TikTok has experienced incredible growth. Facebook took nearly seven years to get the same level of user growth that they have in just four years. Brands are finding that TikTok advertising is essential. However, it’s still clear that TikTok, like Facebook and every other social media platform, faces a hurdle in transitioning from drawing users to drawing in enough sponsors to support itself financially. The World Wide Web is fueled by advertising, after all.
Your advertisements should have short videos because they are crucial for creating social media content because of the rise in popularity of TikTok and Instagram Reels. If your business presently runs advertisements on websites like Meta, TikTok which has over 1 billion active users is the best way for B2C marketers to expand your social media advertising reach. The goals and target market of your business will determine all of this.
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What is TikTok?
2014 saw the launch of TikTok, a social media platform that encourages users to share small videos its designers quickly renamed and enlarged the app, which began as Musicaly.ly, into what is now known as TikTok (or Douyin in China). Users posted videos of themselves lip-syncing to various songs on the app. TikTok’s abrupt ascent to stardom can be attributed to a fundamental shift in the video thematics on the app. The app hosted an astonishing array of humorous content created by users, ranging from videos that were only dedicated to lip-synching to music. Similar to Vine, a well-known platform for short videos that was shut down, the app was considered to be a sort of successor for Vine.
What is TikTok Advertising?
TikTok advertising is a top-notch tool that offer advertisers the use of unique formats and targeting options. These options aid the advertisers in accessing one of the largest social media audience pools in the cyber world. As pointed out by Hootsuite, the largest audience of TikTok comes from the United States of America with a total of about 120,768,500 people using the social media platform on a regular basis. And what’s even more interesting about the application isn’t just the number of people that use it, but the percentage of adult population that TikTok ads can reach in countries outside of North America. These days, TikTok has become the go to platform for marketers to advertise their brand and products. Instead of devising their own strategy, TikTok lends them a helping hand by creating advertisements, setting budgets, reaching target audience as well as by analyzing campaign data.
Types of TikTok Ads
TopView Ads
TopView ads on TikTok are the ones that appear once a day, almost immediately after the user opens their app for the time in the day. This kind if ads can be up to 60 seconds long which make them a perfect option for business who are seeking to advertise services of products that require longer running time and periods of attention, such TV or movie trailers. According to a survey TopView ads can successfully garb the attention of 71% of users.
Brand Takeovers
Brand Takeovers are a kind of TikTok advertisement, where TopView, In-Feed and Branded Hashtags come together in one sleek package. This type of ad allows the business to dominate conversions as their message takes up the whole screen for a few seconds. Moreover, another thing to keep in mind about Brand Takeover ads is that TikTok only features on business per day. The starting cost of such ads is reported to be around $50,000 USD per day. One such example of brands using Brand Takeovers is Guess, that ran a Brand Takeover on TikTok in order to advertise their denim jeans and in over six days their TikTok account gained over 12 thousand new followers, moreover an engagement rate of 14.3% was also generated thanks to Brand Takeover.
In-Feed Ads
In-Feed ads are the kind that appear as the fourth video that users see as they scroll through their TikTok’s For You Feed, which is mostly where they land right after they open the app. A For You Feed strategically features vides that the algorithm believes are of interest to the user. The algorithm makes use of the app activity of the user to display the ads that will catch their attention. In-Feed ads can also feature a CTA which makes them highly useful for marketers how are looking to use the platform in order to drive sales and conversions. Acorns, that is a finance business, is one of the many brands that used the In-Feed CTA feature in order to encourage viewers to download their app. Some brands even partner up directly with influencers in order to create their own In-Feed ads. For example a high-end restaurant Raising Cane’s partnered with a famous and well acclaimed TikTok influencer, Chase Hudson in order to promote their business.
Branded Effects
A branded effect is created by collaboration with an advertiser can be added to TikTok’s vast collection of entertaining video effects. A branded effect invites visitors to engage with your brand directly, much like a hashtag challenge would. Even though TikTok ad formats have a great conversion rate, most cannot afford them. Usually, they’re used to advertise a new video or by large corporation like Apple or McDonald’s. That implies, as you can surely imagine, a hefty price tag, a greater need for technical knowledge, and the requirement to collaborate with TikTok directly.
Branded Hashtags
Branded hashtags are advertisement that companies use to encourage TikTokers to make content using a hashtag of their choice that is relevant to their brand. Unlike other social media platforms, brands utilizing this ad style have exclusive access to the hashtag. Its exclusivity come at a premium price; average fees for six days have been reported to be approximately $150,000 USD. Try to use hashtag generator platforms to generate a large number of hashtags according to your campaign and inputs.
Ways Marketers can Use TikTok
Make a Channel for Your Brand and Post Video
This approach is quite simple and works similarly to what you would do on YouTube. You may make videos that are pertinent to your business if you have an active TikTok channel. All social media marketers are aware that your chances of successfully promoting your goods increase with the number of social networks your brand is present on. In general, having a dedicated TikTok channel would raise brand exposure and keep the lines of communication open, especially with your younger clients.
Reach Out to Famous Influencer to Promote Products
Influencer marketing is quite effective on social media, just like it is on any other platform. Furthermore, thousands of well-known influencers can still be found on TikTok despite its relative youth. But, because the content on this platform is so brief, your influencer marketing plan will need to be modified. You should concentrate on gaining exposure rather than having those folks openly advocate or talk about your goods. In other words, When you engage in influencer marketing on TikTok, you will be playing individuals to use and highlight your items instead of promoting them publicly. Thus, this approach is most effective for brands whose goods are in great demand and often used, particularly by young people.
Use TikTok’s Paid Advertising Campaigns
The classic forms of paid advertising come last, but certainly not least. All are still in the early stages of developing this TikTok feature, unfortunately. TikTok’s ad campaigns are therefore not as good as those of Facebook or Twitter, for marketers accustomed to the in-depth statistics and familiarity of these more established social media advertising platforms. They still provide the simplest means of gaining visibility, thus they are an invaluable resource for all advertising. That being said, you will still have some video possibilities. Apart from the #HashtagChallenges discussed before, brand takeover and in-feed native video advertisements are the most prevalent forms of advertisements. The option involves your brand’s advertisement running for a full day ahead of any content created by users.
Tips for Brands Looking To Get Into Social Media Marketing on TikTok
Unleash Your Inner Teen and Be Genuine
Though it can seen strange from an advertisement standpoint, TikTok is an app with a very distinct vibe. Furthermore, you want your message to be understood by your target demographic, which is mostly made up of teens and young adults. And what’s the best way for you to do that? Certainly not by wearing a tons of ties and business suits. If the strategy isn’t sarcastic, it won’t resonate with TikTok’s user base, but it might go well in the business industry.
Use Content Creators for TikTok Ads
Thus, targeting is no longer as simple as depending just on the data in the advertising manager; instead, you now need to rely on exceptionally effective ad creatives to attract and convert viewers. Advertising naturally occurring material created by content providers is made incredibly simple with TikTok, which is fantastic news. If the creator grants permission, you can use TikTok Spark Ads to support organic content that was uploaded to their feed. Hence, finding an influencer hiring them to produces a carefully crafted piece of content for your product, and investing advertising funds to support it to reach the audience all make TikTok advertising a lot simpler.
TikTok For Business Pros and Cons
| Pros | Cons |
| Vast and highly engaged audience, particularly among younger demographics | Limited access to TikTok’s trending sounds, making it more challenging to capitalize on viral trends |
| Creative and dynamic platform for showcasing products, services, and brand personality | Potentially expensive advertising costs compared to other social media platforms |
| Effective tool for driving brand awareness and engagement | Risk of damaging brand reputation if not executed carefully |
| Opportunity to leverage user-generated content and influencer marketing | May not be a suitable fit for all industries or brand image |
| Robust analytics tools for tracking campaign performance | Limited targeting options compared to other social media platforms |
| Potential to generate leads and boost sales | Steep learning curve for mastering TikTok’s algorithms and trends |
What’s the Verdict on TikTok Advertising?
For a period of years, Meta and Google have held a vice-like hold over the spending on digital ads. The competitors on the TikTok ad ecosystem will be advantageous to the larger industry. As a result, every platform will have to innovate and improve. As of right now, TikTok provides advertisers with an excellent opportunity to expose their brand to a highly interested audience. When additional advertisers sign up for the platform, it won’t always be the case. Here, there’s an early adopter benefit. You will be dissatisfied with TikTok’s performance if your current method of evaluating the effectiveness of your digital marketing is last click attributed sales in Google Analytics. Actually, every channel that isn’t Google will let you down.
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