If you still think TikTok is just for kids, you’re missing out on an important social media advertising option for your brand. TikTok surpassed 1 billion users in September, and TikTok ads can now reach an estimated of audience wider than that worldwide.

So, who should invest in advertising on TikTok? While brands with a wide range of audiences may find it worthwhile to test a small TikTok campaign, TikTok ads will likely have the best results for:

Customers aged 35 and under
Women aged 18 to 25
Brands that aim high market in Asia or the Middle East

Types of TikTok ads

Here are all the kinds of ads you can run on TikTok’s ad platform. Not all ad types are available in all areas. Check out below:

1. In-feed Ads: These are self-service ads you can create yourself through the TikTok Ad Manager interface.

2. Image Ads: This is the option that TikTok allows us to advertise in News Feed apps (BuzzVideo, TopBuzz, and Babe) which includes an image, brand name, and ad text.

3. Video Ads: Video ads are available for users on TikTok and TikTok family of the news apps. You are able to run a 5-60 seconds video in the FYP page which each ad includes a video, a display image, brand name, and ad text.

4. Pangle Ads: This is the ads that are place in the TikTok Audience Network.

5. Carousel Ads: This ad will be displayed in TikTok’s News Feed apps and can include up to 10 images with unique captains per ad.

6. Spark Ads: Spark ads allow you to boost organic content from your own account or from other users that already have engagements. TikTok research shows Spark Ads have a 24% higher completion rate and 142% higher engagement rate than standard In-Feed ads.

How to set up a TikTok ad campaign

To set up a TikTok ad campaign, first you need to go to Tiktok Ads Manager. If you have not registered yet, please do so. However, please note that Tiktok Ads Manager is only for you to create ads. If you’re only looking to boost any contents, you can use TikTok Promote.

Below are steps on how to set up a Tiktok ad campaign:

1. Choose your objective

Awareness

Reach: Show your ad to the maximum number of people (in beta).

Consideration

Traffic: Drive traffic to a specific URL.
App Installs: Drive traffic to download your app.
Video Views: Maximize video ad plays (in beta).
Lead Generation: Use a pre-populated Instant Form to collect leads.

Conversions

Conversions: Drive specific actions on your site, like a purchase or subscription.
Catalog Sales: Dynamic ads based on your product catalog (in beta, and only available to those with a managed ad account in supported regions).

make-tiktok-ads-that-converts-social-leap

Source: TikTok

2. Name your campaign and set a budget

Give your campaign a name that is easily recognizable to your team. It can be up to 512 characters.

If you prefer to set the budget limits for specific ad groups rather than the whole campaign, you can choose to set No Limit on your campaign budget. Otherwise, choose whether you want to set a Daily or Lifetime budget for your campaign (more on that below).

Source: TikTok

Campaign budget optimization is also available for the App Installs and Conversions objectives using the Lowest Cost bidding strategy. For optimized Cost Per Click objectives, TikTok is beta testing a feature to provide a suggested bid.

3. Name your ad group and select placements

Each campaign includes from one to 999 ad groups. Each ad group name can be up to 512 characters.

You can choose different placements for each ad group. Not all placements are available in all locations:

TikTok placement: In-feed ads in the For You feed.
News Feed App placement: Ads within TikTok’s other apps—BuzzVideo, TopBuzz, NewsRepublic, and Babe.
Pangle placement: The TikTok audience network.
Automatic placement allows TikTok to automatically optimize ad delivery.

Source: TikTok

4. Choose whether to use Automated Creative Optimization

Do not upload your creative until you get to the stage of creating individual ads. But for now, you can decide whether to let TikTok automatically generate combinations of your images, videos, and ad text so the ad system will then only show the best-performing ones. We do recommend that new advertisers to turn this setting on.

5. Target your audience

Like most social ads, TikTok allows you to show your ads to your target market. You can use a lookalike or custom audience, or target your ads based on:

Gender
Age
Location
Language
Interests
Behaviors
Device details

Source: TikTok

6. Set your ad group budget and schedule

You’ve already set a budget for your overall campaign. Now it’s time to set the budget for the ad group, and to set the schedule on which it will run.

Choose a daily or lifetime budget for your ad group, then choose the start and end times. Under Dayparting, you can also choose to run your ad at specific times throughout the day (based on your account time zone).

7. Set your bidding strategy and optimization

First, choose your optimization goal: conversion, clicks, or reach. Your campaign objective may automatically determine this goal.

Next, choose your bidding strategy.

Bid Cap: Maximum amount per click (CPC), per view (CPV), or per 1,000 impressions (CPM).
Cost Cap: An average cost per result for optimized CPM. The cost will fluctuate above and below the bid amount but should average out to the set bid.
Lowest Cost: The ad system uses the ad group budget to generate the maximum number of results possible at the lowest cost per result.

Source: TikTok

Finally, choose your delivery type: standard or accelerated. Standard divides your budget evenly over the scheduled dates of the campaign, whereas accelerated delivery spends your budget as fast as possible.

Source: TikTok

8. Publish your ads

Each ad group can have up to 20 ads. Each ad name can be up to 512 characters, and is for internal use only (it does not appear on the ad itself).

First, choose your ad format: image, video, or Spark ad. If you’re sticking to TikTok itself (rather than the family of TikTok apps), you can only use video or Spark ads.

Add your photos or video, or create a video within Ads Manager using the video template or video creation tools. Note that TikTok research shows using the TikTok video editor can decrease cost per action by up to 46%.

Choose one of the default thumbnails, or upload your own. Then, enter your text and link. Check out the preview of your ad on the right of the screen, add any relevant tracking links, and click Submit.

Source: Tiktok

Note: To use Spark Ads, you’ll need to contact the creators of the content you want to use so they can provide an access code.

TikTok Video Ad Specs

Aspect ratio: 9:16, 1:1, or 16:9. Vertical videos with a 9:16 ratio perform best.
Minimum resolution: 540 x 960 px or 640 x 640 px. Videos with a resolution of 720 px perform best.
File types: mp4, .mov, .mpeg, .3gp, or .avi
Duration: 5-60 seconds. TikTok recommends 21-34 seconds for top performance.
Max file size: 500 MB
Profile image: square image less than 50 KB
App name or brand name: 4-40 characters (app) or 2-20 characters (brand)
Ad description: 1-100 characters, no emojis

Spark Ad Specs

Aspect ratio: Any
Minimum resolution: Any
Duration: Any
Max file size: Any
Account mentions and emojis allowed
Display name and text come from the original organic post

Note: Character counts are based on Latin characters. For Asian characters, generally the allowed character count is half.

Tips:

Campaign level budget: Minimum daily budget $50 and lifetime budget $50.
Ad group level: Minimum daily budget $20 and lifetime budget calculated as multiplied by number of days scheduled.
For Bid Cap or Cost Cap bidding strategy, set the initial campaign level budget at No Limit and the daily ad group budget to at least 20x your target cost per action (CPA).
For App Event Optimization, set an initial budget of at least $100 or 20x target (CPA), whichever is higher.
For Conversions campaigns using the Lowest Cost bid strategy, set an initial budget of at least $100 or 20x your target (CPA), whichever is higher.

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