Tips to get started on TikTok Ads

Advertising on TikTok can be easier than you think. TikTok is gaining traction as a vibrant arena where brands can not only capture the imagination of millions, but also convert curious viewers into engaged customers.

Beyond viral dances and trending challenges, TikTok offers a unique showcase where brands can tell stories, authentically connect with their audience and unleash a wave of excitement that transcends screens. Discover how this dynamic platform is transforming the advertising game and opening new doors for marketing in the digital age.

Introduction to TikTok Ads

Having advertising on TikTok can boost your business exponentially, in fact, 67% of users have stated that the platform inspired them to buy even when they had no desire to do so; while, 74% state that the platform has inspired them to seek more information on a brand or product.

TikTok has become a hugely popular social media platform, and for entrepreneurs, ads on TikTok offer a unique opportunity to reach an active and engaged audience.

Launching a campaign on TikTok Ads is one of the best strategies to reach a Generation Z audience, because it is basically their target audience, however in the last two years its popularity among the audience of other generations has grown exponentially, so more and more businesses can get incredible results after advertising on the queen of short videos.

1. Types of ads on TikTok

• As in other platforms, TikTok offers different ad formats, and each one fulfills a particular advertising objective and therefore can offer different benefits for your business.

• Brand Take Over: the objective of these types of ads is to create notoriety and brand awareness. It is an ad that can be a static image or a 3 to 5 second video. The cost of this type of ad is very high, so it is usually only used by big brands. The most important advantage is that users cannot skip the ad.

• In-Feed Video: this type of advertising is a video that will be shown in the “For You” feed of potential customers. The format corresponds to a video of up to 60 seconds. One of the most important advantages is that the advertising looks like organic content, plus you can add multiple calls to action.

• Hashtag challenges: this type of advertising is to make viral challenges; its objective is to give visibility to a brand or product and also create engagement with the brand.

• Collections Adds: this type of ad presents a video in the feed, which then leads to your instant gallery page, so they can search for your products without leaving the platform, as it links to your shopify page. This type of advertising is still in development and therefore only accessible to a few brands.

• Top view ads: this was the first type of ads on the platform. It is an ad that appears as soon as the app is opened, it can be a static image or a one-minute video, it occupies the entire screen, and the user accesses a page within the same app or an external page.

• Branded Effects: this is one of the most creative forms of advertising on the platform. With this option you can create filters, sounds, effects, lenses and stickers that users can then use and make them viral. It can be used in combination with other types of formats and is perfect for generating engagement.

2. Campaign Configuration

Creating a campaign on TikTok is not very different from creating a campaign on other platforms such as Google Ads or Meta Ads, so our first recommendation is to define the objectives of your campaign. Limiting your campaign is easy, just answer what you want to achieve with it, do you want to generate leads, increase your sales or improve brand awareness?

In addition, it is necessary that you know all the characteristics of your customers to make a correct segmentation on the platform and ensure that your ads will really reach an interested audience.

To start with a TikTok campaign your business does not need to have an open account, although ideally you should have one, but you can start by logging directly into TikTok Ads.

As for the price, a TikTok campaign you need to allocate a minimum budget of 5 USD per day, however, the cost may change depending on the length of the video and the number of impressions you want.

3. Targeting Strategies

One of the most important features of TikTok is the ability to target the audience that will see your ad, making your ads focus only on potential buyers. As in other platforms, you can choose whether your ad will be shown to women, men or both, and of course the age range.

Once you have selected the type of user that will see your ad, it is time to choose the geographic location, that is to say where you expect your ad to be spread; on the platform you can select from country, state and city. This segmentation is especially useful for local businesses, as they do not lose money by spreading their ad in areas where they do not have influence.

Unlike other platforms, one of the segmentations you can choose is purchasing power, although advertising experts suggest that you only use the “High purchasing power” segment in case of offering luxury products.

Another advantage of segmentation in TikTok is that each time you select an option it tells you an approximate number of users to whom your ad will be shown, so you have a clearer idea of how many people your ad will reach.

4. Creative tips

When you start a campaign it is very important that you understand why your audience enters TikTok; they don’t do it because they want to buy, your audience enters the app because they want to be entertained and have fun, it is very important that you keep this in mind when designing your ads, because your customer will be more susceptible to entertaining videos, than to those that are just trying to sell them something.

A strategy that usually works very well is to use viral videos to inspire you to create your ads, for this you can use a viral audio and adapt it to the promotion of your products, you can also use viral challenges.

5. Metrics and tracking

The success of any digital campaign depends on tracking and evaluation, so once your campaign is launched, don’t be confident, check the metrics offered by the platform itself.

Explore the key metrics to evaluate the performance of the ads on TikTok, for example, you can analyze click-through rates, complete plays, participation in challenges and more.

Within the platform you will find four categories in which all metrics are encompassed:

• Summary: in this part you will find a detailed summary and you can search on the date you need. In this section you will find data on video views (the number of times videos from your account have been viewed), comments received, followers and the number of times a video has been shared.

• Content analysis: in this section you will be able to see which of your videos are the most popular, and you will also find data such as total time of views, total time of reproductions and total audience.

• Followers’ analysis: in this section you can learn more about your channel’s audience. You will have data such as gender, main territories, activity of your followers, other videos they have watched and audios they have used.

• Live analysis: this last section gives you information about the last live videos you created.

Ads on TikTok offer an exciting opportunity to connect with young, engaged audiences. With the right information and well thought out strategies, you can capitalize on this unique platform and take your ad campaigns to the next level. Tell us, have you used TikTok Ads yet?