Advertising on TikTok – TikTok Ads for your business

It is clear that the most popular social network among young people is here to stay. TikTok is already one of the main means of information and search for products and services among the Z generation, therefore, you have to invest in TikTok Ads to not be left behind. Don’t know how to do it? Don’t worry, in this article you will learn everything you need to know about advertising on TikTok. 

We will talk about the advantages of investing in advertising on TikTok, the cost, and, above all, we will show you what the process consists of step by step, so that you don’t get lost and your ads look great.

What is clear is that with more than 1.000 million active users, TikTok is the leading visual social network in the sector, and has shaken the world of digital marketing with its ability to make something viral in a short time, whether it’s a challenge, a dance, a cleaning trick or a product. Why can’t it be yours?

Advantages of advertising on TikTok

The main advantages of investing in advertising on TikTok are the following:

• Less ad saturation: TikTok is relatively new, and this means that many advertisers have not yet jumped on the TikTok Ads bandwagon. Perhaps you can take advantage of this “gap” in the competition and leverage it in your favor, since, organically, TikTok is currently the social network with the highest engagement!
• Expanding platform: being recent, this means that it still has a lot of room for growth, who in their right mind would not take advantage of a marketing channel with this feature? New features are released every day!
• User acceptance: its ad typology, based on what is known as “user generated content” makes advertising on TikTok not very invasive and combines organic content and ads to perfection and in such a way that users generate a higher rate of interaction and conversion than on other networks.
• Simple and human content: TikTok is a network based on entertainment, which makes communication informal and spontaneous, and its content human. You have to try to make your ad creatives resemble this type of organic communication as much as possible.

Essential: locate the target audience of your business.

Keep in mind that 60% of TikTok users are under 30 years old (41% are between 16 and 24 years old), so if your target is young people, investing in advertising on TikTok will be a good option for your business, but perhaps if your target audience is much older, you still have to rethink whether investing in TikTok Ads is the best option for your store. Experts recommend advertising on TikTok if your target is in this spectrum of 16 to 30 years old.

The budget needed for TikTok Ads

As we were saying, TikTok is recent and so are its ads and campaigns. This brings some exclusivity to the matter, so you could say that advertising on TikTok has a “premium cost” that starts at an average of $ 10 per CPM, so we are talking about a minimum budget of $ 20 / day per ad group (about $ 50 per day, on average).

In the budget section you also have to take into account…

• The selected bidding method.
• The limited audience.
• The objective of your campaign.

In addition, in TikTok advertising there are premium ads with interactive formats (the Hashtag Challenge and Brand Takeover, for example), whose cost is very high and can only be afforded by large companies.

Step-by-step guide to advertising on TikTok

Let’s get down to business. How do I advertise on TikTok? After taking into account what we have already told you, it’s time to get down to work, follow our steps and everything will be fine.

1. Create your advertising account on TikTok

To get started, you simply have to visit the TikTok advertising website and click on “Get started today”, which will bring up a short form that you will have to fill in with different information to generate your account settings. After this, a TikTok manager will contact you to set up your account in a more personalized way.

Please note that it can take up to 48 hours before your account is validated and active for use. Once the account has been validated, you will be able to start building your campaigns.

2. create a TikTok ad campaign

The TikTok advertising control panel is very similar to the Facebook panel, which you have probably already used in the past.

Follow the path “Campaign” – “Create” and then choose the objective of your campaign, which today can be: 

• Traffic.

• Conversions.
• Application installations.

Then set a budget by clicking on “Daily budget” or “Total budget” in the “Settings” section. You will be able to adjust the budget whenever you want (but you have to meet the minimum amounts, of course).

3. Placement + targeting for your ad groups

What you need to do next is:

• Create an ad group for your campaign.
• Choose your formats.

You have two options for all this, or use the existing creative templates, or work a video from scratch with the editing tools that are integrated into the application itself.

Did you know that… With advertising on TikTok, will you not only be able to advertise on this social network, but also on other platforms of the same company? These are Vigo Video (India), BuzzVideo, and News Republic, among others.

If you are not the best at selecting placements for your ads, select the automatic mode and it will be TikTok who will choose the automatic placements for your campaigns, trying to get the maximum performance.

After the placements, you will have to choose other details for your ads, such as:

• The URLs you want to drive traffic to.
• Display names.

• Images and categories.
• Keywords: you can choose up to 20 of them, describing your product, brand, service… You choose! But do it calmly, these keywords are essential, because they will be used to show your ads to the right audience.
• Segmentation: define the target audience for your campaigns by parameters such as gender, age, location, languages, interests and devices.

Did you know… You can create a custom audience by uploading the TikTok IDs of the existing users you want your ads to be shown to? You can upload the list of ID’s in CSV, TXT or ZIP format.

4. Control of duration, expenses and objectives

Now it is time to choose how much to spend, at what time we want to show our ads and the objective we want for the fruits of our advertising on TikTok.

4.1 Budget

Choose a budget for your ads. As we have already mentioned above, you can choose a daily budget, that is, with a spending limit for each day, or a total budget, which would be the total amount you would be willing to spend during the period in which the campaign lasts.

4.2 Expected duration of your advertising on TikTok

It’s simple, you have to select when (at what times of the day) you want your ads to be displayed.

4.3 Option of consumption of impressions

Maybe you have never heard of this expression, “consumption of impressions”, let us translate it for you, it is simply the speed at which you want your budget to be consumed. You will find two options:

• Standard delivery option: your budget will be managed and spread in a linear and equalized fashion over the duration of the campaign.
• Accelerated option: your budget will be spent as quickly as possible during the scheduled time.

4.4 Optimization goal

Simple, what do you hope to get out of this campaign? What is the priority metric you need to measure? The one you are most interested in? This is what you need to decide next. You will have to choose between:

• Conversions: your ad will be shown to the people who are most likely to convert. But be careful, because there are many actions that can lead to a conversion, so you can create conversion events by following the path “Library” – “Conversions”. As you will see, this part is also similar to Facebook conversions. You can set up pixel-based conversion tracking.
• Clicks: if you select this objective for your TikTok advertising, you will pay based on the CPC and your ad will be optimized to generate as many clicks as possible.
• Impressions: you will pay based on the CPM (cost per thousand), which is the price per thousand impressions.

4.5 Smart optimization, recommended or not?

This option causes the offer to be constantly adjusted and optimized in order to gain as many conversions as possible. We only recommend this option, therefore, if you choose the “conversions” objective, if you choose “clicks” we recommend you to deactivate the smart optimization option.

5. Design: The TikTok Ad Creation Kit

Advertising on TikTok consists of ads that can be videos or horizontal, vertical or square images. If you are not a designer or very creative, don’t panic! TikTok has a tool called Video Creation Kit that makes it very easy for you to create your ads with various templates and customizable images. It’s a native TikTok tool, it’s free, and… you have over 300 background music clips to use for free!

Types of advertising on TikTok

You will find seven types of ads on TikTok:

• Brand Takeover (Brand Takeover)
• Topview
• In-Feed Ads (In-Feed Ads)
• Hashtag Challenges (Hashtags Challenges)
• Branded Filters (Branded Effect)
• Shopping Features
• Creator Marketplace

Brand Takeover

This type of ad will appear instantly when the user opens TikTok on their device, playing automatically. They are videos or static images 3 to 5 seconds long and full screen. This type of advertising on TikTok can redirect the user to a link.

Ideal ad to… 

• Get more traffic.
• Generate notoriety.

The highlight is… This type is limited to one advertiser per category per day! 

Topview

They are like the evolution of the previous ones. It is the same concept but taken a little further. We are talking about longer videos, up to 60 seconds long. The rest? Like the previous ones, full screen and the same objectives (traffic and notoriety).

In-Feed Ads

In-Feed Ads are also native video ads of up to 60 seconds but will appear at the bottom of TikTok’s organic videos, in the feed, or as a video queue. They will redirect users to your website or link of your choice.

Highlights…

• They are similar to Instagram Stories, can get “likes”, be shared….
• The average cost is $10 per CPM. It is the most affordable option for businesses with less budget.
• This type of advertising on TikTok have four variants:
  • Interactive letter: this is, as the name suggests, an interactive video that allows users to choose one option among several to learn about the brand.
  • Voting letter: lets you conduct a poll/voting among users and share the results, similar to Instagram polls.
  • Drop-down letter: they have a very striking and visual letter format that seeks to drive traffic to the advertiser’s website.
  • Premium icon: eye-catching and personalized ad that induces interaction and conversation.

Hashtag Challenges

The fourth of the advertising formats on TikTok are hashtag challenges, with which you can create a sponsored challenge that encourages TikTok users to participate and share your brand name. The challenges last 6 days and can be found in the “Explore” section.

Ideal ad to… 

• Increase visibility.
• Increase engagement through the hashtag.
• Potential virality.

Branded filters

I’m sure you’re familiar with Instagram’s filters. Well, this is similar. In the “For You” section, you’ll find filters that use virtual reality and 3D for challenges or for users to use. 

Highlights…

• There are up to 20 different formats.
• They take advantage of the gamification trend.
• They can be used as a standalone format, or be part of other campaigns or challenges of your brand.

Shopping features

The latest in TikTok advertising, arrived in September 2021 and it is an ideal feature for eCommerce and online stores. You can create a small store within TikTok and upload products to manage your sales directly within TikTok. 

We highlight that…

• It has integrations with Shopify and PrestaShop.
• You can implement what is known as TikTok Live, streaming video in which the brand can promote products in real time.

Creator Marketplace

The last format we are going to talk about (for now, since TikTok is growing by leaps and bounds) is the Creator Marketplace, related to influencer marketing. You will be able to explore the influencers that best match your brand, contact them, make collaborations and, most importantly, measure their results!

Optimization of your ads

So much for making ads! Now… How do you optimize them? Here are some tips…

• Always use high resolution images.
• Use a single call to action.
• TikTok copies have to be short, only 80 characters, so we recommend that you incorporate keywords in your creative.
• Place the key creative elements in the center of the screen.
• Experiment! You have numerous options for targeting, creative, text… Research what combinations work best for your business.
• Get the most out of the video creation kit, which lets you upload 10 images, 5 videos, 5 ad texts and 1 CT, and then will combine it all into multiple ads.

 

Conclusions

Study your target and your budget well and jump into the adventure of advertising on TikTok. It may seem overwhelming at first, but it’s worth it because of the return you’ll get from a few campaigns.

If you are overwhelmed by the idea of having to check your social ads on every platform, don’t run away! With the Clever ads manager app you can manage all your online advertising in the palm of your hand, in one click, wherever you are and at any time.