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The Chinese tech firm, Bytedance, purchased Musical.ly in 2018 and merged it with a new app called TikTok. Starting out, it was an online video-sharing platform that allowed users to create and share short videos. The videos combined several genres, including dancing, lip-synching, etc.

Since then, the video-sharing network has expanded to become even more creative. Today, it also allows brands to sell their services and products, driving traffic to the website. Lately, TikTok advertising campaigns are also gaining a lot of popularity.

TikTok ads typically provide businesses with an impressive return on their ad spend. The social networking platform allows you to reach your target audience and acquire new customers if you make attention-grabbing content.

So if you neglect running a TikTok advertising strategy, your brand may miss out on an effective marketing technique. Continue reading to learn how TikTok advertising can improve your business’ growth.

Related: Best Time to Post on TikTok

Understanding TikTok Ads – How Do They Work?

Various surveys reveal that users find TikTok ads both fun and engaging. More brands are turning to creating TikTok ads since most users perceive them positively. TikTok ads allow brands to reach a receptive audience, drive traffic, and improve their sales.

Putting up TikTok ads is pretty easy and essentially does not take much. But, you need to have a Business TikTok account to start creating ads. Business accounts allow businesses to create, manage and track their ads on TikTok.

After creating a business account, you want to describe your business and choose a payment method. Once your account is all set, you can get to the fun part- creating and running ads to improve your business’ growth.

But before you can make a TikTok ad, you must choose your preferred mode from simplified and custom. Both modes of the TikTok ad manager allow you to build an ad in levels. It starts by making an outline for the advertisement campaign, then defining the ad group, and finally creating an individual ad.

Simplified Ad Manager Mode: This mode involves a straightforward approach to creating content. The simplified ad manager mode allows the platform’s algorithm to get more reach.

Custom Ad Manager Mode: As the name implies, the custom ad manager mode lets the brand do the heavy lifting. By choosing this mode, you get complete control over ad management. Some advanced advertisement customization options include ad combinations, A/B testing, and audience targeting based on interactions.

Types of TikTok Ads

TikTok allows businesses to choose from a few different TikTok advertising options to reach their target audience. Picking the most suitable template is the key to getting your message across to the people you want.

Here are the types of ads TikTok allows businesses to run on the app.

In-Feed Ads

In-feed ads on TikTok fall under self-service advertising that businesses can create using the TikTok Ad Manager Interface. These ads appear in a TikTok user‘s feed as they scroll through their “For You” page. An in-feed ad is usually the fourth video the audience sees on their feed.

Typically, the “For You” page shows images/ videos that the TikTok algorithm believes may interest the particular user. The algorithm identifies a user’s interests by analyzing their app activity.

Image Ads

Image ads include an image of the brand logo, product, or service. Or, it could also be informational text or brand name.

Video Ads

Video ads are available for the TikTok family of apps and the TikTok app. In the “For You” feed, these ads run as fifty to sixty seconds videos appearing on the full screen.

Spark Ads

Spark ads are one of the top TikTok advertising options for businesses looking to boost their content. These types of ads allow brands to promote organic content from their TikTok page or another user’s page.

Pangle Ads

Pangle is a global platform designed to boost developer growth. It is an ad network for business TikToks that integrates with the app to provide banner, native, and video ads. You can place a Pangle ad for your business through the TikTok audience network.

Carousel Ads

Carousel ads are only available in the news feed apps of TikTok. These ads feature up to ten images. A brand can add a unique caption for each of these image ads.

TopView Ads

One TopView Ad appears on every TikTok user‘s app every day. When a user opens their app for the first time during the day, a full-screen advertisement appears on the screen before they get redirected to the TikTok app itself.

TopView ads are basically full-screen video ads appearing as takeovers for five to sixty seconds. Since these are up to sixty seconds long, businesses can use them for product marketing. If you want to demonstrate how a product or service operates, a longer video is necessary, and TopView ads will do the job.

Branded Hashtag

Using branded hashtags for TikTok advertisements is a popular marketing strategy used by multiple brands. It focuses on running a three to six-day ad campaign and encouraging TikTok users to create content around a brand hashtag.

Typically, TikTokers create videos to perform a dance or do another activity that aligns with the brand’s value, product, or service. Content creators on TikTok share these videos with a defined hashtag, which helps improve traffic.

Then, this content shows up on top of the discovery page. When users click on the hashtags shared by a user, they end up on a landing page where they view a collection of videos.

Brands can get exclusive access to the hashtag by using this advertising format, unlike other social networking platforms. As such, these ads boost brand awareness and increase engagement.

Brand Takeovers

Brand Takeovers refer to various advertising options, including In-Feed, TopView, and Branded Hashtags. This type of TikTok advertisement format can include all these ad options simultaneously.

These ads appear as full-screen content as soon as a TikTok user opens their app. Brand takeover ads take over the entire screen for a few seconds before transforming into in-feed video ads. So, they show up as TopView and also appear in the “For You” feed.

Brand Takeover ads can feature anything, from images and videos to GIFs and clickable links. This TikTok ad format offers an effective strategy for creating mass brand awareness and driving sales. However, the TikTok app only advertises one brand per day, and you may have to pay a larger amount for a brand takeover.

Branded Effects

Also known as branded AR content, Branded Effects use two and three-dimensional images of a product in TikTok clips. Brands can create stickers for their products that content creators can use while making content for their accounts.

Similarly, these ads also appear as lenses and filters that TikTok users can use in their videos. Creating attractive branded effects allows you to interact with your audience better. Influencers and famous TikTokers use your AR content to create brand awareness and increase engagement.

Brands can create branded effects using their custom filter on the app. A business’ ad in this format can last up to ten days at a time. Many branded effects involve brand-specific game playing. For example, you can create a filter/game that allows the users to find their characters in a movie.

Related: 8 Social Media Optimization Strategies for Business Growth

Setting up a TikTok Ad Campaign– Step-By-Step Guide

If you’re interested in setting up a TikTok ad campaign, you must go to the TikTok Ads Manager. You will need to create a TikTok Ads Manager Account if you don’t already have one.

Pro Tip: You don’t necessarily have to create an Ads Manager Account on TikTok if you only want to boost engagement for your existing content. Instead, use TikTok Promote to promote the content already present on your page.

Step #1- Choose Your Objective

Click on the “Campaign” option after logging into your TikTok Ads Manager Account. You can choose one of the seven ad objectives the social networking platform breaks down into three categories. Let’s go over them briefly.

Category 1- Awareness

Category 2- Consideration

  • Traffic: driving more audience to a specific URL
  • Video Views: increasing the number of plays on your video
  • App Install: encouraging users to download your brand’s app
  • Lead Generation: using an Instant Form to collect leads

Category 3- Conversion

  • Catalog Sales: ad creation based on the items in your product catalog
  • Conversions: inspire users to take a specific action on your website

Step #2- Name Your Campaign and Set a Budget

Once you’ve selected an ad objective, it is time to pick a campaign name that resonates with your brand. But more importantly, the name of your brand campaign should be easily recognizable if you want to drive traffic. The character limit for a TikTok ad campaign name is 512 characters.

The next step after picking a name is to set a budget for your campaign. You can choose between a Daily or Lifetime Budget. Or, you can also set budgets for specific ad budgets instead of the whole campaign.

Step #3- Name Your Ad Group and Select Placements

Each ad campaign on TikTok can include up to 999 ad groups. You can pick the name for your ad group within the 512-character limit. Then, choose a placement for each ad group.

TikTok Placement: in-feed TikTok advertisements for your audience‘s “For You” feed

News Feed App Placement: ads in other apps by TikTok such as TopBuzz, Babe, BuzzVideo, and NewsRepublic

Pangle Placement: ads from the TikTok Audience Network

Automatic Placement: ads optimized and delivered by TikTok

Step #4- Choose Whether You Want to Use Automated Creative Optimization

A brand can’t upload its creative until it reaches the stage of creating personal ads. But if your brand is just beginning in the TikTok advertisement niche, you need to decide whether or not you want TikTok to generate automatic ads for you.

TikTok combines your existing content, such as images, videos, and text, to create ads. Then, the system will display the best-performing ads for you to pick.

Step #5- Target Your Audience

All social media platforms allow brands to target their ads to a specific group of audience. When using TikTok ads, you can customize your target audience so it reaches the right people. You can choose a group of audience by specifying:

  • Age
  • Gender
  • Language
  • Location
  • Behaviors
  • Device Details
  • Interests

Step #6- Set a Budget and Schedule for Your Ad Group

By the time you reach this step, you already have a budget for your overall ad campaign (see step #2). At this point, you need to set your ad group budget and specify a schedule on which you will run your budget.

When choosing a daily or lifetime budget for your ad group, you need to pick a starting and ending time. Go to the “Dayparting” option if you want your ad to run at a specific time during the day. You can pick a schedule according to your current time zone.

Step #7- Set a Bidding Strategy and Optimization

Now, you need to choose an optimization goal – pick whether you want to increase your clicks, reach, or conversions. Then, choose one of the following bidding strategies.

Bid Cap: amount per view, per click, or per impression

Cost Cap: average cost per result for maximum amount per impression

Lowest Cost: maximum number of results and lowest cost per result

Finally, you need to choose one of the delivery options from standard and accelerated delivery. Standard delivery divides your ad budget evenly, while accelerated delivery focuses on spending the budget as quickly as possible.

Step #8- Create your Ads

You can set up your ad campaign easily by following the seven steps listed above. Now, you can finally start creating ads. One ad group can include up to twenty ads, and you can choose a name for each ad within the 512-character limit.

To start creating a TikTok ad, you need to pick an ad format, such as an image, video, or spark ad. Then, you can add the photos or videos within the Ads Manager using a template. Next, you have to upload a thumbnail or pick one from the defaults.

Add your link or text, check the preview and click “Submit.”

Bottom Line

TikTok has gained increasing popularity over the span of only a few years. With more people joining the platform daily, it offers great brand marketing. You can put up TikTok ads to improve engagement, increase traffic, and drive sales. Setting up an ad campaign is pretty straightforward, and anyone can do it.

Need help with your social media marketing? Contact us at Intensify for a free consultation.

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