Right next to YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram, there’s one app that consumes the most time people spend on smartphones: TikTok. Thanks to innovative machine learning algorithms, TikTok can identify people’s interests after only a few videos. Then it serves the same videos over and over. Following in the footsteps of previously establishgened social media giants like Meta, Twitter, and Instagram, TikTok has launched its TikTok advertising platform called TikTok Ads. Having a large, diverse, and engaged audience like TikTok allows companies to connect brands with customers. The company has high confidence that it will find the brand’s products and useful services worth buying. In this post, let’s discuss how to run effective TikTok ads while still optimizing your budget.
How have TikTok Ads evolved?
Over the past few years, TikTok has been the only competitor that has tried to change the social media paradigm, and it is gaining popularity with mobile users rapidly. Even hugely successful video streaming services like Netflix and the like are affected. According to recent research in 2021, people spent approximately 9.6 trillion minutes on Netflix and a whopping 22.6 trillion on TikTok. People’s worldwide attention to mobile is turning to TikTok as a producer of compelling video content that costs zero to produce.
Initially, TikTok captured the minds and hearts of the young generation such as Generation Z). But by 2022, people from all generations will be able to access videos on TikTok and so it brings the platform TikTok Ads to the top of the list of digital marketing tools for every brand. As of 2021, TikTok has more online traffic than Google, the app was downloaded more than 3 billion times, and it spent about 20 hours watching videos on it monthly. After the platform’s phenomenal success, advertising on TikTok quickly followed.
After a few years of progress, since being rolled out back in 2019, TikTok has been trying to improve its advertising platform. And nowadays, its effectiveness and ease of use are on par with Google Ads or Meta Ads. Just like Meta and other popular social media platforms, brands can run their advertising campaigns using the TikTok advertising dashboard or choose to approach a media marketing agency. They can reduce costs while still meeting outcome expectations.
Ways to optimize TikTok advertising campaigns effectively
Create authentic TikTok ads
One of the most distinctive features of TikTok ad formats is how well they are combined with user-generated content on the one hand. However, on the other hand, TikTok users can still distinguish between ads and videos user-generated. Like regular videos, ads can be liked, commented on, and shared. This visual similarity leads to high engagement rates because TikTok users don’t consider those ads as ads.
For this perfect blend to work, advertisers need to make sure their ads are on par with regular video content. Meaning that if the ad is not shot in the visual style of TikTok, it will go against the rest of the feed on the TikTok app and users will ignore it. On the other hand, if the ad is created in a true TikTok visual style, it will ensure high engagement and will require less marketing budget.
Partnering with influencers
Influencers are influencers on many social media platforms, but TikTok is a special case. Thanks to the For You Page section, it is highly visible to TikTok users, and influencers can easily interact with and deliver the brand’s message. The key thing to remember for this approach is that you always need to make sure you reach the right influencers for your brand who can be authentic in the promotional video they’ll be shooting for the campaign. report your TikTok. If you don’t meet this requirement, you will most likely waste your influencer budget and not be able to reduce your marketing costs.
Choosing the Effective TikTok Ads Formats
The TikTok ad platform offers advertisers a variety of ad formats to use, and you need to be familiar with each to get the most out of it.
- The Top View format is similar to Brand Takeover, but it doesn’t take up the entire screen but only a portion, and in this case, it’s the job of an app marketer to craft a message that is compelling enough for people to use. Use pause and watch the full video ad.
- Brand Takeover format is displayed on the entire screen of the application for a short period (minimum 5s) to introduce the brand to the world. This is as much exposure as possible. Certainly, this format requires advertisers to be especially careful with their message and what video ads will deliver in such a short amount of time.
- The In-Feed Ads format is similar to what Facebook offers advertisers, it’s right on the “For You Page” of TikTok users, and it’s a hybrid format with regular video content posted by TikTok users. Promotional videos in this format can last up to 60 seconds.
- Branded Hashtag Challenges format – challenges and hashtags are the two main drivers of going viral on TikTok, and the platform allows app marketers to leverage these powerful tools to run ads.
- Branded Effect Format: Just like Instagram and Snapchat, TikTok’s Branded Effect allows brands to create stickers, filters, and special effects that can be shared on TikTok for self-promotion.
Perform analytical testing
Although app marketers have made every effort to come up with the most effective ads before launching the TikTok ad campaign. But in reality, running an analytic test for a TikTok ad campaign is a must for app marketers. Running many different ads at the same time and carefully analyzing their performance allows you to determine which works best to focus on and thereby helps reduce costs. You also need to remember that different ads are suitable for different audiences. And because it’s impossible to know in advance which ads correspond to which audience, analytical testing is what helps you establish this connection. The TikTok platform provides a bird’s-eye view of the entire running ad campaign and each campaign level. Therefore, you should carefully analyze each metric provided by TikTok’s built-in analytics.
