Looking to connect with young people through your advertising and turn them into new customers? Then TikTok is the right social network for you. Leveraging social media networks for advertising purposes falls under the realm of social media marketing as part of online marketing.
The TikTok platform is virtually ubiquitous among young individuals. Many of them spend several hours a day on this social network. According to Statista, the short self-made video clips capture the attention of 840,000 Android users and 3.13 million iOS users in Germany alone. Globally, the number of TikTok users exceeds 1.5 billion.
Why is TikTok especially trending among the Generation Z? You can read about that in our article. However, this post will focus on the tremendous opportunity TikTok Ads offer you and how you can utilize them effectively.
What Types of Ads Does TikTok Offer?
In-Feed Ads: You create short video clips that are displayed to users as they scroll through their “For You Page.” Users can interact by liking, commenting, or sharing your clip. This promotes engagement and can earn you more organic reach.
Brand Takeover Ads: Brand Takeover Ads can be divided into two categories: Standard Brand Takeover Ads and TopView. With the standard Brand Takeover, you can create a 3 to 3.5-second clip using a series of images or short videos via the TikTok Ads Manager. This clip is displayed to users when they open the app and transitions into an in-feed ad after a few seconds. Internal and external links are supported, so you can also link your website with a Brand Takeover.
TopView: TopView Ads function similarly to Brand Takeover Ads and are suitable for visually appealing content. The video length should be between 5 and 60 seconds, and you have the option to use sounds.
Aside from traditional ads, it’s important to incorporate the unique functionality of the TikTok network into your campaign creation. Examples include:
Hashtag Challenge: You initiate a challenge with a hashtag selected by you, related to your brand or one of your products. The goal is to encourage as many users as possible to participate in this challenge and post their corresponding video clips with the hashtag. The funnier the hashtag, the higher the engagement
Branded Effects Ads: You can create your own filter and use it in your ads. Interaction can be increased by encouraging many other users to try out the filter and post video clips with it.
How to Create an Advertising Campaign on TikTok?
The prerequisite for starting an advertising campaign is a TikTok Business Account for your brand. From there, you can create and manage your ads in a few simple steps using the TikTok Ads Manager.
Setting a Goal for Your TikTok Ads
First, you need to determine the goal for your campaign. There are six objectives to choose from: Reach or Brand Awareness, Traffic (directing users to a specific website), App Installations, Video Views, Conversions (encouraging actions), and Lead Generation (directly sharing contact information).
At the campaign level, you can set the daily budget. It’s worth mentioning that TikTok Ads sets the minimum campaign-level daily budget at 50 EUR.
If you set the automated creative optimization under “Ad Creative Type,” TikTok will try out various combinations of your ad creatives, such as images, videos, and text ads, and display those expected to deliver the best results.
Do You Know Your Target Audience on TikTok?
In the next step, you select your target audience. You can narrow down your audience based on demographic characteristics such as age, gender, or location, as well as their interests, behaviours, or device types. Additionally, you can choose between Custom Audience (people who have interacted with your website or app before) and Lookalike Audience (people who have similar interests and characteristics to your customers).
It’s worth mentioning that the selection of countries for TikTok Ads from Germany is limited. China is not included, and neither are Australia and the USA. Some experiences shared online suggest that TikTok Ads from the USA cannot be used to target Germany.
Setting Your Budget
You can set the budget either as a total budget per campaign or as a daily budget. TikTok recommends a daily budget of 20 euros. Using the scheduling feature, you determine the times when the ads should be displayed.
There are two different bidding strategies to choose from: Bid Cap, the maximum bid for an interaction, or Lowest Cost, which aims for the maximum number of interactions at the lowest possible cost. Your campaign objective determines which interactions and associated metrics are billed. For example, for the Reach objective, it’s the CPM (Cost Per 1000 Impressions), and for Traffic, it’s the CPC (Cost Per Click).
You can also decide how your budget is spent. Do you want to evenly distribute it over the entire campaign, or do you want to spend more initially to see faster results? Additionally, using Campaign Budget Optimization (CBO), you can allocate the budget only to the best-performing target audiences.
Choosing the Right TikTok Ad Variant for You
Finally, you need to choose your ad format (e.g., single image/video or carousel ad) and upload the file.
You can create up to 99 ad groups for each of your campaigns, each with up to 20 ads. However, it’s recommended to run about three to five ads per ad group. Ads should be rotated every seven days.
We recommend setting up the TikTok tracking pixel to better understand your audience and their characteristics and to track your overall success through metrics. If you activate the Conversions objective, this is even necessary to track the actions. The pixel should capture at least three different events such as newsletter sign-ups, page views, cart additions, or purchases.
As you can see, TikTok Ads allow you to reach your target audience in a creative way, especially since TikTok still has relatively low competition from advertisers despite its large user base of young people. You shouldn’t miss this opportunity.
If you need help setting up your social media campaigns, especially TikTok Ads, we’re here to assist you. Click here to schedule a meeting with us!
