TikTok is a social media app that was launched in 2016 and has gained a lot of popularity in recent years. It merged with sister company Musical.ly back in 2018.
The app is for short videos and has already surpassed the user base of Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat—combined. It is primarily used by people 13-24 years old, and it offers both free and paid content.
The China-based company opened up its advertising platform in 2020 to all businesses after testing it with a select group of users.
If you’re ready to market your brand and business on TikTok, then continue reading.
What are TikTok Ads and How Do They Work?
TikTok is a social media app that’s owned by ByteDance. It lets users make short videos with music and special effects to share and connect with others.
Similar to Facebook ads and YouTube ads, TikTok ads are how businesses and brands market on the platform. They work in the same way as ads on other social media platforms, but they offer more creative freedom to advertisers. For example, advertisers can use their own photos or videos, add stickers and text, or change the background color to match the product they are advertising.
TikTok’s demographic is much younger. However, there is an older demographic on the platform as well, so advertising on it has huge potential for success if they are used correctly.
TikTok’s Monetization Model
The company started to monetize TikTok in 2018 by introducing ads that are either sponsored or pre-rolls. Sponsored ads are animated GIFs or videos that are created by brands who want to reach out to TikTok’s audience. The sponsored ad format can be seen as an opportunity for brands who want to reach the millennial audience on a more personal level.
The app was first launched in 2016 with the intention to provide users with short video content that they could share with their followers on other social media platforms.
How to Use TikTok Ads to Reach a New Audience
This is where a brand pays for their ad to be shown in certain areas of the app. TikTok also offers other types of advertising such as in-app ads and sponsored stories, but they are less commonly used because they are more expensive than sponsored ads.
Sponsored ad: A brand will pay for their ad to be shown in certain areas of the app. For example, if a brand wants their product seen on the featured page, they would have to pay a higher price. This is where a brand pays for their ad to be shown in certain areas of the app.
TikTok also offers other types of advertising, like sponsorship, that can be purchased by these in-app ad units. This is the cost of the ad shown to a potential user. It’s set by TikTok and promotional partners. They offer different levels of ad units, from $5 for short videos to more than $100 for some large ads. They offer back-end analytics and reports. This is where brands track how their ads are performing, track their organic reach, and return on investment (ROI).
How to Connect Your Business to TikTok’s Ad Platform
The first step in the process of running ads on TikTok is creating an account. Once the account has been created, the ad dashboard will be accessible from the top of your profile page.
There are two types of ads: video ads and photo ads. The type of ad you run will depend on what you are trying to promote.
Video ads work best when you are trying to promote an experience. They are more engaging than the basic photo ads.
Photo ads work best when you give people information in a visual way. This can be any type of content that goes into your feed, such as a blog post or piece of content from your website.
Best Practices for Creating an Effective TikTok Advertising Campaign
One of the best ways you can ensure you’re making every cent count with TikTok is to understand what your goal is first. What are you trying to achieve? Who are you trying to reach? What are you trying to say?
Once you have these pillars figured out, you should focus on creating high quality content that is formatted to fit TikTok’s structure. For example, create a video with a lot of text that explains what you’re trying to do certainly won’t perform well. That’s not the type of content that people engage with on the platform.
Instead, create content that will “fit in” with all of the videos people are watching.
Before going live with your ad, ask yourself if you would engage with it. Why or why not? What’s enticing? What could be improved? What’s it missing?
Then send it to colleagues, friends, family members, or mentors that will provide honest feedback.
If you receive feedback and you’re still not sure which direction your ad video should go, check out the video below for video structures that perform well on TikTok.
TikTok Ads Strategies That Always Win
The best advertisements are ones that convey a clear message about your business, product, or service. TikTok has not helped with attention spans, so your message has to be clear and digestible in seconds. Here are a few things to remember when creating clear and digestible ads on TikTok:
– Understand the audience of your target market
– Focus on what you want to say, not how you want to say it
– Keep your ads short, sweet, and to the point
– Ask yourself if you would engage with this video
The Best Platform to Manage and Run Your Ads on TikTok
Every social media platform has their own ads dashboard. If you’re running ads on multiple platforms at once, it can cost you hours by bouncing between each ad platform’s dashboard.
Managing all of the passwords for each platform for each of your clients can be a pain in the rear end, but it doesn’t have to be.
That’s where YŌK Digital comes in. Their platform allows you to manage all of your ads from multiple places, including Facebook, YouTube, Google, and TikTok all in one easy-to-use dashboard.
Conclusion
Is TikTok worth advertising on? The signs point to yes, especially if your target audience is within TikTok’s 13-24 years old demographic. And with YŌK Digital, you’ll be able to manage your TikTok ads alongside all of your other advertisements from one place.
But before diving head first into advertising it may be worth creating content for a month or two and posting to a business/brand account to see how the content does organically. If it does really well organically, is there a need to spend marketing dollars on ads?
If your brand, business, and/or products are eye-catching and engaging, then we would recommend getting started advertising your business on TikTok.
