Create Tik Tok Ads: A Guide

Pat Walls

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Updated: October 8th, 2022

What Is TikTok Ads?

TikTok Ads is a paid advertising feature suitable for businesses.

Whether you want to sell more products, or drive targeted traffic to your website, TikTok Ads can give you a high ROI.

With an average engagement rate of 29%, TikTok is one of the best platforms for reaching a wider audience.

In this post, we look at how businesses can make use of TikTok Ads and attain success using them.

TikTok Ads Key Takeaways

TikTok has over 130 million active users in the U.S.
TikTok has the highest follower engagement rates among the world’s most popular social media platforms.
The fastest way to get traction on TikTok is Paid Ads

Understanding How TikTok Ads Work

Top brands have embraced TikTok as a new platform to reach younger, content-hungry demographics. With over 800 million monthly active users, businesses cannot ignore TikTok advertising.

To advertise on TikTok, businesses need a TikTok Advertising account.

TikTok ads offer daily or lifetime budgeting options. Thus, advertisers can adjust the budget anytime throughout the campaign's lifetime.

Advertisers target audiences by gender, location, age, and interest.

Similar to Facebook Advertising and Instagram Ads, you can create custom audiences to reach new audiences similar to the existing ones.

TikTok offers a variety of different creative ad formats for businesses and brands to explore. Here is an overview of the different ad types:

1. In Feed Ads

In-feed ads are video ads appearing in between the user videos as they scroll through the page.

If you are not familiar with TikTok's “For You Page”, in-Feed ads are similar to the ads you see while tapping Instagram stories.

In-Feed ads give the advertiser an opportunity to include a call to action. Therefore, you can encourage the users to shop, download an app, or visit your landing page.

Another advantage of In-feed ads on TikTok is that you can encourage the users to like, comment, share, or interact with the video just like any other video on your page.

2. Brand Takeover

TikTok brand takeover ads appear when a user opens the application. The format enables you to present the full video to your targeted audience.

Since you place the Ad message right in front of the target audience, brand Takeover ads are TikTok best option for delivering mass awareness and for driving direct sales.

3. Top View Ads

Unlike Brand Takeover Ads, TopView ads don’t bombard users with the advertisement as they open the application. Instead, TopView ads are the first in-feed post after about 3 seconds.

4. Branded Hashtag Challenge

The branded hashtag challenge is one of a kind advertising opportunity exclusive to Tiktok.

Similar to hashtag trends and challenges on TikTok, branded hashtag challenge offers organic and sponsored opportunities for businesses.

Therefore, these are a great way of encouraging user-generated content and for building brand awareness.

5. Branded Effects:

Similar to Snapchat’s branded lenses, TikTok branded effects allow brands to design their own custom filter on the app.

The branded effects could live for up to 10 days at a time and are an awesome option when it comes to encouraging users to directly interact with your brand.

Real-World Examples Of Brands Using TikTok Ads

Here are cool examples showing how brands use Tiktok ads

1. How Levi Used TikTok In-Feed Ads To Increase Sales

Levi, sent future finish 3D denim customization technology to several TikTok creators, giving them full creative control over their jeans.

The videos were added to Levis In-Feed ads where the users could click on the “Shop Now” button to purchase the same design on the Levi website.

By using a CTA to drive traffic to a landing page, Levis achieved an increased sales volume

2. How Johnson & Johnson uses TikTok Ads to Increase Brand Awareness

Johnson & Johnson is a multinational consumer and healthcare brand.

The brand was looking to actively promote the launch of Active Kids shampoo in the Philippines.

To maximize reach, they choose to run a branded hashtag challenge on TikTok. Therefore, they launched the #PrettyStrong and encouraged participants to break into song and dance.

Johnson & Johnson tested three different types of ad groups and retargeted custom audiences.

The branded hashtag campaign went viral and achieved over 20 million impressions.

Collectively, the campaign saw up to 120 million video views and attracted over 300K user-generated videos and a whopping 12.8% engagement rate.

How to Setup TikTok Ads

Step1. Create a TikTok Ads Account

To set up the first TikTok Ad, visit the TikTok home page and click on the Create an Ad button.

Submit the information, and the representatives will get in touch with you to set up the TikTok Ads account.

Step2. Create The TikTok Ad Campaign

Go to the TikTok Ads dashboard and click on the campaign tab at the top of the page. Click Create button.

Set the campaign objectives and set the budget.

Step3. Set the TikTok Ad Placement Details and Targeting

This step involves creating the ad group for your campaign. Choose the relevant Ad placement and targeting.

Step4. Control TikTok Ad Spending, Duration, and Goals

At this stage, you are ready to choose the budget, the schedule, and the goal of your TikTok advertisement. Under the budget section, set the budget for the ad group, choose the pacing option, and select the optimization goal.

Step5. Design the Ad Using TikTok Video Creation Tool

The best thing about TikTok is that they offer a video creation kit, which provides video and image templates.

TikTok ads can be horizontal, vertical, or square videos and images.

Step6. Optimize the TikTok Ad

Ensure high-resolution images and focus on only one CTA per Ad. Note that TikTok provides very little space for explaining anything with words.

Therefore, ensure a high-quality video and clear audio.

Conclusion

Setting up TikTok ads is a pretty straightforward process.

The step-by-step guide above illustrates the important stages you need to pay attention to.

By following the steps outlined here, you will get the ad running in no time.

meet the author

Pat Walls

I'm Pat Walls and I created Starter Story - a website dedicated to helping people start businesses. We interview entrepreneurs from around the world about how they started and grew their businesses.

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