Getting Started with TikTok Advertising
Published by NoGood.io 11/7/2022
The power of TikTok cannot be underestimated. As the number one downloaded app in the world (a cool 656 million times in 2021) it is becoming increasingly more difficult to ignore. Since its 2016 launch, TikTok has penetrated over 20% of the 4.8 billion global Internet users and boasts over 3 million downloads. But aside from its staggering one billion monthly active users and exponential growth and conversion opportunities, many brands have been slow to tap into TikTok advertising as a legitimate paid media channel. From brand awareness to product conversions and retargeting, TikTok ads offer marketers full-funnel marketing opportunities with even more campaign types and optimizations being consistently rolled out by the platform.
We all know the classic social ads tech stack. Depending on your audience and vertical you may have some combination of Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. But TikTok has earned its spot in any brand’s social stack– and we’re here to tell you why. Of course, when considering expanding any scope, it’s important to consider each and every angle to ensure your efforts and budget are not wasted. On the surface, TikTok may seem like a risky investment, but as one of Byte Dance’s earliest U.S. partners, our experts have the learnings and expertise to prove otherwise.
Not only is TikTok a major channel for top-of-funnel brand awareness and discovery, but users are arriving with high purchasing intent. Last year, TikTok consumers spent over $2.3 billion dollars (a 77% year-over-year increase) and took the number one spot as the top app for consumer spending.
Have we convinced you? There’s more.
TikTok isn’t just a social platform for Gen Z dancing and lip-syncs – it is a sound-on entertainment experience used for sharing, learning, and discovery. TikTok has had a profound impact on culture in the modern world — competing with social competitors such as Meta, search competitors like Google, and streaming competitors including Netflix and HBO Max. With half the users over the age of 30, this negative connotation of TikTok as a “Gen Z platform” can quickly be shut down with its sheer impact on the way we consume content, connect with brands, and, let’s be honest, market.
Similar to other social media platforms, brands, businesses, and individuals are able to use TikTok as a means of advertising their services and offerings. Brands across the globe have already begun to take these strides finding unique ways to show off their creativity, market and sell products, and even provide additional transparency in their organizations. Though some brands remain hesitant about advertising on the platform, we’re here to encourage you to begin using the platform not only organically but as a paid marketing channel.
From Chipotle and The Empire State Building to the infamous Duolingo owl, companies of all industries and sizes are finding success through TikTok advertising by using their creativity and defining their unique brand voice to connect with their brand communities and future consumers.
Who should use TikTok Advertising?
Is TikTok a good match for my brand? Is my target audience using the platform? The answer may surprise you.
Due to its exponential growth, TikTok has quickly become a rival of Snapchat, Meta, and Google as users gravitate towards its culture of authenticity and social validity. But we aren’t just talking about using TikTok organically. The potential reach of ads on TikTok is as many as 888.4 million reaching almost 18% of total internet users above 18 years of age.
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But the app isn’t just for younger generations. Gen Z continues to be the largest active age group, but this does not discredit 46% of TikTok users over the age of 34 truly making it an advertising platform that can reach all ages.
Brands across all industries can find success marketing on TikTok. By using TikTok advertising, fast food companies like Dunkin’, Chipotle, and Wendy’s have found unique ways to connect with their communities through witty banter and turn up the cravings around unexpected menu items and collabs. Tech and SaaS companies have also found their way into TikTok advertisements as they are able to optimize for app downloads and have found success with how-to videos and demonstrations. But it’s beauty, fashion, and food that take the cake (no pun intended) for the highest-viewed categories by TikTok users.
The international reach of TikTok also continues to expand as the app is currently available in 155 countries and operates in 75 different languages. This allows advertisers to target audiences based on location and language, while utilizing text overlays and auto-captioning to reach individuals outside of their own linguistic scope.
Finally, there is the consideration of gender. Globally, female users hold the majority at 55% of users, and in the United States account for 61% of the user base. Though marketers are able to target by age and gender on TikTok, it is important to understand exactly how your money will be spent. When targeting a smaller demographic group, your overall ad spend will most likely be higher.
Getting Started with TikTok Ads
Create a TikTok account of course!
But before we dive in, it’s important to make the distinction between an organic account and a business account. TikTok accounts have the option to be categorized as personal, creator, or business accounts.
Brands can run ads via TikTok without having an organic account or presence, but if you plan on Sparking (essentially a boosted organic post) then you must first have an organic account that connects to your business account.
Operating as a business TikTok account, brands can unlock the ability to run paid ads, partner with creators, run real-time performance tracking, access in-depth analytics, and have the ability to drive traffic to external landing pages. If you are planning on running TikTok ads, which we assume is why you are here, then this is the option for you.
Creating a business account is simple via TikTok Ads Manager. Once approved and authenticated it’ll be time to set up your pixel. The TikTok Pixel, similar to other pixels you may be familiar with, is a snippet of code that lives on your website which gathers information about site events. These events include user data such as location and device, and can also track user activity such as a product view or add to cart action. By tracking these events, TikTok will be better able to target your ads and get them in front of the right users.
But before we get too nitty-gritty, let’s get a little more familiar with the TikTok Business Center.
The TikTok Business Center
TikTok launched its Business Center in 2020 as a one-stop shop for ad resources, inspiration, management, and creation.
The TikTok Business Center is compromised of four main areas:
The Business Center – This is where various levels of users are added and assigned. Members include your team members that are operating the day-to-day management of the business account whereas Partners is the space where you can connect your client or brand’s business ID in order to connect to their specific Ads account.
Ads Manager – Ads Manager houses campaigns, audiences, creatives, product catalogs, and reporting. This is where the magic happens.
Store Manager – Once you connect your CRM platform, products can be uploaded and managed here to be displayed on your profile storefront with the ability to be tagged and featured in your organic and paid videos.
Creator Center – Discover and track trends, view top-performing ads, explore the TikTok audio library, and use the creative center video templates to turn still photos into beautifully branded videos.
With so many resources and promotion capabilities, why wouldn’t you give TikTok Advertising a shot? Here’s how to get started on TikTok Business Center:
1. Create your TikTok Business Manager account
To begin, sign up for your TikTok business account by going to TikTok For Business. Select whether you are a business or agency and enter your details including region, business name and currency.
Agencies will be taken to a a Business Center page such as the following to provide additional details whereas an individual business will have to choose an industry to help TikTok correctly categorize your business and advertising.
2. Add users and input Partners
Whether you are an agency or business, next you will need to add additional users and members by inviting them via email. To add new members, go to the “Overview” tab and toggle to “Assets” and “Members.” When adding a new member, users can now have one of four access points for account access: Admin, Standard, Finance Manager, and Finance Analyst account access. Within these each role comes additional restrictions that can be customized to your team’s needs.
Advertising Partners are similarly added under the “Partners” tab. Enter the Partner’s Business Center ID which can be found in their Business Center settings under “Business Center Information.”
Partners then have the option to share their individual Advertiser accounts, catalogs, and pixels.
3. Manage your assets and add Ad Accounts
To see all your accounts, catalogs, pixels, and shared audience types, toggle to the “Assets” on the left hand side. Also included on this navigation bar is Finance, Activity log, and business settings.
Under the “Assets” tab toggle to “Advertiser accounts.” Here you can create a new Ad account or request access to an existing account. If creating a new ad account, enter your business information and select account type.
An Ads Manager Account will allow you to run all campaign types available to your business via auction ads whereas a Reservation Account can only run reservation ads which is paying at fixed rate per number of impressions otherwise known as CPM (cost per mille).
If requesting access to another business’ ad account, the original owner will continue to own it, whereas the requester can request Admin, Operator, or Analyst access.
So you’ve set up your ads account, now what? Next we’ll explore TikTok Ads Manager and get you and your business up and running on TikTok.
Navigating TikTok Ads Manager
TikTok Ads Manager is broken up into four areas: Dashboard, Campaign, Assets, and Reporting.
The Dashboard offers a birds-eye view of your current active campaign performance, cost, and trends.
Each of the following Navigation pages will give you a more granular view of campaign creation, asset management, and detailed reporting. But we’ll get into all that a little later. Let’s talk Ads!
What are the TikTok Advertising formats?
Like many other paid social platforms, TikTok’s ad platform is not one size fits all. We believe in having an experimentation mindset to discover the best campaign types, ad groups, assets, and budgets for every account we manage. There is no copying and pasting when it comes to strategy, but once we find a method that yields results for each account, we continuing monitoring, optimizing, and double down what’s working.
But if you are just getting started, you’ll want to be familiar with the different campaign types available for most accounts. TikTok currently offers five ad formats that can serve your brand at every stage of the marketing funnel. Within these ad types, there are additional customizations and targeting to reach your optimal audience.
Dependent on your business size, budget, and industry, you may not have access to every ad format but we’ll break them all down for you with examples to see the ads in action!
In-Feed Ads
In-Feed Ads are by far the most popular among marketers as they seamlessly blend into a users For You Page feed. In-Feed Ads appear natively amongst organic content making them less intrusive while a user scrolls.
The biggest benefit of In-Feed Ads is the multiple opportunities to call to action, leading users to an Instant Page, website, storefront, or app download. This ad format is also the most cost efficient option for small to medium sized businesses.
Unlike a typical ad, users are able to interact and engage with the content my liking, following, sharing, or leave comments in the same way as an organic post. This ad format can run up to 60 seconds of video but an engaging hook and strong CTA will be the most important to get users to stop the scroll.
Within days of launching In-Feed Ads, Morning Brew received over 70,000 new subscribers to their newsletter, achieved an engagement rate of 24%, and accumulated 23 million impressions. You may have seen similar lead generation campaigns from other marketing newsletters including DTC (that’s their name).
Managed Brands Ad Formats
Not all accounts have the same ad formats available to them. Managed Brands are accounts that work directly with a representative at TikTok and reach a minimum ad spend threshold. These reps can provide early access to new product roll-outs, make ad optimization suggestions, assist in troubleshooting, and provide access to additional formats. The following ad types are exclusively available to managed brands:
Brand Takeover Ad
Have you ever opened your TikTok app and were immediately faced with an ad from an account you don’t follow? This is a Brand Takeover Ad. These ads can also appear on your “For You Page” as a still photo, gif, or video with a clickable link leading to a landing page or branded hashtag challenge. Given the format, these ads are best suited for awareness campaigns, but advertisers should expect to pay premium prices for these spots especially since TikTok will only show one Brand Takeover Ad to a user each day.
See how Guess Jeans utilized a Brand Takeover Ad leading to their #InMyDenim Branded Hashtag Challenge landing page.
TopView ads
This ad type is similar to a Brand Takeover ad, but instead of appearing when the app is launched, these 5-60 second video ads appear in-feed after the first 3 seconds of a user’s scroll. Designed to target your audience in the most effective way possible, these placements include audio and custom links.
Branded Hashtag Challenge
Unlike your typical hashtag, Branded Hashtags are exclusive to the TikTok Advertising platform. When a user clicks on a sponsored hashtag they are taken to a TikTok landing page with brand info, a website link, a description of the challenge, and popular videos using the hashtag. Users actively participate in creating themed content that incorporates the branded hashtag which gets compiled on the challenge landing page. This format encourages user-generated content and only runs for three to six days.
This feedback loop is a great way to create community and build an engaged audience.
Goldfish created a duet challenge with basketball star Boban Marjanovic for their #GoForTheHandful branded hashtag campaign. They partnered with additional influencers to get the challenge going and ran in-feed ads simultaneously to make the biggest impact.
Branded Effects
Similar to Instagram filters and Snapchat lenses, TikTok offers branded filters, stickers, and AR lenses for users to engage with and use on their own videos. Branded Effect Ads can be run for up to 10 days and are available to search after that time frame.
Mucinex used a combination of a Branded Hashtag Challenge paired with a Branded Effect to raise awareness among Gen Z TikTok users and create a viral dance trend in the process.
Not every campaign type is suitable for every brand account and TikTok allows for creative flexibility with its many branded ad types. Experiment between ad formats, creative assets, audiences, and budgets to tailor your strategy to your campaign needs.
TikTok Advertising Optimizations
As you explore the Ads Manager platform, you’ll see it operates similarly to other ad platforms. While bid strategies and audience targeting are fairly straightforward, we’ll take you through some TikTok specific optimizations you can implement to refine your advertising content in order to see strong outcomes.
1. Niche up, not down
We all know understanding your niche and your target customers are important when considering marketing campaigns. But when it comes to the content of the ads you will deliver on TikTok, you should start by niching up instead of down.
Our current trade secret for TikTok Advertising is targeting a broad audience versus an overly granular, specific audience segment. TikTok Advertising works best for top-of-funnel and awareness campaigns as even any organic user has the ability to go viral. As the algorithm learns who your video is best suited for, serving it to a broad audience will set your ad up for more success at the awareness stage.
In the early experimentation stage, your content will be a bit broader than the content you create for your ideal customer who is ready to convert. Target and position your content towards an even broader audience — your top audience. This could be content from a related field or it could be personality-based content that appeals to users who do not want to convert right away. The idea is to connect with people in your broader audience and engage them with high quality content until they are ready to learn more and become viable leads.
For example, if your target audience is a marketing coach or a course creator, your middle audience might be a content creator in general, and your top audience might be someone looking for a way to turn their passion into a career.
These creative people who are looking for their passion may never become social media marketers, so they may never convert and buy your services. But by creating content they can relate to, you increase your chances of finding more of your ideal customers and leveraging TikTok’s extreme growth potential.
Once you have defined your target audiences and niche, it’s time to experiment with your actual content strategy.
2. Do your competitor research and follow relevant TikTok accounts for inspiration
TikTok is all about trends. What are other people doing in space, which sounds are trending, what hooks are landing? Make a list of TikTok creators and brands you can use for market research and stay inspired by. If you are wondering how to find TikTok creators to follow, use the Discover feed and search for names, keywords, or hashtags to find related accounts and videos.
Begin by finding creators within your niche or industry – essentially accounts that are creating the same topical content that you would create. Next, research creators from related or even broader niches. For example, if you are in the fitness space, you might find a fitness coach, a nutritionist, and a motivational writer.
3. Choose your campaign objective
TikTok Advertising currently has seven ad campaign objectives broken into three categories:
Awareness
• Reach– Show your ad to the maximum number of people
Consideration
• Traffic– Send users to a specific landing page URL
• App Installs– Drive users to download your app
• Video Views– Optimize for the maximum video views
• Lead Generation– Collect leads through TikTok’s Instant Landing Page forms
• Community Interaction– Best for driving engagement by encouraging account follows and profile visits
Conversion
Conversions– Designed to drive valuable actions to your website or app. This requires installing your TikTok pixel to track events.
4. Spark Ads vs. Dark Ads
When deciding on ad content, accounts have the option to “Spark” an asset that is running organically or post it as a dark ad.
An organic asset can be added to an ad campaign through an authorized access code from the app or if you are the account owner, you can link it directly from the Ads Manager platform. Marketers are unable to change the creative asset or caption copy but can add an additional CTA or Instant Landing Page. The content will continue to run organically and live on your profile feed, but it is being pushed out to your ad group audience simultaneously.
Dark ads are exactly as the name implies. These ads are uploaded directly to Ads Manager and are not connected to your organic account. This allows brands that do not have an organic TikTok account to run ads, or brands that want to make specific copy or creative adjustments to assets that will better serve the conversion goals. These ads do not get pushed out to your followers unless they are in your target audience and do not live on your organic account page.
The Path to Virality
If you’re looking for a way to reach new audiences, connect with Gen Z, and diversify your paid social channels, then TikTok is the platform for you. The most successful ad campaigns are generally:
Original and native to the organic production quality
Authentic and in line with the brand personality
Conversational in tone
Highly engaging to users
High-energy and entertaining
Relevant to current trends and sounds
When choosing creators to partner with, it’s also important to work with more established TikTok influencers to ensure ads are seen by an established audience. Let your creator run wild, as they know best what works for their audience.
When each of these components is packaged together into a video with a single objective, TikTok can drive massive amounts of engagement, reach a larger audience base, and turn views into conversions.
Through TikTok’s creator tools and Ads platform, brands and companies all over the globe have been able to leverage and target their audiences by creating engaging communities through entertaining content and advertising their companies in new and exciting ways.