You might be able to answer this question already if you followed along in part I of our 2-part series. But if you’re still wondering whether TikTok is worth the time and investment to launch a new ad campaign, let’s review a few important numbers:
- TikTok users spend approximately 52 minutes per day on the app—with 68% of them watching other people's videos.
- To date, TikTok has over 689 million monthly active users.
- On average, TikTok users open the app at least 8 times per day.
Why does all this matter? These statistics help demonstrate that TikTok is booming with highly engaged users—all of whom are looking for fresh content to watch, explore, and share with others.
If your business is eager to harness this level of user engagement—and you're targeting a younger generation of consumers (i.e., GenZ), or you have an international audience—advertising on TikTok could be a real game changer for your marketing strategy.
But how do you advertise on TikTok?
Advertising on TikTok 101
In 2020, TikTok followed suit with Facebook and other social media platforms by allowing businesses to run their own ad campaigns. Today, brands have five unique ways to create fun, inspiring, and TikTok-worth content!
Types of Ads on TikTok
- Top view ads
- In-feed ads
- Branded hashtag challenge ads
- Branded effect ads
- Brand takeover ads
To give you a better idea of how these ads work, we’ll break them down even further.
Top view ads
When users open the app, they’re met with top view ads. These are video advertisements that appear at the top of the “For you” page. For those new to TikTok, the “For you” page is created for each user, using different algorithms that help gather relevant content based on each user’s activity, likes, shares, etc.
In-feed ads
These types of TikTok ads also appear in users’ “For you” page—displayed inside the native news feed. In-feed ads appear between videos as users scroll down the page (similar to Instagram stories). They also allow users to like, leave a comment, or share your brand’s video.
With this and other ads for TikTok, remember that the more ways you allow users to interact with your videos, the more opportunity there is for engagement and brand awareness.
Branded hashtag challenge ads
Looking for even more engagement? This TikTok ad campaign helps you hone in on the benefits of user-generated content (UGC). You might have already guessed from the word “challenge” that the point of these ads is to invite users to create their own videos.
You can quite literally “challenge” users to film themselves using your products and posting it to their feed with a branded hashtag. When another user clicks on the hashtag, they’re brought to a new page, where more videos using the same hashtag appear.
This option allows you to get more creative, too. In fact, you can challenge users to create a short dance routine, lip-sync or sing along to a song, or showcase their talents. This offers a unique opportunity to showcase your brand’s personality and connect with new users.
Branded effects ads
If you want a more custom approach to TikTok advertising, branded effects ads are the way to go. You can create your own custom filter to help generate brand awareness or create branded stickers, interactive games, and other special effects that appear on your videos.
Brand takeover ads
Similar to top view ads, but with a much bigger impact, the word “takeover” really highlights the strategy behind this campaign. As soon as users open the app, they’re met with a video ad that literally takes over their full screen. Top view ads typically appear 3 seconds after the user has opened the app, while brand takeovers occur right away.
How Much Are TikTok Ads?
TikTok allows you to set (and change) your budget as you go. You can also schedule campaigns to occur in two ways: daily or lifetime. Currently, the minimum budget at the campaign level is $50, and the minimum budget at the ad group level is $20. TikTok also gives you the option of 4 bidding methods based on average impressions, clicks, views, etc.
Okay, now you know the types of ads that are at your disposal. The next question you may have is this: how do I know if advertising on TikTok is effective?
Measuring the Success of Your TikTok Ads
Like most social media platforms, TikTok offers real-time monitoring to help track ad campaigns using an ad manager tool. This tool syncs to your business account, so you’ll already have access to it when you create an account. However, in order to start recording data, you’ll need to start creating and launching ads. From your dashboard display, you’ll be able to view a snapshot of each ad’s performance and how many campaigns you have running.
You’ll also have access to a reporting tool that provides deeper insights into each campaign. From here, you can create custom report templates that are sent to your inbox and track KPIs across the lifespan of each campaign.
TikTok ads are a fun, effective way to reach a larger audience. But to truly harness its success and make a bigger impact on this video sharing platform, it helps to have the right marketing partner to support you along the way.
Need Help Launching Your TikTok Ads?
Though TikTok makes it easy to create your business account, when it comes to brainstorming content, setting up campaigns, or bidding on cost per views (CPV), advertising on TikTok can be time-consuming and a bit complicated.
At East Shore Marketing, our team can help you plan and develop a TikTok ad strategy that features the type of content users actually want to see and share with others.
We’ll help you set up goals and develop a paid strategy that aligns with your other marketing campaigns and platforms. From there, we’ll work with you to manage and track performance with real-time dashboard reporting.
Whether you’re just starting out with TikTok, or maybe you need help revamping your current ad campaigns, we’ll help you develop a plan that connects you with more users, builds more UGC, and drives more traffic back to your business!
Ready to build your TikTok ad strategy? Contact us today for a consultation.
