Leveraging TikTok as an advertising strategy
With over 2 billion global users, TikTok has become one of the most popular social media platforms in the world. Content creators eagerly share their short and captivating video posts with the mission to entertain their crowd of followers. The potential to use TikTok as a marketing platform to launch ads and therefor generate awareness or sales for brands, products and services is tremendous. It comes as no surprise then that businesses are looking for ways to leverage it to their advantage.
At STRAREX, we understand the importance of advertising on TikTok and have developed a comprehensive strategy for businesses wishing to maximize their reach and conversions. In this blog post, we will discuss what steps you need to take to implement a successful TikTok advertising strategy into your marketing plan and create interesting content for your intended target audience.
Developing your custom TikTok strategy: defining your target audience
Before launching any kind of marketing campaign on any platform, it’s important to first develop a clear understanding of who you’re targeting. By analyzing your target groups, it becomes easier to define your future advertising approach.
There are a few questions that need answering first when defining who your content is intended for.
- Who are your potential customers?
- What do they like?
- What do they need?
- On which channels are they active?
Once you’ve clearly identified your target audience, you can begin crafting an effective strategy that speaks directly to them.
Make things interesting from the very beginning
Short-form content
When developing content for TikTok, it’s important to remember that the platform is all about short-form video content. Users scroll through their feed or “For You” page quickly and expect unique and engaging content that grabs their attention within seconds. According to TikTok, a major part of the awareness and recall happens within the first 2.5 seconds of an ad. This means that when creating your videos, you should be sure to include an interesting hook that captivates viewers from the very beginning—something that compels them to watch until the very end. Keep it creative and make sure it fits with your brand identity!
Trend watching
The TikTok algorithm tries to get to know the users of the platform and what will keep them there. Content with trending songs gets pushed more to the consumers, for example.
When it comes to your ads, it’s going to work in your favor to add trending music. It’s an important part of your storytelling that helps to grab the attention of your audience. TikTok even mentions that users are more likely to skip an ad without sound!
Finally, add a clear call-to-action to your ad to improve recall.
TikTok’s ad format options: which one fits your advertising goals best?
When creating sponsored ads for TikTok, there are several different ad formats available to launch your content. You can choose between options such as ‘TopView’ (a 3-5 second pre-roll), ‘Brand Takeover’ (a fullscreen ad shown upon entry), ‘In-Feed’ (fullscreen ads between organic posts) and ‘Branded Hashtag Challenges’ (ads with custom challenges).
The In-Feed ads are TikTok’s standard ad format, where the video auto-plays in a user’s ‘For You’ feed. When choosing your type of ad, you need to keep in mind which goal you want to achieve —are you looking to build awareness or drive conversions? For example, if you’re looking for more brand exposure, then a ‘TopView’ ad might be right for you. However, if sales are your top priority, then an ‘In-Feed’ ad may be best suited. Secondly, you’ll also want to consider your advertising budget, as TikTok can be on the pricier side and works with minimum daily budgets for your campaigns and ads.
Use gathered insights from data to your advantage
Finally, once your campaign has launched on TikTok, don’t forget about tracking key performance indicators (KPIs). This way you can monitor how well your campaign is doing in terms of reach, engagement rate, clicks/impressions/conversions, etc., so that you can adjust accordingly depending on what results you see in real-time.
Curious to see how we help our clients to reach their KPIs? Contact us for an introduction!
Data analysis forms a fundamental and much-needed basis to optimize the potential of your advertisements. Being able to shift quickly in ad strategy is a key factor to success in advertising on any social media.
We can help to shape your TikTok advertising
With its still-growing user base and engaging format, TikTok has become one of the most powerful tools for businesses looking to increase brand awareness and maximize conversions. At STRAREX, we understand this potential and have developed a comprehensive strategy specifically tailored to help businesses succeed on this platform and across multiple channels.