be!
TikTok allows you to set your budget and schedule for your ads, depending on your campaign objective. If you want to increase your brand awareness and reach, you can set your budget based on cost per thousand impressions (CPM) or cost per day (CPD). Alternatively, if you want to generate interest and engagement for your new product, you can set your budget based on cost per click (CPC), cost per view (CPV), or cost per action (CPA). Finally, if you want to drive users to take a specific action, such as buying your product or signing up for your newsletter, you can set your budget based on cost per action (CPA) or cost per install (CPI). Additionally, you can adjust the schedule of your ads, such as the start and end date, the time of day, or the frequency.
TikTok ads are most commonly served with auction and bidding moderl, so you can decide how much you pay per video view, click or impression. TikTok ads are typically at a fraction of a cost compared to for example Meta, but keep in mind that there is a minimum spend on both campaign and ad group level that you have to meet.
TikTok is a platform that celebrates creativity and authenticity, so it's important to create an effective ad creative. To do this, you should use vertical video, as it will fill the screen and capture the user's attention. Additionally, your sound should be clear, catchy, and relevant to your message. You can also leverage captions and stickers to highlight product features or offers, or to encourage users to take action. Furthermore, make sure your ad has a strong call-to-action that tells users what you want them to do next. Finally, test and optimize different versions of your ad creative to see which one performs better. TikTok's creative tools such as Smart Video or Video Template can help you create and edit your ads easily.
Here are some tips that i found out to work great: 1. Leverage user-generated content (UGC) to showcase genuine experiences and build trust with viewers. 2. Utilize powerful hooks like suspense, surprise, or humor to capture viewers' attention within the first few seconds. Make a bold statement or pose a question that piques curiosity. 3. Clearly demonstrate how your product or service addresses a common pain point or improves the viewer's life. Use storytelling to connect with their emotions and aspirations. 4. Include a strong call to action (CTA) that prompts viewers to take the next step, such as visiting a website
There are million and one ways to create TikTok ads, but few key points to note: 1) ensure your video meets the criteria; going sound-on and vertical is a minimum requirement, but creating your creatives TikTok-first (for e.g. taking into account the safe zones if you are repurposing assets from other socials) and by tapping into trends will yield most impact. 2) you don't need to have a TikTok account to get started, which allows brands to test TikTok out easily! 3) Creators are at the core of TikTok and finding a way to incorporate them into your creative process is a gold mine. CGC and Spark ads tend to outperform ads that are just reproductions of TV assets or that have been originally created for other channels.
From growing multiple TikTok accounts, I've developed a simple formula for effective TikTok ads or content strategy: "Relatability x Information = Transformation." The goal is to first resonate with the audience's struggles or needs, making them feel understood. Then, provide valuable information about how your product/service addresses these struggles, showcasing its benefits and unique features. This approach leads the audience to realize how your product can transform their lives or solve their problems, fostering a strong connection and encouraging them to take action. The key here is to TELL A COMPELLING STORY that the audience can see themselves in.
TikTok provides you with various metrics and reports to measure and analyze your results. You can track the performance of your ad by looking at impressions, reach, clicks, views, engagement, and conversions. Additionally, you can use TikTok's pixel or SDK to track website or app activity such as visits, registrations, purchases, or revenue. All of this data can be used to evaluate your return on ad spend (ROAS) and optimize your campaign accordingly.
TikTok will provide you with analytics that are related to the Ad Format that you have deployed on the platform. Take time out of your calendar to really focus on the results and see what you can learn from them in order to improve your future campaigns. For example, results may suggest that a different type of creative performed better than another - this is something that you can A/B test in your next campaign to get a more definite answer. These findings can then be shared across your organisation so that it becomes a shared learning for your business when campaigns are created to address your target audience again in the future.
TikTok is a bespoke platform and any Account Manager at the platform will advise you to 'Make TikToks - Not Ads'. By this, TikTok are advising brands to not simply take traditional advertising formats and crop it to fit a 9:16 format - they are advising that you create bespoke content for the platform that takes into account how users genuinely use the platform. Keep this in mind when it comes to building out your creative to support your campaign on the TikTok platform - pay close attention to your analytics to better understand what users are more likely to engage with on the platform. You will quickly notice how different TikTok is to many other social media platforms- keep working at it, you'll figure out what works best for your brand!