It’s just been a year since TikTok’s ad management platform launched. If there have been skeptics about TikTok’s potential as an online advertising platform, last year’s growth has dispelled all doubts.
So you know that TikTok deserves some of your marketing. But why invest resources and budget in a TikTok strategy unless everyone else is?
Read on for eight compelling reasons and ad features that will give you the confidence to chase TikTok or double up if you already live on TikTok.
1. TikTok’s superior user engagement
While many are touting TikTok’s rapidly growing user base, it’s the high level of user engagement that is truly remarkable.
According to TikTok, the average TikTok user spends 87 minutes per day (as of April 2021) on the platform. This is a tremendous amount of time brands can capitalize on.
In addition, the content on TikTok is highly interactive. Not only do brands get engrossed audiences, but those users actually interact with the content they see rather than passively.
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Unlike YouTube, Facebook, or Pinterest, where users mostly watch a video, TikTok’s growing list of features invites users to add their creative touch to the content they consume.
Snapchat comes very close to TikTok in terms of interactivity with its lens range. However, 52% of TikTok users do not use Snapchat. That’s a significant audience that wouldn’t otherwise be reached if it wasn’t advertised through TikTok.
2. E-commerce functions
While TikTok is best known for its awareness and engagement solutions, it’s determined to offer marketers a range of full-funnel offerings.
At the end of last year, TikTok started a partnership with Shopify, which has now grown to 15 countries.
This new functionality enables Shopify merchants to access the TikTok For Business Ads Manager without leaving the Shopify dashboard.
Strategically, this is a huge benefit for e-commerce companies. It enables them to reach potential customers early in their decision-making journey when doing research on TikTok, and also seamlessly guide them to a conversion point thanks to Shopify.
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From an execution point of view, too, the ability is attractive thanks to these four characteristics.
Uniform campaign planning
Shopify merchants can schedule TikTok campaigns, target TikTok audiences, and track results in one place.
Scalable creative tools
TikTok’s powerful creative tools are built into the feature, giving merchants a scalable way to create engaging ads without investing in additional development resources.
“Turnkey pixel tracking”
Shopify now allows its merchants to link their TikTok Pixel with a single step, making conversion tracking easier.
Retargeting with hashed customer data
Shopify merchants can now retarget audiences and track TikTok ad conversions more closely by leveraging customer data while maintaining user privacy as the data is hashed.
3. Brand Effects
Make your ads stand out by layering brand effects. Similar to lenses on Snapchat, this is an AR feature for video overlays.
However, it is specifically designed to highlight brand-specific elements.
The most intuitive uses are for CPG, retail, and entertainment industries, but this flexible feature can also be well adapted to others such as travel or automotive.
Leveraging users’ affinity for self-expression, this is just the right feature to ensure high levels of engagement, brand recall, and the likelihood of your content being shared.
4. Catalog advertisements
Use TikTok’s catalog ads to display a wide variety of products in your ads.
Unless you are a retailer with a large number of product versions or SKUs, this is still a worthwhile format even if you only have a few products. There are four reasons for this:
- Creation of customized videos for each of the products.
- Use automated rules to customize your product details.
- Ability to save important information about products directly in TikTok’s ad manager.
- Create specific sets for each product.
5. Spark Ads
Spark Ads was launched earlier this summer and is one of TikTok’s newest ad formats. Unlike other formats that require advertisers to create their own video content, this format doesn’t – it uses organic social content.
Spark Ads allow brands to sponsor organic content. Instead of creating new content and researching how it goes viral, brands can sponsor existing and dynamic content.
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While this solution isn’t aimed at audiences throughout your research journey, it’s best for medium or high-end funnel audiences, but it’s still a great weapon to add to your marketing arsenal.
Spark Ads create synergies between organic and paid social channels. It also offers a quick time to market advantage as it eliminates the need to develop custom content, which often comes with costly delays.
6. Hashtag Challenges
When done right, a hashtag challenge can do wonders for your brand.
Aside from attracting large audiences and generating high engagement, the significant benefit of embedding your brand in the prevailing culture is through the use of hashtags, which are seen as the more natural form of interaction on social media.
The lingering snowball effect of hashtag usage often lasts long after the challenge is officially over, sometimes even weeks.
Be warned, however, that several considerations are key to succeeding in a TikTok hashtag challenge:
A significant budget of $ 150,000
Unfortunately, this is currently a TikTok requirement with no flexibility in the amount.
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Keep the hashtag product-oriented
To make sure that users continue to support your brand and not forget its original purpose, it is important to include the brand name and focus the content on the benefits of the product.
Be careful not to make the content too dry or sellable, but make sure that users remember the core function (s) of the product.
The more intuitive the spelling, the better
Avoid overly creative abbreviations, symbol or number substitutions and anything that someone who is not a brand insider does not immediately recognize.
Hashtags need to catch on immediately and be as easy to type as possible. A single typo can wipe out your sizeable investment or set the hashtag in an unpredictable direction. It’s safer to go for something less innovative but more predictable.
Avoid using date or month references
To maximize the hashtag’s shelf life, don’t use references that may be out of date. Nobody is going to want to use a hashtag mentioning May in June.
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While many occasions are celebrated over a longer period of time (e.g. Mother’s Day is often associated with activities before or after the actual day), choosing a more thematic hashtag will gain more momentum (Mothers in general vs. Mother’s Day specifically for Example).
Reinforce your TikTok channels on other platforms
If your challenge is up and running, don’t forget to support it on other social media and in your overall marketing efforts. Most users are present on multiple platforms and will benefit from being reminded to use the hashtag everywhere
Don’t be afraid of influencer support
Especially if your TikTok or general social media following isn’t that strong, it’s worth investing in influencer support to make sure the hashtag challenge gets started as strong as possible.
Yes, that means paying more on top of the already considerable minimum. However, this can make the difference between a hashtag challenge that takes off or a much slower catch-up.
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7. Insights into the auction
After launching your campaign, be sure to check out TikTok’s auction insights.
It is a valuable analytics portal that shows various views of campaign performance with a range of graphs and various metrics to guide optimization opportunities.
To find this area, navigate to View data at the campaign level of the TikTok advertising manager.
8. Growing acceptance by older users
One possible argument against advertising on TikTok is that the user base is very young and the purchasing power is low compared to other social media platforms. After all, 59% of TikTok users are 24 or younger.
Believe it or not, TikTok’s fastest growing segments are getting older. This is similar to Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and virtually every social media platform in a similar phase.
According to TikTok, the age demographics 25-34 and 35+ are the fastest growing age group.
From January 2021 to April 2021, based on the total monthly active users:
- The 25- to 34-year-old segment grew by 22% to 24%.
- The 35+ segment rose by 19% to 25%.
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Be part of the growth of TikTok and spice up your digital strategy with the most appealing, innovative solutions!
As with all channels and platforms in digital marketing, there is a certain advantage to being at the table early. While the competitors focus on other areas, you can take advantage of the powerful features and benefits mentioned above to attract new audiences and build your business.
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