There is no denying that the social network of the moment is TikTok. And if you still think that TikTok reaches only Generation Z audiences, you are missing out on an important social media advertising option for your brand. The app passed the 1 billion user mark in September and ads on TikTok can reach an estimated adult audience (18+) of 825 million people worldwide.
Using ads on TikTok is a great opportunity for brands. The number of active users on the network has already surpassed Twitter and Snapchat and is less saturated with ads than other social networks.
In early 2019, TikTok launched a beta version of its advertising platform. Since then, major brands like Nike and Apple Music have used TikTok advertising to promote their products with unique and entertaining ads.
Advertising on TikTok offers unique formats and targeting options that, when used effectively, help you access one of the most profitable and hard-to-reach user groups: Generation Z. Want to learn more? Keep following!
Types of ads in TikTok
Below you will learn about all the ad types that can be displayed on TikTok’s ad platform. Check it out:
Ads in the feed
These are ads that you can create through the TikTok Ad Manager interface.
Graphic Ads
Running only in TikTok’s news feed applications (BuzzVideo, TopBuzz, and Babe), they include an image, brand or application name, and ad text.
Video Ads
Video ads are available for TikTok itself or for the TikTok family of news applications. They run as full screen videos of 5 to 60 seconds in the user’s For You feed. Each ad includes a video, an ad display image, brand or application name, and ad text.
Spark Ads
Spark ads allow your brand to boost organic content from your own account or from other users. TikTok’s research shows that Spark ads have a 24% higher completion rate and a 142% higher engagement rate than standard In-Feed ads.
Pangle Ads
Ads placed through the TikTok Audience Network.
Carousel ads
Working only in TikTok’s news feed applications, they include up to 10 images per ad.
TikTok ad formats available for managed brands
Managed brands are those that work with a TikTok sales representative. They have access to additional ad formats, including:
TopView Ads
Video ads that appear as a full-screen takeover for 5 to 60 seconds when users open the TikTok app.
Brand hashtag challenge
A three- to six-day ad campaign format to encourage engagement, in which user-generated content appears on the hashtag’s challenge page.
Branding Effects
Brand stickers, filters, and special effects for TikTokers to interact with your brand.
How to set up a TikTok ad campaign
To set up a TikTok advertising campaign, simply go to the TikTok Ads Manager. If you have not created a TikTok Ads Manager account, you will need to do this first.
Create a campaign
When you are inside TikTok’s ad panel, you will need to click on the “Campaign” tab and then the “Create” button. TikTok organizes its advertising on three levels: Campaign, Ad Groups, and Ads. A campaign is a general activity, while ad groups and ads are the functions of a campaign.
Choose a goal for your ad. Currently, TikTok advertising offers three main goals: traffic, conversions, and app installs. Finally, you will have to choose the budget for the entire campaign. You can choose between the options “Daily budget” or “Total budget”.
Set up the Ad Group
The next step is to create an ad group in the campaign. At this stage the channels and segmentation are decided. Within a campaign, you can have different ad groups aimed at different audiences.
Advertising on TikTok offers access to advertising across the entire family of related applications, which includes Vigo Video (India only), BuzzVideo (Japan), TopBuzz (US and BR), Babe (Indonesia), and News Republic (worldwide). You can choose to limit your ads to TikTok or to the entire network.
TikTok calculates where you can get the best results with your ad and will place it there.
After choosing your preferred channels, follow the instructions to enter all the necessary resources to start showing your ad, including URLs, display names, images, categories, etc.
One very interesting aspect of this step is the keywords section, which allows you to select up to 20 terms to describe your site or application. These keywords will be used to show your products to the right audience, so think carefully about your choices.
Finally, the “Targeting” section allows you to define the target audience for your ads. You can set parameters such as location, age, gender, languages, devices, and more.
If you want to pitch your ad to a specific group of people, for example to run a remarketing campaign, you can create a custom audience using existing TikTok user IDs. Simply upload the list of IDs to a CSV, TXT, or ZIP file. You will also need a TikTok pixel to run remarketing campaigns and track campaign effectiveness.
Define the details of the campaign
In the “Budget and Scheduling” section, select the budget for the ad group. Again, you can select how much you want to spend per day or the total amount you want to spend during the campaign.
Then select the dates when you want the campaign to be active. The “Dayparting” option allows you to choose specific times of the day or days of the week to display your ads.
You can also choose the pace at which you want the budget to be spent. Options include “standard”, which distributes the budget evenly throughout the campaign, and “accelerate”, which uses it as quickly as possible over a fixed period of time.
You can then select the optimization goal for the ad group.
- Conversion: your ad will be displayed to people most likely to perform a conversion action for your product or service. To track actions that involve a conversion (for example, downloading an app or filling out a form), you can create conversion events and track them using a pixel. The payment model for conversion targets is theCPC (optimized cost per click), which ensures that ads are displayed to users most likely to perform a given action.
- Click: Your ad will be optimized to attract as many clicks as possible and will be charged based on a cost-per-click (CPC) payment model.
- Impressions: your ad will be optimized to be shown as many times as possible and will be charged based on a cost-per-thousand (CPM) impressions payment model.
Finally, you can enable or disable the “Smart Optimization” option. If enabled, your bids will be constantly optimized to increase conversions.
Create your ad
TikTok ads consist of images and videos in horizontal, vertical, and square formats. To make it easier for advertisers, this network offers a tool called the Video Creation Kit, which includes video and image templates that you can customize with your own images. It also has more than 300 free background music options.
Another useful tool is Automatic Creative Optimization, which allows you to upload up to 10 images, 5 videos, 5 ad texts, and a call to action. The system will combine them together to create multiple advertisements. The tool will then test these ads and use the most effective combinations.
Finally, you can also use the Landing Page to Video tool, which captures high-quality images from any landing page URL you provide and automatically combines those images with music to create video ads.
Now that you have seen how to create ads on TikTok, tell us: do you think it is worth advertising on the network? If you are thinking about increasing your social media presence, contact us! Our experts are ready to help you.
