(Newswire.net — July 22, 2020) — We know that companies like Google and Facebook make most of their revenue from adverts. And yet some companies found it difficult to make money from ads despite being very popular. Snapchat, for example, struggled to make money from selling ads even though it was incredibly popular. Vine, which can be considered to be TikTok’s predecessor, had to be shut down for the same reason.
Nevertheless, TikTok is finally introducing paid ads to its platform and hopes to capitalize on its recent popularity. In one month between March 20 and April 28, TikTok is approximated to have been downloaded 100 million times and has been consistently ranked top in both Android and Apple app stores. The news to include ads is welcome news for businesses who want to market themselves to more people, and here’s all you need to know about TikTok ads.
Types of ads available on TikTok
TikTok has an advantage in being able to know which types of ads work and which ones don’t by observing other platforms. This has enabled the platform to include different types of ads that anyone can use.
Display ads
Everyone is familiar with these ads as they are the most common in all social platforms. Basically, a company or individual can create an ad that is shown in users’ timelines as they scroll down to watch videos. These ads work because they get eyeballs on your products and services with the hope that interested viewers will select the ad and visit your profile page.
A business or individual first creates the ad as they would any TikTok video and then sets it up for display. They will have to specify the gender, age, and location targets but also other unique measures like online behaviour, promised interest and other granular data. Clearly, TikTok display ads will allow brands control over who sees their ads down to the lowest level.
It is usually better to have a narrowed target rather than general because it increases the rate of conversions. For example, it doesn’t help to market trendy outfits to older, professional women, which would be a waste of money. This is why TikTok even includes CRM integration in its ad services.
For the companies and people that advertise on TikTok, you can choose to either pay when a user clicks on the ad (CPC), when the user views the entire 6-second ad (CPV), or even for every 1k appearance of your ad (CPM). Your choice will depend on what your marketing goal is during the campaign and how you wish to achieve the goal.
Sponsored challenges
A lot of the most popular trends on TikTok occur in the form of challenges. These challenges are great for business because they can create a lot of attention around a particular brand, which can be turned into increased sales. For instance, #costcochallenge has become popular lately after someone published a dance along their shopping cart. Now this challenge has almost 20 million views on TikTok.
For Costco, this was an unexpected surprise because the challenge started organically, but TikTok is allowing brands and companies to pay for creating similar challenges. For such a challenge to succeed, though, it would need to be very creative and easy to get into. But we might start to see celebrities kick off such challenges soon.
Brand profiles
These are the full-page ads you see when you open the app for the first time, taking over the entire page. It is basically making your brand more visible to everyone so that you can get more visitors on your page or to advertise a special offer or sale that is available. These kinds of ads can be shown to specific audiences all day, which makes them ideal when announcing one-time offers or even perhaps your entry into the TikTok platform.
Branded lenses
Snapchat is well known for its AR lenses that allow people to make use of filters. TikTok will use this technology to include some branding in these AR lenses so that people can use the filters. A company can then create such a filter and pay to have it available with the idea that people who use the filters will be essentially marketing the brand.
How effective are ads on social media?
Marketing is an essential part of any business because it’s the only way to let people know about your products and services. For this reason, and because there are so many people on social media, ads on these platforms are very effective. TikTok in particular has been experiencing a lot of attention and signing up millions of people. All of these people are potential customers, meaning that successful ad campaigns on TikTok can have a very positive effect on a business.
One problem businesses face is in trying to increase their follower count. Doing this takes time, which many businesses don’t have. For an individual business, you might need a service like TikTokFamed to help you acquire more followers if you want it to succeed. Having more followers will instantly prove that your company is a notable brand and will continue to generate more followers.