A complete guide to advertising on TikTok!

You may be running campaigns on more established social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. You might even use paid search through Google Adwords. Now, you’re researching advertising on TikTok, the fastest growing social media platform.

There has been a ton of articles written online about running advertising campaigns on platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn. But there aren’t many good articles about TikTok ads .

The reason is that many marketers do not fully understand the TikTok platform. TikTok started out with a bang, and most brands and marketers are still catching up.

To help you get started, I wrote this pretty in-depth guide on TikTok Ads. In this article, you’ll find all the steps you need to take to create a TikTok ad campaign from start to finish. Let’s get started.

1. Why advertise on TikTok

TikTok ads are sponsored short-form mobile videos posted to the TikTok platform with the goal of reaching a wider audience. TikTok ads are often used to increase brand awareness, drive website traffic, and generate new leads.

TikTok is a social platform strictly dedicated to short videos. You may not post image or text advertisements on the Platform. You may only use videos or videos with text overlays to reach your target audience with your ads.

We’ve already taken a brief look at how TikTok works. Let’s look at some statistics that show why you should advertise on TikTok.

• TikTok is the sixth most popular social media platform in the world. TikTok has more than 800 million active users. The platform has more users than Reddit, Snapchat, and LinkedIn.
• TikTok is used in more than 154 countries.
• TikTok has been downloaded more than 1.5 billion times. Global lifetime user spending on TikTok also reached $175 million.
• More than a third (37%) of unique visitors to TikTok come from households with a total income of $100,000 or more.
• 29.5% of users on TikTok are between 20 and 29 years old.
• According to research by Influencer Marketing Hub, TikTok has the highest social media engagement rate among 100,000 user profiles.
• The platform supports 39 languages!
• 90% of users on TikTok use the app multiple times a day.

These statistics show the value TikTok can bring to your brand. If you haven’t yet added TikTok to your social marketing strategy, you should!

Is TikTok Advertising Right for Your Business?

This is an important issue. Before investing in TikTok advertising, you need to make sure it’s the best move for your business.

Depending on your audience demographic, TikTok may not be the best platform for you. TikTok has a younger audience than most social media platforms.

According to Statista, teenagers make up the largest share of users. 32.5% of users are between 10 and 19 years old, and then 29.5% are between 20 and 29 years old. Users aged between 10 and 29 together account for 62% of total users. Only 16.4% of TikTok users are between the ages of 30 and 39, and only 7.1% are over the age of 50.

The gender gap on the platform is small. 56% of TikTok users are male, while 44% are female.

If your business serves people over the age of 50, this app may not be the best choice for you. TikTok ads work best if your audience is teenagers.

Even with younger audiences, you shouldn’t completely abandon the platform. As TikTok grows in popularity, more and more people are joining the platform. Over time, older demographics may start using the app.

Similar to other social media platforms, you also have the option to directly target older demographics. TikTok allows you to set ad targeting using demographic components such as age, gender, location, interests, and device type.

How much does TikTok advertising cost?

Getting started with TikTok advertising is a bit expensive. Its premium costs are higher compared to most social media platforms. While you can create in-feed ads based on your budget and schedule, you’ll need a minimum campaign budget of $500 to get started. The minimum budget for an ad group is $50. Unlike Facebook, where you can launch an ad campaign for as little as $1, TikTok can be a bit pricey.

TikTok ads start at $10 CPM. Adage's report suggests that TikTok advertising costs can range from $50,000 to $120,000, depending on the ad format and length.

These advertising costs may be too high for a small business or entrepreneur. The good news is that in addition to TikTok’s native paid ad program, there are other ways to advertise on the platform.

TikTok Ad Format

TikTok has 5 ad formats. Let’s look at how each type works.

##Internal Advertising##

In-feed ads are similar to the ads you see when you scroll through Instagram. In-feed ads appear when users scroll through the "For You" section on TikTok's homepage.

In-feed video ads can be between 9 and 15 seconds long. You can also add a call to action to increase conversions.

A call to action can be a link to your website (to help you increase website traffic), a link to your online store (to boost sales), or a link to a landing page (to help increase subscriptions to your service). Calls to action are the limit. You can even add as many calls to action as you want.

Another feature of TikTok’s built-in ads is that users can like, comment, share and interact with videos. Therefore, if you want to increase engagement with your followers, Feed-Feed Ads are a suitable option.

##Brand Takeover##

Brand takeover ads are TikTok ads that appear as soon as a user opens the app. The ad will appear as a full-screen video on the user's device.

This ad format is more direct than inline ads because your ad is the first thing users see when they open your app. Another feature of this ad format is that your ad can also appear in the For You page as a video, GIF, or static image.

You can also include a clickable link that directs users to the Hashtag Challenge within the app, or as an external link to the destination page.

This is an example of how Guess the Jeans used the clickable link feature to redirect users to their viral #InMyDenim challenge.

Source: TikTok

Guess Jeans launched a brand takeover ad featuring a clickable link to raise awareness for the hashtag challenge campaign. The challenge involves consumers showing off their fashion style with denim.

Six days after running the brand acquisition campaign, 5,500 users created videos using the hashtag #InMyDenim. The videos have over 10.5 million views, a 14.3% engagement rate, and over 12,000 users follow Guess’ TikTok account.

Please note that brand takeover ads are exclusive. This means users will only see one brand takeover ad per day. This factor makes it costly for brands to take over advertising.

##Top view##

TopView ads are very similar to brand takeover ads. The only difference is that the TopView ad appears 5 seconds after the user opens the app.

This is also TikTok’s longest video ad format. TopView videos can be up to 60 seconds long. The video plays full screen with sound and autoplay. This ad allows you to add links to internal or external pages.

Balenciaga uses the TopView ad format to drive traffic to their shopping page.

Source: TikTok

The ad features a beautiful full-screen video of their product, overlaid with bold text to draw attention. They added a call to action to drive people to their shopping page.

The ad received more than 23 million impressions in the UK, France and Italy. The average click-through rate for ads is about 18%.

##Brand Label##

Branded hashtags are sponsored hashtag ads in TikTok’s Discover Page.

When users click on a sponsor's tag, they will be redirected to a landing page with the sponsor's logo, website link, challenge instructions, and the most popular videos using that tag.

The only downside to this ad format is its high cost. To advertise on TikTok’s Discovery banner, you might have to pay up to $150,000.

The good news is that you don’t have to spend a lot of money to run a branded hashtag challenge. Instead of using TikTok’s advertising program, you can work with influencers to promote your branded hashtag.

##Brand Effect##

With this ad format, brands can customize their ads with AR filters, stickers, lenses, and branded shareable stickers. You can also create custom filters directly on the app.

Source: TikTok

Branding can help add personality to your ads. Your goal is to get the user's attention and get them to take a specific action. Branded effects like stickers and augmented reality can help you increase engagement with your ads.

5. Set up your TikTok ad campaign

Here are the steps to set up a TikTok Ads campaign:

Create a TikTok Ads account

The first step is to visit the TikTok Ads homepage and click on the “Create Ad” button.

If you’re not in India, Japan, Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia, Thailand, or Indonesia, you’ll need to go through a TikTok advertising agency before you can open an ad account. You will need to fill in a form where you enter your business details.

Once you complete the form, a TikTok advertising representative will contact you.

##Create a campaign##

When you open the TikTok Ads dashboard, you’ll see four tabs – Campaign, Library, Reporting, and Insights. Click the Campaigns tab, then click the Create button to get started.

Next, choose your advertising objective. The ad objective will be the target of your ad. You can choose from the following options:

• flow
• Conversion
• App Installation

The next step is to set a budget. Under the Settings tab, you can choose a daily budget or a total budget. Please note that your daily or total budget cannot be less than $50.

##Create a TikTok ad group##

Once you've set your advertising goals and budget, you'll need to create an ad group. Here you can set your ad’s location, details, targeting, schedule, bidding method, and delivery type.

Set ad placements: This is where you choose where your ad will appear. You can choose automatic placements or set them manually.

Set your ad details: Next, you'll fill out the Ad details section. You'll need to provide a complete description of the content of your ad.

Ad details include the following:

• Promotion Type: Here you can choose the advertising objective of your ad. You can choose between App installation or Website.
• Display Name: Add your brand name.
• Profile picture: This is the picture your audience sees on your ad. It must have a 1:1 aspect ratio and be no larger than 50KB.
• Category: Select the correct category that describes your promotion.
• Ad Code: The TikTok algorithm will use the code (keyword) you choose to match your ad to the right audience. You can add up to 20 tags per ad.
• User Comments: If you want users to be able to leave comments on your ads, you can enable this feature.

Set targeting: This section allows you to define who can see your ad. The parameters you set include audience, gender, location, age, language, interest categories, connection type, and OS version.

If you have a custom audience that you want to show your ads to, TikTok offers the option to upload your custom list as a CSV, TXT, or Zip file.

Set a budget and schedule: Next, you set your campaign budget and schedule. You can choose a daily budget or a lifetime budget.

Next, you can schedule when your ad will run. Once you've selected the days you want your ad to run, you can take it a step further by specifying the times of day you want your ad to appear.

##Choose Your Rhythm##

At this point, you can choose how fast you want your ads to run. You can choose between two options – Standard and Expedited delivery methods.

Standard delivery delivers your ads evenly throughout the duration of your campaign.

Accelerated delivery will spend your advertising budget as quickly as possible.

##Choose your optimization goal##

Your optimization goal should reflect the purpose of your entire campaign. You can select Conversions, Clicks, or Impressions as your ad objective. Your bid also depends on the optimization goal you choose.

If you select "Conversions" as your goal, your ad will appear to people who are most likely to take the action you specify. The bidding method for the conversion goal is oCPC (optimized cost per click). This means you will bid on the desired cost per conversion.

If you select "Clicks" as your optimization goal, your ads will be optimized algorithmically to get as many clicks as possible. The bidding method for clicks is CPC (cost per click).

If you select "Impressions" as your goal, your ad will be optimized to get as many impressions as possible. The bidding method for impressions is CPM (cost per mile or cost per thousand impressions).

Please note that if you select "Conversions" as your goal, you will need to set up a conversion tracking pixel. You can set this up in the Library section by clicking Conversions.

It’s also important to enable TikTok’s smart optimization option. This will ensure that TikTok continues to optimize your ads for conversions.

##Design your ad using TikTok's video production kit##

The TikTok advertising platform has a tool called the Video Creation Kit that gives you image and video templates that you can use to customize your posts. It also offers over 300 free background music options.

After uploading media from your computer or adding media from your media library, click Create Video.

Once you’ve created your video, you can write your text copy and call-to-action button.

Once you've done this, click Submit and your ad will go live on the scheduled date.

6. How does TikTok rank ads?

The main factors TikTok uses in ad ranking are relevance, ad quality, and bid. While bids are important, high-quality and relevant ads are prioritized because they drive more engagement and make the platform more money. TikTok also considers engagement factors such as shares, comments and likes, ad buyers said.

TikTok most likely uses watch time and watch loops (the number of times a user views an ad) to determine its relevance. Therefore, in order to increase viewing time, you need to continuously produce high-quality videos for your ads.

7. TikTok Advertising and Marketing Types

There are many strategies you can use to advertise and market your brand on TikTok. In addition to using TikTok’s paid advertising program, you can also advertise your brand through:

##Working with influencers##

This is one of the most cost-effective ways to promote your brand on TikTok. You can collaborate with influencers to promote your brand. Influencer marketing is very effective for increasing brand awareness.

In fact, working with social media influencers can increase your business ROI by up to 11%. Another report showed that businesses earn an average of $6.50 for every $1 they spend on influencer marketing.

After partnering with influencers, CashApp used a song to go viral and promote its brand on the app.

It is very important to choose the right influencer to work with you. Don’t just choose an influencer because they have a large number of views or followers. The best practice is to choose influencers who post content that is relevant to your brand and goals.

Choose influencers that are directly related to your niche or industry. For example, if you’re a fitness brand, it would make more sense to work with an influencer in the wellness space than a tech influencer.

Also, take a look at their engagement rates. Influencers with consistent engagement rates usually have an engaged audience who believe in their content. The point of your campaign is to get users to engage with your brand. The more trusted an influencer is on the platform, the more engagement they receive.

You can easily find the best-suited influencers using influencer marketing platforms. These platforms will do everything they can to find the best influencers for your brand, product, or service.

Tip: To encourage influencers to continue promoting your brand, use a commission-based payment method instead of a one-time payment. Similar to affiliate marketing, where influencers get paid per lead.

##Share your TikTok content on other channels##

You can increase the reach of your TikTok content by posting on other marketing channels. You can post your TikTok videos to other social media platforms, your brand’s website, YouTube, and more.

TikTok videos are extremely popular on YouTube and Twitter. In fact, half of the viral videos I see on my Twitter feed are from TikTok.

Sharing your content on other channels will increase your brand’s visibility and reach. If you have a small marketing team on a tight budget, you can use this strategy to increase awareness of your brand without spending a ton of money on paid advertising.

##Promote your brand’s TikTok channel##

If your brand’s demographic is active on TikTok, you should consider creating a TikTok channel. This will help you connect with your target audience and build relationships with them.

The key is to provide value and entertainment through your TikTok channel. You can then use paid advertising or influencer marketing to promote your TikTok channel. Remember, TikTok users come to the app for fun and entertainment. If the ads you show only promote your products or services, your engagement will be minimal.

The more interesting your videos are, the more engagement you will get. Users have short attention spans. You have to create videos that trigger their curiosity, otherwise they will just move on to the next video in their feed.

##Start a TikTok Challenge##

Challenges are the most popular video format on the platform. Viral challenges on the app often receive millions of interactions. Running a challenge campaign is one of the best ways to market your brand on TikTok.

Here are some examples of brands using TikTok challenges to increase brand awareness.

>>>OPPO

Source: TikTok

When OPPO launched its new F11 Pro device in 2019, they started a hashtag challenge called #LightUpF11Pro to increase awareness of the device in Malaysia. Participants in the hashtag challenge had to create a dance video while making the “photo” gesture with their hands. The winner of the challenge will receive a new F11 Pro device and a cash prize.

The result of the challenge was more than 7,000 user-generated videos, 6 million video views, and 326,000 likes during the 6-day event.

>>>Rexxana

Source: TikTok

Rexona launched the #RexonaChallenge to raise awareness for their new summer line targeting teens. They first challenged Kate, the most influential person. She created pop music for the challenge and shared a video of herself dancing in her own unique way.

Rexona then offered prizes to participants who shared their own unique interpretation of the music video. The challenge resulted in approximately 93 million views during the six-day campaign. Rexona's TikTok account also gained 14,000 followers.

##TikTok's paid advertising plan##

We’ve already covered how TikTok’s paid advertising program works in detail. Earlier in this article, we took a look at the different ad formats TikTok offers, as well as how to set up a TikTok Ads campaign.

8. Conclusion

Using TikTok ads is a very effective way to increase brand awareness, increase leads, and generate sales for your online store. The key is to target the right audience and upload video ads that grab users’ attention.

This article should help you get started with your own campaign.

Keep in mind that while native paid advertising programs from TikTok can be a bit pricey, there are other advertising opportunities on the platform, such as KOL (influencer) marketing.

Author: Cross-border log

Source: Cross-border Log