Last Updated on March 27, 2024
If you truly want to connect with your target audience, you need to share with them on a regular basis. One of the most powerful ways to do this is through visual content. You could publish an article or share a picture, but one of the more personalized forms of consumer advertising is through video. That’s why it’s not too hard to see why TikTok is so popular these days — for one thing, it’s an easy-to-digest format that gives you an immersive full-screen interface of funny and interesting short clips.
What is TikTok?
Known as Douyin in China, TikTok is a social video-sharing app that has users hooked to its powerful AI features of built-in filters, visual effects, and music. Since our first TikTok post, the platform has accumulated more than 1 billion users. The user base is incredibly young and many of them are often below the age of 24. Majority of them are female, which is another appealing feature for advertisers to consider when marketing on the platform.
TikTok traffic is heavily driven by its algorithm. Smaller brands have the chance to get a large amount of traffic if one of their posts goes viral. This also means that large accounts can receive little exposure for posts that are not so popular. Quality and quantity are both important when it comes to creating brand value on TikTok.
Advertising on TikTok
TikTok opened up advertising in early 2019 and the platform can be a great marketing approach for promoting products though creative, visually compelling campaigns. With advanced targeting and an unlimited range of content styles, TikTok ads bring a fresh new way to market unlike many of its predecessors.
Due to the user demographics of the app and unique marketing style, every business is not suitable to benefit from TikTok advertising. Before investing into a TikTok marketing campaign, here are a few things to consider to determine if this is the best ad platform to market your business.
3 things to consider for TikTok advertising
- Target demographic of your business: If younger consumers are the primary audience for your brand, TikTok advertising could be very beneficial. The Chinese cell phone brand, OPP, launched a KOL campaign requiring users to make a “What would you do if you had 20 million?” skit, showcasing the entertainment value that young users appreciate. The best videos on TikTok tend to be very fun and engaging, which may not be right platform for businesses that cater to older audiences. However, TikTok is still a new platform and may adopt to a wider audience reach in the future.
- Visual content marketing skills: You need to post frequent and high quality content to be successful on the platform. You need a team or agency that is skilled with making videos that will interest and connect with your target audience. If you have no clue about video marketing or have the capacity to make videos regularly, then TikTok may not be the best advertising option for your business.
- TikTok advertising budget: Since advertising on the platform is fairly new, ads are expensive with an average cost of $ 10 per CPM and can go up to $ 300,000 for larger campaigns. TikTok ad campaigns also require a minimal investment of $ 500 so TikTok advertising might be a little pricey for smaller businesses. Although, if your target audience and content skills align with the TikTok platform, then the advertising price can be worth the cost because TikTok advertising can give your brand the exposure it needs to do well with your target audience.
How to open a TikTok advertising account
Once you decide if TikTok ads are the right advertising option for your business, then the next thing to do is get starting with creating a TikTok ads account.
1. Create your advertising campaign
- To create an ad campaign, go to the TikTok Ads home page and click on the create an account button. It can take up to 48 hours for approval. Note: The TikTok advertising platform is separate from your TikTok account and profiles.
- In the TikTok ads dashboard, click the campaign tab at the top of the page and then click the create button.
- Choose your campaign goals (traffic, conversions, or app installation), which will be the primary goal of your ad and then set a name for your campaign.
- Set your ad budget by selecting either the daily budget or total budget option under settings. The minimum amount for a budget needs to be at least $ 500.
2. Set your ad placements and targeting
Once your ad campaign is created, the next step is to create an ad group and choose your placements and ad targeting.
- Select how and where your ad will be shown. You can place an ad between TikTok stories or in-feed. TikTok also allows advertisers to place ads on all apps related to TikTok such as News Republic and BuzzVideo. There is also an option for automatic placement based on where TikTok thinks your ad will perform the best.
- Ad targeting lets you define your exact target audience. You can set parameters for age, gender, location, interests, devices, and more. You can also create a custom audience by uploading the IDs of existing TikTok users.
3. Select your ad spending, duration, and goals
Now it’s time to define how much you want to pay for the ad along with the time and date that your ad will be published.
- Choose your budget and schedule the ad. You can choose either a daily budget or the total budget. You can also schedule your ads using “dayparting”, to select specific times of the day or week to run your ad.
- Set your budget pacing. Pacing refers to the speed that your ad budget will be spent.
- Select the purpose of your ad goals whether it is based on the amount of conversions, clicks, or impressions.
4. Design your TikTok ad
TikTok has an in-app video creation tool that provides video and image templates to customize your ad. Your TikTok ad can be horizontal, vertical, or videos and images. It also comes with over 300 free background music templates.
TikTok advertising formats
TikTok ads vary in function and where they can be displayed on the app. It currently allows the following ad types: brand takeovers, native in-feeds ads, video hashtag challenges, and branded filters.
- Brand takeover advertising: This type of ad format appears immediately when a user opens the TikTok app. The ad can then direct the user to an internal or external link – this can be another video on TikTok or an external app or website. Only one advertiser per day can use this ad type.
- Native in-feeds advertising: This type of ad is placed at the bottom of organic TikTok videos or put in-between a video queue. These ads can also direct the user to a website or app. They cost $ 10 per CPM on average.
- Video hashtag challenges: Young users love hashtag challenges and you can partner with TikTok’s marketing team to create a sponsored hashtag challenge. Challenges last for about 6 days and encourage users to share the content with friends.
- Branded filter advertising: Brands can have their own custom filters to offer users to use in their personal TikTok videos. TikTok users who use these filters can cause a lot of popularity and engagement causing your brand can be shown to a wide range of users.
If your target audience is using TikTok, it might be time to start using TikTok advertising. TikTok advertising is still fairly new so it wouldn’t hurt to see how it can open the doors for your brand to connect with Gen-Z consumers. Given its explosive growth, we are excited to see how TikTok advertising will develop in 2020 and we will definitely keep you updated along the way.
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