TikTok has become one of the most popular social media platforms on the planet. It has attracted people of all ages (though mostly younger users) and provided them with a steady stream of visual content.
It’s the perfect opportunity for your brand to reach new viewers and engage with them in new ways. That’s why TikTok offers advertising to brands that are willing to pay for the service.
Do you know the best ways to take advantage of a TikTok advertising campaign? How can you get the most out of your paid advertisements?
Align with Your Demographics
As with any advertising campaign, you ought to think carefully about your target demographics. Only 11 percent of TikTok users are above 45 years of age, and most users are aged between 18 and 24.
In addition, women are slightly more likely to open TikTok than men: They represent about 60 percent of users.
If your target audience is mostly young women, TikTok is already perfect for you. That doesn’t mean you can’t use this platform if you have an older audience or you’re targeting men; it just means you’ll have to work a little harder to make sure you connect with them.
Fortunately, TikTok offers an array of audience-targeting options, which empower you to filter and select the people who see your ads. Armed with these tools, you can make sure only the most relevant audiences see and engage with the ads you place.
On the back end, you’ll have to do some market research to make sure you fully understand your audience’s values and perceptions. That should enable you to continue crafting advertising that’s relevant.
Become Familiar With TikTok Ads Manager
TikTok Ads Manager is the central platform where you’ll plan campaigns, adjust settings, upload advertisements, deploy ads, and even measure performance. The platform is designed to be as intuitive as possible, so you shouldn’t have any difficulty diving in.
However, it may require some experimentation and some road time to become familiar with all the tools and features available to you. Spend some time with TikTok Ads Manager to improve your grasp of it, and introduce yourself to more tools you can use to boost the power of your campaign.
Start With a Small Budget
You can advertise on TikTok with a budget of as little as $50 per day. At the higher end, you certainly can realize value by spending thousands of dollars a day.
But if you’re just starting out, your budget should be at the lower end. Even if you believe that TikTok is going to be a valuable platform for your brand, you still won’t know this is the case for certain.
Reducing your budget allows you to experiment with minimal risk, but you’ll gather data you can use to support a larger-budgeted campaign. Once you become more familiar and comfortable with this channel, you can ramp up your spending.
Understand (and Distinguish Yourself From) the Competition
Take the time to understand your competition. Which of your top competitors are currently advertising on TikTok and what types of ads are they placing? If you want to stand out from the crowd, you need to find some way to distinguish yourself.
For example:
- Quality. If your competing advertisers aren’t doing a good job of producing quality work, this is your time to shine. Invest in better equipment and more professional staff, and apply a final polish to all your pieces.
- Layers. TikTok offers many ways to add character and dimensions to your ads. Through the use of mixed media, stickers, and other options, you can produce an advertisement unlike anything produced by anyone else.
- Approaches. Try an entirely different approach to advertising on this platform, because you could be targeting a different audience from those that are typical for your brand. Or reach your existing audience in a new, dynamic way.
Choose the Right Format
Select the appropriate format for your advertising on TikTok. With “In-Feed” ads, your promos will look and feel like traditional TikTok content.
This is ideal if you want your work to blend in and appear more authentic. Ideally, you’ll try to mimic the natural look and feel of other TikTok content if you go this route.
“TopView” ads, by contrast, appear in each user’s “For You” section. They’re ideal for brand discovery, which involves reaching out to people who have never heard of you.
Double Down on Your Most Effective Videos
Using tools like Viewed, you can apply the videos you create on TikTok to other applications – like email marketing. Once you have a compelling, appropriately targeted video created, there's no reason to use this asset in only one channel or a single application.
You could squeeze more value out of it and reach more people by distributing that content to other places. Embedded videos in email are especially powerful because video content is much more engaging than written content and email campaigns are inexpensive and easy to manage.
Keep CTAs Simple and Straightforward
All your ads should include calls to action (CTAs) that will inspire customers to make a decision such as enter a purchase, visit your website, or fill out a form. On TikTok, users are accustomed to fast-paced content, so they’ve evolved a slightly shorter attention span than other social media users. If you want to make your CTAs more effective, you have to keep them short, simple, and straightforward.
Take Advantage of Hashtags
Like other social media platforms, TikTok offers hashtags that you can use to associate your videos with certain subjects or topics. Take advantage of these in your advertising campaign. It’s a great way to boost discoverability and possibly start a #trend of your own.
Experiment, Measure, and Analyze
When you face so many options, it’s difficult to know exactly what might work best for your audience. That’s why it’s crucial to experiment with different variables, measure the outcome of those experiments, and analyze the details so you can design better ad campaigns in the future.
Take advantage of a 30-day free trial with Viewed to embed videos inside your emails and get amazing results during your next email marketing campaign. Sign up today!
