Over the past few years, TikTok has become one of the most popular social media platforms, with millions of users worldwide scrolling through the platform every day. TikTok has become a strong tool for advertisers that are looking to connect with younger, highly engaged audiences. Advertisers have started using TikTok to drive brand awareness, engagement, and sales. In this guide, we’ll walk you through everything you need to know about TikTok Ads, from their formats and targeting options to tips for creating successful campaigns.
Understanding TikTok Ads
What Are TikTok Ads?
TikTok Ads are paid advertisements that are displayed to users on TikTok while they scroll through the platform. These ads can help brands connect the massive audience that visits the platform daily. All businesses, no matter the size, can benefit from TikTok’s advertising options by reaching audiences and achieving specific marketing goals, such as increasing app downloads, website traffic, or product sales.
Why TikTok Ads Are Effective
Advertisers find TikTok ads to be effective for a number of reasons. One of these reasons is that TikTok offers a large audience size which makes it easier for advertisers to find and connect with the right audience. Another reason TikTok ads are so effective is the short-form video format that the platform is based on makes it easier to quickly grab attention and effectively get a message across. A third reason that TikTok is an effective platform for advertisers is because of the accurate algorithm that they are known for, which successfully serves users content that they are most interested in.
Types of TikTok Ads
There are a few different ad formats that TikTok offer, and each format achieves different campaign goals. Here’s a breakdown:
1. In-Feed Ads
These ads appear the most organically. They show up as users are scrolling through their feed. They appear as a regular TikTok video, and can include a clickable call-to-action (CTA) for most campaign types.
2. TopView Ads
TopView Ads are premium placements that are most effective for building brand awareness. These ads are videos that are shown as soon as a user opens the app. This ad launches with a 3-second takeover before transforming into the native in-feed video experience.
3. Branded Hashtag Challenges
These campaigns turn audiences into active participants by creating content using a branded hashtag. These campaigns encourage massive engagement, generate an impact on users in all parts of the sales funnel, and create organic visibility for the advertiser.
4. Branded Effects
This campaign utilizes custom filters created by the advertiser to interact in a creative way. This type of campaign taps into the love for creativity that many TikTok users have, which can create strong engagement, reach, and recall for a brand.
5. Spark Ads
Spark Ads is a native ad format that allows brands to boost existing organic posts from real TikTok accounts. This ensures that all engagements on the ad are attributed to the organic post. Spark Ads allow advertisers to create ads from their TikTok account’s posts or organic posts from other users, with permission.
6. Other Ad Types
There are additional ad formats like Collection Ads and Lead Generation Ads that provide better flexibility for e-commerce sales and lead-focused campaigns.
How to Create TikTok Ads
Setting Up a TikTok Business Account
The first step to creating TikTok ads is setting up a TikTok Business Account. The TikTok Business Account creates a dashboard for advertisers that allows them to create and manage their campaigns.
Navigating the TikTok Ads Manager
After setting up a TikTok Business Account, advertisers can now access TikTok Ads Manager. This tool provides advertisers with a number of tools to help create campaigns and track performance. The first step in setting up a campaign is choosing an objective. Examples of objectives that TikTok offers are traffic, conversions, and app installs. After choosing an objective at the campaign level, next comes the ad groups and individual ads, which can be customized with certain creative elements and targeting options.
Ad Creation Best Practices
- Use videos with a 9:16 aspect ratio to match TikTok’s native format.
- Utilize trending sounds and hashtags to increase visibility.
- Prioritize storytelling over sales-focused videos.
- Use short-form videos (15-60 seconds) to keep the audience engaged.
Targeting and Optimization
Audience Targeting Options
There are multiple different targeting options that TikTok offers advertisers to reach their right audience. These options include demographics, interests, behaviors, and lookalike audiences. These targeting options help advertisers reach audiences that their content is most likely to resonate with.
Budgeting and Bidding Strategies
It’s important for advertisers to set a budget that aligns with their campaign goals. When setting a budget on TikTok, advertisers must choose whether to use daily or total campaign spending. After deciding that, advertisers must select a bidding method.TikTok offers multiple bidding methods such as cost-per-click (CPC), cost-per-thousand-impressions (CPM) and cost-per-view (CPV), which allows advertisers flexibility depending on their campaign objectives.
Monitoring and Optimizing Campaigns
It is important to routinely review metrics important to the campaign such as click-through rate (CTR) and return on ad spend (ROAS). The metrics that are considered important are going to vary by campaign, and will be based on the campaign’s objective. Based on these insights, advertisers should refine targeting, creative assets, or change bidding strategy for better results if it is required.
TikTok Ads vs. Other Social Media Ads
While TikTok shares similarities with other social media platforms, there are important differences between ads on TikTok compared to these other platforms. One way that TikTok differs from platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube is due to its focus on creative, short-form videos and its highly engaging algorithm. While Facebook and Instagram are ideal for static image ads or mixed formats, TikTok’s strength lies in authentic, dynamic content. This makes it especially effective for brand discovery and viral campaigns.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Being overly promotional: TikTok users appreciate authenticity, it is better to post content that seems more organic compared to hard-selling content..
- Ignoring trends: It is beneficial for advertisers to utilize popular sounds, hashtags and challenges to increase their ads’ relevance..
- Neglecting mobile optimization: It is important for ads on TikTok to be created with 9:16 aspect ratio to fit in with the rest of the content on the platform..
Conclusion
TikTok offers advertisers a unique opportunity to connect with highly engaged audiences through impactful campaigns driven by unique creatives. By understanding TikTok’s ad formats and campaign setup, utilizing the offered targeting options, and paying attention to TikTok’s trends, advertisers can maximize their campaigns’ performances.
Ready to dive in? Reach out to Corkboard Concepts about TikTok Ads today and watch your brand’s visibility soar!
