What is TikTok? (just skip this if you are 100% confident in your knowledge)
Originally, TikTok was largely based on Musical.ly — a social media app of Chinese origin for making music videos and live streaming created as long ago as 2014. After Twitter announced Vine’s closure in 2016, Musical.ly has shown significant growth in downloads. ByteDance, a huge Asian entertainment holding, bought the app in 2017 and merged it with the newly created Douyin (named TikTok for the international market), and Musical.ly’s userbase migrated there.
Types of ads and ad creatives. Traffic sources
TikTok video ads: the most famous and powerful format for all types of user acquisition, your first choice when you start with TikTok and are not even present there. Nice fact: it supports multiple calls to action.
Pay attention to the music (all in all, it used to be a “music” app one day), but always keep in mind that users often keep their sound off, so it’s necessary to make sure your visuals will make everyone want to hear what you have to say.
A perfect TikTok commerical is engaging and fun (does not have to be an “ad video”, your brand in the background is enough)
News feed video ads: the same, but different. We suggest that you use it alongside regular videos to feel the difference.
Vigo and Halo video ads: as follows from the name, they are not shown on the main app, but in the brand audience network apps. Like Instagram ads set up in Facebook.
Special branding options that might come in handy if you have or plan to build a TikTok community. Brand filters, “brand takeover” banners — everything you need to know your company image and voice does not get lost in a crowd.
The TikTok advertising platform is quite straighforward but the ad campaign setup depends on the advertised product type so you should better refer to the buying expert for the personalized recommendations if you ever think of how to set up TikTok ads.
Why should you choose TikTok for advertising your product?
- It’s still viral and growing! That means that you may never (at least for the foreseeable future) run out of audience because your potential users become TikTok users every month
- It has good targeting opportunities, all of the up-to-date parameters like age, gender location, interests, language, and device, which is supposed to be the “necessary and sufficient minimum in 2020”, but in fact, it’s not: many traffic buying platforms have a poorer set of options. The killer feature, in our opinion, is including the ability to use third-party targeting systems, which is quite impressive. For example, our dearly beloved Facebook won’t let us do that.
- In addition, there are user behavior analytics options available, as well as the marketing pixel (that needs to be set up on your web page to track user behavior and conversions)
- If you already have a brand page in TikTok you can compare your target audience suggestions by viewing the account demographics’ stats.
- Bonus for app owners: apart from other goodies TikTok has, the ad campaigns are optimized for installs quite easily.
- TikTok supports some of the most popular analytics systems and trackers, including Appsflyer, Adjust, Tune, Kochava, all of the Google Ad products, and more exotic ones, like Tenjin, Appmetrics, Sizmek and MyTracker
What are the best verticals and product types to promote in TikTok?
Here are some popular stereotypes and misconceptions about TikTok we’d like to dispel
TikTok is for zoomers!
TikTok doesn’t have many users in my country
TikTok is a no-brainer
TikTok is easy
It’s the Instagram for pranks and dances
It’s expensive
Have you tried TikTok ads for user acquisition and what are your impressions?
Did you feel you made the best out of it? If not, we might help. or just recommend you to give it another try with different approach.