Unlocking the Power of TikTok Advertising: Full Guide

Table of Contents

Introduction to TikTok Advertising
The Fundamentals
How TikTok Ads Work
Costs of Advertising on TikTok
How to Run TikTok Ads?
Analyzing the performance of your Ads
Real World Examples
Conclusion
FAQ

Introduction to TikTok Advertising

Launching in 2016, TikTok has skyrocketed to the forefront of social media, captivating audiences worldwide with its short-form videos. With over a billion monthly active users, TikTok has become a powerful platform for brands to connect with people from all over the world.

Advertising on TikTok offers a unique opportunity for brands to engage with users innovatively, increase brand awareness, and strengthen purposeful connections.

The Fundamentals

TikTok offers a variety of advertising options, each tailored to different marketing objectives and audience engagement strategies. Each of them offers unique opportunities for brands to connect with TikTok's extensive user base.

1) In-Feed Ads

This is the main strategy brands are using daily. Every user who uses the app sees them in their feed and they appear as sponsored content among the organic videos. 

When people see an ad, they sometimes tend to scroll through it.  An effective strategy that TikTok uses is how they grab the attention of the audience. Ads allow brands to showcase their products or services in a very natural and non-intrusive way. 

They are shown like a normal post.

We differentiate between Spark Ads and Non-Spark Ads where Spark Ads use posts from real TikTok accounts, which ensures that all views, comments, shares, likes, and follows gained from boosting your video during the promotion are attributed to your organic posts.

2) Top View Ads

The new way that TikTok has devised is so that the first thing users see when they open the TikTok app is a popular ad. 

These full-screen video ads instantly get attention and offer brands a powerful way to make a memorable first impression and engage audiences from the moment they start browsing.

3) Branded Hashtag Challenges

TikTok goes viral and invites users to participate in branded challenges and create user-generated content on a specific topic or challenge. 

By promoting user participation and engagement, brands can increase their reach and generate hype around their campaigns, fostering a sense of community and camaraderie among TikTok users.

4) Branded Effects

Branded effects allow brands to enhance user's videos with branded stickers, filters, and special effects, making their brand fit seamlessly into TikTok's natural space. 

These interactive and shareable effects provide an engaging brand experience and allow users to express themselves creatively while engaging with the brand message in a fun way.

It's also crucial to tailor your strategy to the different stages your target audience is in. To clarify what content you need to create for each stage of the customer, we've put together this article: Content Marketing for Different Stages of the Buyer's Journey.

How TikTok Ads Work

Understanding how ads work on TikTok is essential for marketers who want to effectively use it's the advertising capabilities. There are several things that need to be understood from ad creation to audience engagement and performance analysis.

The Beginning of Creating Ads

Advertisers first create their ads using TikTok Ads Manager, where they can choose from a variety of ad formats, upload creative elements, and define targeting parameters. 

Once an ad is created, it goes through a review process to ensure compliance with TikTok's advertising policies and guidelines.
When you create a promotional video, make sure you use the vertical 9x16 format.

Targeting Options

TikTok utilizes an auction-based system to decide which ads users see. In this system, advertisers bid on ad placements according to selected metrics. The auction considers both ad quality and relevance to determine the winners that are displayed to users.

Costs of Advertising on TikTok

Now that we know what types of ads we have on TikTok, let's talk about what influences their prices.

Understanding TikTok Bidding Strategies

Bidding plays a key role in helping determine the placement and reach of your TikTok ad. A strong bid can increase ad visibility and boost conversions, so it's essential to choose the optimal bid strategy based on your campaign goals.

1. Cost Cap vs. Maximum Delivery

TikTok offers two primary bidding strategies: Cost Cap and Maximum Delivery. Cost Cap bidding focuses on optimizing toward a target cost per action (CPA) while maximizing budget utilization. 

In contrast, Maximum Delivery aims to maximize conversions within a defined budget without setting a specific target CPA.

2. Choosing the Right Strategy

The choice of an appropriate bidding strategy depends on the objectives of the campaign. Cost Cap is recommended for advertisers who prioritize top tunnel goals such as reach or video views, while Maximum Delivery is ideal for those who prioritize conversion volume over controlling average cost per result.

3. Bidding Options

TikTok provides various bidding options tailored to different marketing goals:

CPM (cost per mille) optimizes for impressions
CPV (cost per view) charges for each view on a video - If the viewer watched the video for more than 6 seconds,
CPC (cost per click) focuses on driving traffic to external landing pages - best for selling products or installing apps, and
oCPM (optimized cost per mille) aims for the best price per conversion.

Pro Tip:
Match your bidding strategy with business objectives to ensure effective campaign performance. Think about using bid hybrids to change bid strategies based on seasonal priorities, and invest time in testing and experimentation to determine the most effective approach for your unique business objectives. 

Factors Affecting Cost

Targeting options such as demographics and interests can affect the cost of  advertisers by influencing relevance and reach. 

In general, competition between advertisers for ad placements can increase costs, especially for popular targeting niches and high-demand ad formats.

How to Run TikTok Ads?

First things first, ensure you have a TikTok Ads Manager. If you don't already have one, setting it up is free and possible even if you have an existing TikTok account.

1. Create a new Campaign

Begin by navigating to the TikTok Ads Manager and selecting the "Campaign" option from the top menu. Once on the Campaign page, proceed to click on "Create."

Note:
When you start a TikTok ad campaign, you will be prompted to choose between:
Basic mode - quick setup (around 5 minutes),
Advantage mode - more advantageous configuration.

In this example, we'll use Advantage mode, but the process is similar for both options. TikTok ad campaigns, like other ad campaigns, consist of a series of ads with a common goal. For example, a game company might run a campaign to coincide with the release of a new game, while an ice cream company might promote a product during a summer sale.

Select an advertising objective

When choosing the right target for your ad campaign, TikTok greatly simplifies you to choose what your target is. 

Awareness goals focus on maximizing impressions (people are starting to recognize your brand), consideration goals focus on engagement and interaction (As your potential buyers actively engage with your brand or product in a meaningful manner), while conversion goals encourage specific actions from your audience (selling them or downloading the app).

Campaign name

To keep everything organized and under control, name the campaign you want to run according to your category and goals. 

You can also optimize your campaign budget. With CBO, you can apply a single set of budget optimizations to all ad groups within a campaign, eliminating the need for individual settings. 

Finally, we have the campaign budget, which allows you to create a fixed budget for your entire campaign (for all groups and ads) You can also set them individually.

Specify your tracking

This step is optional. You can track your website, app events or third-party sites. If you are using Shopify, link your pixel (tracking code installed on your website that collects data to help you track conversions from ads, optimize campaigns, and build targeted audiences for future ads.).

2. Create an Ad Group

Now we have the basic setting. Let's move on to creating your future Ad Groups.

Name Ad Group and set Interaction

First, name the ad group. In the advanced settings under Placement, you can also set whether users will be able to comment on, download, and share your video ads. For the placement, you want to use only TikTok.

Set your target for your Ad Group

Here you will find a table to fill in based on your customer's profile. Set demographics such as location, gender, age group, and language, and select the audience and device type they use.

Set up your Ad Group budget and schedule

Here you set how much you want to pay per day for your specific ad group. The daily minimum is 2O USD.

You will then schedule the release of your ad. We recommend timing it according to your convenience or aiming for the following midnight.

Additionally, you can specify when your ad will display and how your budget will be allocated, all tailored to the preferences of your target audience.

Bidding and Optimization

Here, you can determine how much to pay for a specific metric and adjust this amount later based on your ad performance. Leave the Bid Control field blank.

3. Ads section

Now it's time to showcase your ad creatives to the world. Name them based on their content or sequence, then upload your brand identity, including your brand name and logo. Finally, upload the final video that you have prepared.

Pro tip: this is something on which you should spend as much of your efforts as possible because the results of your advertising will depend on the quality of your video. Try to make it the best and most elaborate as possible.

Next, upload your highly engaging description. Try to think of what would make your customers go to your page or app when they read it and use SEO strategy.

Set your destination page

Set up a landing page or product page where you want people to go to buy your product or service. Or you can set up an instant link to the page in the app.

Submit your Ad

Now you are done. TikTok will upload your ads to the system and check them If they are ready to go.

Analyzing the performance of your Ads

In TikTok Ads Manager, tracking campaign results is simple with the Dashboard and Campaign pages. The Dashboard offers a summary of campaign performance, while the Campaign page provides detailed insights. 

Key Performance Metrics to Monitor

On the Dashboard, users can monitor ad spend, campaign status, and performance metrics by various dimensions. The Campaign page allows for filtering, customization of displayed data columns, and analysis by audience segments.

Interpreting Data and Optimization Strategies

Interpreting data from TikTok's ad analytics dashboard is key to optimizing ad performance over time. You can use the data to identify trends, patterns, and areas of opportunity, allowing to refine targeting strategies, adjust ad creative, and optimize bidding strategies for better results.

Real World Examples

Creating a TikTok account provides access to the Creative Center and libraries where you can find successful ads for inspiration, along with popular music and hashtags.

Set the country where you want the ads to appear, choose between conversions/app installs and reach, and select a date to view the most successful ads.

When you click on the ad you're interested in, you'll see the regions, the industry you've chosen, the objective, and even the caption. 

You can also look at their stats and analytics to see how their ads are performing.

Conclusion

 Advertising on TikTok offers brands the chance to engage a diverse audience with unique ad formats and precise targeting, potentially yielding significant ROI and helping achieve social media marketing goals playfully and effectively.

However, for the most effective return on investment, leveraging an expert with extensive experience is crucial, as diving into paid ads without guidance could negatively impact your campaign. Therefore, we invite you to a short, no-obligation online consultation to discuss your ideas and develop the ideal marketing strategy to meet your business goals.

FAQ

1. What are the main advertising objectives of TikTok?

TikTok's main advertising objectives include Awareness, Consideration, and Conversion.

2. How do I choose the right bidding strategy for my TikTok ad campaign?

Choose Cost Cap for stable CPA outcomes or Maximum Delivery for maximizing conversions within a set budget. 

3. What are the different bidding options available on TikTok?

TikTok offers CPM (cost per mille - optimized for views), CPV (cost per view - cost per video view or if the viewer watched the video for more than 6 seconds), CPC (cost per click - focuses on driving the audience to the website and is best for sales or app downloads), and oCPM (optimized cost per mille - best cost per successful sale).

4. How can I track and measure the performance of my TikTok ad campaigns?

Track campaign performance using TikTok Ads Manager's dashboard and analyze key metrics like ad spend, impressions, clicks, and conversions.

5. What are some tips for creating effective TikTok ad campaigns?

Create engaging ad content, leverage TikTok trends, and test different targeting options and bidding strategies.