TikTok Ads - How to Advertise on TikTok

TikTok, with millions of users, is one of the largest social media platforms globally. This presents a great opportunity, as TikTok offers potential for a successful online marketing strategy. It can be used not only for social entertainment but also as an advertising platform for brands. Due to its vast reach and diverse audience, TikTok Ads are a promising marketing tool for businesses of all sizes.

Read the current Warriors blog post to learn more about what TikTok Ads are, the benefits they offer, and the types of TikTok Ads available. We will guide you step by step on how to create successful TikTok Ads in the Ads Manager.

First musical.ly, now TikTok: The playground for Generation Z

TikTok is a free social mobile app for sharing, creating, and discovering video content. It allows users to unleash their creativity and create videos from 15 seconds to a minute, which can be edited on the platform with filters, music, and speed changes. Popular niches for short videos include cooking, singing, dancing, and comedy.

The video portal is an evolution of the popular lip-sync app musical.ly.
Today, the video network is a hot spot for advertisers - not just for big companies. In the app, users can like videos, tag people, comment on videos, and save them in their favorites folder.

An additional technical feature is the sharing of videos on the platform. TikToks can be sent via WhatsApp, email, or other social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook, as well as through the app's personal messaging feature. TikTok works to tailor each user's feed to their preferences. The entry barrier is low, allowing every user the opportunity to create videos on the platform.

Target audiences for TikTok Ads

In the fall of 2021, TikTok reported over a billion active users,
4 million of whom are in German-speaking regions. The target audience for TikTok Ads is primarily young adults: almost half (43%) of TikTok users are between 18 and 24 years old. Advertisers seeking customers up to the age of 35 will achieve the best results.

Requirements for successful TikTok marketing

TikTok recommends making advertisements credible, so the videos are "positive, authentic, and inspiring." In TikTok marketing, simple, user-generated content is particularly successful. Many small businesses achieve millions of impressions and hundreds of thousands of clicks with this strategy.

Video ads can be up to 60 seconds long, but TikTok recommends limiting them to 21-34 seconds for the best results. The first 3 to 10 seconds should be particularly striking and engaging to keep viewers from leaving. Successful TikTok Ads highlight the main message or product within the first 3 seconds.

93% of the most successful TikTok videos use audio. Fast tracks with more than 120 beats per minute typically have the highest view-through rate. However, subtitles and text in TikTok advertisements are also important. According to AdAge, TikTok found that 40% of auction ads with the highest view-through rate include text overlays.

In summary, TikTok offers many exciting advertising opportunities, especially thanks to long dwell times, increasing user numbers, new formats, and a young community.

Types of TikTok Ads

In-Feed Ads

In-Feed Ads are self-service ads that you can create yourself using the TikTok Ads Manager interface.

Image Ads

Image Ads run only in TikTok's News Feed apps (BuzzVideo, TopBuzz, and Babe) and include an image, brand or app name, and ad text.

Video Ads

Video Ads are available for TikTok itself or for TikTok's family of news apps. They run as full-screen videos lasting 5-60 seconds in the user's For You feed. Each ad includes a video, ad image, brand or app name, and ad text.

Spark Ads

Spark Ads allow a brand to amplify organic content from their own account or other users. TikTok research shows Spark Ads have a 24% higher completion rate and a 142% higher engagement rate than standard In-Feed Ads.

Pangle Ads

Pangle Ads are ads delivered through the TikTok Audience Network.

Carousel Ads

These ads are only displayed in TikTok's News Feed apps and feature up to 10 images with unique captions per ad. This ad type is suitable for specific TikTok Ads targeting.

TopView Ads

TopView Ads are video ads that appear full screen for 5 to 60 seconds when users open the TikTok app.

TikTok Advertising - Campaign Creation in TikTok Ads Manager

The setup of the TikTok Ads Manager initially reminds one of the old Facebook advertising interface. However, the creative creation and tracking differ from each other.

Step 1: Goal and Budget

To get started, log into the TikTok Ads Manager and click on the Campaign button. TikTok has seven advertising goals divided into three categories:

Awareness

• Reach: Show your ad to the maximum number of people.

Consideration

• Traffic: Direct traffic to a specific URL.

• App Installations: Guide visitors to download your app.

• Video Views: Maximize video ad views.

• Lead Generation: Use a pre-filled instant form to collect leads.

Conversions

• Conversions: Drive specific actions on your website like a purchase or subscription.

• Catalog Sales: Dynamic ads based on your product catalog (in beta phase and only available for customers with a managed ad account in supported regions).

Step 2: Setting Ad Details

Give your campaign a name that is easy for you to recognize. It can be up to 512 characters long. If you have an unlimited budget or prefer to set the budget for specific ad groups rather than the entire campaign, you can set the option "No Limit" for your campaign budget. Otherwise, choose whether to set a daily or lifetime budget for your campaign. Campaign budget optimization is also available for goals like "App Installations" and "Conversion" with the bid strategy "Lowest Cost." TikTok is currently testing a feature for optimized cost-per-click goals that provides a suggested bid.

Step 3: Choose Placement and Ad Format

Each campaign consists of between one and 999 ad groups. The name of each ad group can be up to 512 characters long. You can choose different placements for each ad group. Not all placements are available in all locations:

• TikTok Placement: In-Feed Ads in the For You feed.

• News Feed App Placement: Ads in TikTok's other apps - BuzzVideo, TopBuzz, NewsRepublic, and Babe.

• Pangle Placement: The TikTok Audience Network

• Automatic Placement: Allows TikTok to automatically optimize ad delivery.

Step 4: Targeting and Automation

You can only upload your videos once you create the individual ads.
Then you can decide whether TikTok should automatically create combinations from your images, videos, and ad texts. The ad system will subsequently only display the best-performing ads. TikTok recommends that new advertisers enable this setting. Then, define your target audience in targeting. TikTok Ads allow you to filter users not just based on demographics like country, gender, religion, age, and language but also select potential buyers based on their interests.

TikTok independently creates these groups (interests) based on the user's previous behavior in the app. Possible industries include Beauty, Travel, and Pets. A scale in the top right corner shows how broad or narrow your audience will be with each additional targeting limit. Furthermore, the target audience can be restricted by operating system or network quality.

Step 5: Budget and Schedule

You have already set a budget for your entire campaign in the TikTok Ads Manager. Now it’s time to set the budget for the ad group and determine the schedule for when it should run. Choose a daily or lifetime budget for your ad group and then select the start and end time. Under Dayparting, you can also set your ad to run at specific times during the day (depending on your account's time zone).

Step 6: Bidding, Optimization, and Tracking

This step in creating TikTok ads is all about optimization goals and bidding strategies. The payment model varies depending on the optimization goal chosen. If you select "Standard," your budget is spent evenly over the entire period. In contrast, if you choose "Accelerate," TikTok uses your budget as quickly as possible to achieve a greater impact in a shorter time.

• Bid Cap: Maximum amount per click (CPC), per view (CPV), or per 1,000 impressions (CPM).

• Cost Cap: Average cost per result for optimized CPM. Costs will fluctuate above and below the bid amount but should average out to the set bid.

• Lowest Cost: The ad system uses the ad group budget to achieve the largest number of results at the lowest cost per result.

Tracking of events is managed via TikTok Pixel. This measures user activity or web performance of TikTok Ads.
Additionally, there is Developer Mode, which allows dynamic parameters to be inserted on websites to track events in detail.

Step 7: Ad and Display Format

After selecting the ad name, you can choose from a variety of image and video ad formats in the ad details section. Once the campaign creation is completed, the ad appears in the user's feed as an In-Feed Ad. Each ad group can contain up to 20 ads. Additionally, each ad name can be up to 512 characters long, but it is only intended for internal use (it does not appear on the ad itself). Your ad will be reviewed before it is activated.

internetwarriors - Online Marketing Agency for Social Media Ads

As a 360° online marketing agency in the heart of Berlin, internetwarriors is your competent partner when it comes to a comprehensive strategy for successful Social Media Marketing. Thanks to our years of experience, we know exactly what specific requirements come with popular platforms like TikTok, Facebook, or Instagram. We take individual wishes into account and offer all-around support in all marketing disciplines. Feel free to contact us for advice.

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