TikTok is a popular social media app that allows users to communicate with its global audience with short videos of 15 – 60 seconds. Soon after its launch in 2016, TikTok took the world by storm with its innovative (at that time) short video format. As of April 2023, TikTok has 1.53 billion users worldwide with the count of active users standing at 1.05 billion. Owing to this staggering growth of the ByteDance-owned app, numerous businesses are using TikTok ads for e-commerce to drive conversions.
From small and midsize businesses (SMBs) to large conglomerates and agencies, TikTok ads manager has been helping all of them to capture the untapped market. In this definitive guide to TikTok advertising, we take you through every piece of information that you will need to get started with e-commerce TikTok ads. So, buckle up for the wild ride ahead!
TikTok app is largely accommodated by Gen Z and Millennials, with the share of 24-34-year-olds on the platform standing at 31% while 35-44-year-olds account for 13.1%. With individuals having such a holistic range of ages on the platform, there is a good chance that your target audience is also there.
Here are 5 comprehensive reasons backed by data on why eCommerce businesses should consider using TikTok Ads:
TikTok has a huge and diversified presence in over 150+ countries, with a population speaking 35+ languages. In 2022, it was the most downloaded app on the Apple Store, while securing second rank in terms of most downloaded app globally. What’s more interesting is the fact that over 92% of TikTok users take action after watching a TikTok Video, varying from visiting an advertiser’s site to making a purchase. Due to these lucrative stats, businesses around the globe are actively using TikTok for e-commerce.
TikTok is the young generation’s most favored social media app for 2023, occupying a 37% share of the market. In addition, 90% of TikTok users reported that they thoroughly enjoyed their experience on the platform. These stats depict that there is a high chance for your brand to overrun its competitors by curating engaging content, resonating with your targeted audience on TikTok.
TikTok algorithm is designed to favor virality and takes into account innumerable factors when ranking your content. It considers videos you are recently engaged with, hashtags you follow, your location, and many more. This attribute of TikTok’s algorithm gives you the unique edge of being the contender for the next viral content, even with a new account.
When it comes to online marketing, TikTok Ads Manager offers a plethora of versatile formats. These include in-feed ads, branded effects, branded hashtag challenges, and more. Moreover, you can also make use of the Tiktok Marketing Partners feature, which is particularly designed to help small businesses. The availability of these versatile advertising formats on TikTok provides businesses with ample chances to attract their potential customers.
Like Facebook, TikTok also gives you the facility to target your audience while publishing your ad. You can specify the target audience of your ad based on different demographic factors, such as age, gender, location, and interests. This space to classify your potential customers significantly cuts your advertising costs. At the same time, it increases the conversion rate of your ad campaign as TikTok is now showing your ad to more selective users, holding high purchase intent.
When it comes to e-commerce TikTok ads, many new marketers or product owners often get confused about where to start and how to start. The good news is that we are here to help you out. From publishing your first TikTok ad to tracking its performance, we shall break down the process into certain actionable steps for you.
The first step on the journey to create your first highly converting TikTok ad is to sign up for a TikTok Business account. It is pertinent to mention here that this step is crucial even if you have a user account. You’ll just need to provide some basic information about yourself and your business and then you’re good to explore this self-service platform.
Once you are done with the signup, you need to log in to TikTok Ads Manager to create an ad. For that, click on the Campaign, followed by a click on Create.
On the next page, choose an objective for your campaign. Campaign objectives in TikTok are:
Awareness: Select this option if you want to reach and visibility as per your marketing budget.
Consideration: This option should be selected if your campaign aims to get likes, grow Tiktok followers, and have higher engagement through video views.
Conversion: Choose this option if you are aiming to drive valuable actions on your website.
After selecting a suitable campaign objective, specify your budget preferences for it. TikTok gives you 3 budget choices:
No Limit: If you opt for this option, your ad delivery will not be restricted by TikTok on the campaign level.
Daily Budget: It will limit the ad delivery to the daily budget limit that you set for your campaign.
Lifetime Budget: This option will regulate the ad delivery as per the budget that you specify for the whole lifecycle of the campaign.
After the campaign, TikTok Ads Manager demands you set up your ad group. In this step, you take start by choosing preferred placements and locations for your ad as per your preferences and budget. You can choose between Automatic Placement and Manual Placement. We suggest you go for the Automatic Placement, as TikTok will then optimally distribute your ad across its platform and other apps that are part of TikTok Network, including Pangle and BuzzVideo.
The next stage in creating an Ad Group is to define the Target Audience for your ad campaign. The good news is that like Facebook Ads, TikTok Ads also give you the facility to specify your audience based on a broad range of factors. You can target your potential clientele based on their location, gender, age, language, device, and interest in your e-commerce TikTok ads.
The creation of compelling and engaging ad content is the most crucial step for your e-commerce TikTok success. When it comes to building ads, the Chinese platform offers a vast range of ad types to choose from.
In-feed Ads
These ads appear within the feed on the user's “For You” page and can be up to 60 seconds long. They often blend in with the organic content which makes them less intrusive compared to some of the other ad formats. In addition, users can interact with these ads by liking, sharing, and leaving comments on the ad.
Branded Hashtag Challenges
In this ad format, brands create a challenge and then encourage users to take part in it by creating and sharing videos with a specific hashtag. Hashtag ads are shown at the top of the discovery page and lead the user to a landing page, showcasing a collection of other videos from the challenge. These ads come in handy for increasing brand awareness and engagement.
Brand Takeover Ads
Users see these ads as soon as they first open the app and include static images, GIFs, and videos. They are exclusive to one advertiser per day and can be linked to a landing page or a hashtag challenge. Brand takeovers are best suited to brands who want to make an impression with a sufficient budget range.
Top View Ads
Similar to Brand Takeovers, TopView ads are full-screen ads that appear when users first open the app. However, they allow for longer videos up to 60 seconds. With the relaxation of more duration, TopView ads can be made more interactive. Hence, they help businesses in triggering more interactions and boosting brand awareness.
Branded Effects
These ads allow brands to craft their own 2D or 3D effects that users can apply to their videos, resulting in the recognition of the brand. Branded effects vary from stickers to lenses, and general effects and can last for up to 10 days.
Spark Ads
These ads follow a native format that allows marketers to experience authenticity by boosting organic content. Spark Ads allow users to interact with your content the same way as they do with organic video such as users can comment, like, and share. Moreover, they can follow your brand account as well as visit your profile.
No matter which ad format you opt for, each type of ad has its benefits and can be tailored to the brand’s specific marketing goals. We would advise you to choose the ad format which is aligned with your brand’s marketing goals.
Now that we have taken you through all the steps of creating your first ad, let’s get an idea of the monitoring of your TikTok ads for e-commerce. You can get a sense of the overall data from the Dashboard page. For details, you will have to dive into the data on the Campaign page.
You can set different filters to sort out the data for only the campaigns you want to look at. By clicking View Data under each campaign, you can have a look at various performance indicators including CTR, CPC, CPM, conversion rate, conversion cost, impressions, and clicks.
Here are some proven tips that you can follow to make your E-commerce TikTok campaigns more engaging and impactful:
Make Your Ads Visually Appealing: is an app that is all about visually engaging content. Use bright colors, interesting graphics, and dynamic video content to capture your audience’s attention.
Keep Your Ads Short: TikTok users preferably like short content so aim for 15 seconds or less for your TikTok ad to make it sweet enough to capture user attention.
Make Use of the Music: TikTok is all about music and sound effects so make sure to include trendy and interesting sound effects in your ads to make them more captivating enough to watch.
Use Subtitles: TikTok users tend to watch the videos with sound off. So, make sure to include subtitles in your ads to make this user segment understand your video.
Test and Iterate: Finally, test different ad formats, call-to-actions, and graphics to understand what resonates best with your audience. Use this data to recapitulate and optimize your TikTok ads for maximum impact over time.
With over 1 billion users worldwide, TikTok is a heaven for brands that want to promote their products and services online. You just need to follow the right kind of marketing strategy that resonates with the users on the platform. Use the knowledge conveyed to you in the article above to make your TikTok ads for e-commerce a huge success.
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