Planning a TikTok Campaign: How TikTok Ads Are Used for Brand Marketing

Since TikTok hit the mainstream market in 2018, the platform has reached amazing results—it has a billion monthly active users and three billion installs worldwide. These incredible stats have made the platform one of the most potent marketing tools in the digital space.If you’re using TikTok as a business, you can take your brand to the next level by using numerous paid advertisement tools and promotion features on the platform. In this guide, we’ll take you through different types of ads, show you how to set up a TikTok campaign, and look at how businesses made it big on TikTok using paid ads.

What Are TikTok’s Advertisement Options?

Source: Negative SpaceTikTok offers businesses and creators different advertising options to promote their services to wider audiences. These paid ads consist of promotional videos that are independent and do not appear in your account feed. Paid campaigns can be used to:

• Expand the reach and improve engagement and interactions
• Increase follower count
• Boost conversions (getting more viewers to perform a specific action, like visiting your site or buying your product)

There are different types of ads that can help you achieve your goals:Ad TypeFormatPlacementObjectiveIn-feed adUsually 15-second videosOn the For You page, between other recommended videosMore traffic to your TikTok account or an external landing pageTop-view adUsually 15-second videosThe first in-feed post on the For You pageReach and engagementBrand takeoverA full-screen GIF, image, or video of up to five secondsOn the main screen, when users start the appBrand awarenessApart from the three ad types in the table, there are two more ad options that operate differently since they’re content-based. They include:

1. Branded hashtag challenges—You can create a unique challenge prompt and a corresponding hashtag urging users to participate and create user-generated content. Users can find your hashtag on the Discover page and post a video doing your challenge on their accounts, tagging you in the process. This ad format is ideal for brands that want to start a new TikTok trend and attract more engagement
2. Branded effects—These can be stickers, AR, 2D, or 3D effects that users have fun with and incorporate into their posts. Like branded challenges, effects are perfect for starting trends

How To Use Spark Ads

Source: Georgia de LotzApart from previously explained paid ads, you can also promote organic posts on TikTok. There are two ways to do this: the Promote feature and Spark Ads. The Promote feature allows you to promote your already-published videos, while Spark Ads let you promote other creators’ videos and your own. To use Spark Ads, you first need consent from the creator. The creator needs to go to Ad settings for the video in question, enable Ad authorization, and send you the generated code. Once you have it, you can quickly set up your Spark Ad campaign:

1. Create a campaign in TikTok Ads Manager
2. Choose the Spark Ads format
3. Go to Upload creatives and choose Posts from Library
4. Paste the generated code
5. Add a CTA and a landing page
6. Tap Submit

How To Set Up an Effective TikTok Ad Campaign

To start your TikTok ad campaign, you first have to create a TikTok Ads Manager account, which is not the same as the TikTok business account that you use within the app. Create the account using a web browser and submit it to TikTok for reviewing—you will receive a response within 24 hours.Once your Ads Manager account is confirmed, you can begin the process of setting up your campaign.

Choose Your Ad Objectives

Do you want more people to know about your brand or more visits to your website? Knowing your goals is the first step to creating a successful campaign.To get started, log in to your Ads Manager account and click on the Campaign button at the top of the page. On the Campaign page, there are six ad objectives listed and grouped into three categories:CategoryObjectivesAwareness

• Reach—Show your ad to the maximum number of people

Consideration

• Traffic—Drive traffic to a specific URL
• Video Views—Get more views by increasing the reach
• App Installs—Drive more people to download your app
• Lead Generation—Help advertisers collect audience information

Conversion

• Conversions—Encourage people to take a specific action, such as add items to a cart or subscribe to a specified service

After selecting your campaign objective, move on to the next step.

Name Your Campaign and Set a Budget

When naming your campaign, use a name that is easily recognizable and tied to your business. The name should be simple, easy to remember, and short—campaign names are limited to 512 characters.The campaign budget allows you to specify the amount of money you want to use for the campaign. Your ad will stop running when the amount runs out. This option will help you to:

• Control ad delivery
• Measure ad performance
• Plan your overall marketing budget better

Budgets can be set for full campaigns and particular ad groups (a campaign may contain several ad groups). There are two budget options available:

1. Lifetime—The maximum amount you’re willing to spend on an entire campaign or ad group over a specified period
2. Daily—The maximum amount you’re willing to spend on a campaign or ad group in one day

When setting up a budget, keep in mind the minimum required amounts. For ad groups, the minimum daily amount is $20, while the total and daily budgets for entirecampaigns should be above $50. If you’re not sure about how much you want to spend, you can always edit your budget later.

Name Your Ad Groups and Choose Ad Placement

Like the campaign name, the ad group name is also limited to 512 characters. The name is for internal use and doesn't appear in the actual ad.After putting in a name, you can choose between automatic placement or manual placement, depending on where you want your ads to show. You can manually choose ad placements from the provided list:

• TikTok placement—Your ads will appear as regular in-feed ads on the For You page
• News Feed App placement—Your ad will appear within TikTok’s other apps (BuzzVideo, NewsRepublic, TopBuzz, etc.)
• Pangle placement—Your ad will be shown to more people thanks to this video advertising platform. This option is only available in select countries
• Turn Automated Creative Optimization On/Off

You can allow TikTok to auto-arrange the content (images, video, and text) of your ad. Automated Creative Optimization lets you upload images or videos, write ad text, and select your call-to-action (CTA) buttons and automatically generates ads based on the creative assets.For new users, it is recommended that this setting is turned on to get better performance results.

Choose Your Target Audience

In this step, you can define your target audience more clearly to make your campaign as effective as possible. TikTok allows you to target users based on:

• Gender
• Age
• Location
• Interests
• Device details
• Video interactions
• Creator interactions

Set an Ad Group Budget and Specify When the Ads Will Run

You’ve already set the budget for the entire campaign; now it’s time to set a budget for the ad group. You can either set a daily budget or a lifetime budget. After setting the ad group budget, specify the start and end dates for the ad. You can also set your ad to run at specific times during the day, for example, when your audience is active the most. You can do this under the Dayparting option.

Choose a Bidding and Optimization Strategy

In the Bidding & Optimization section, your optimization goal will be set by default based on the campaign objective you initially set.Next, choose your bidding strategy. The bid strategy determines how the system manages your cost per result and how it spends your budget. There are two strategies to choose from:

• Bid Cap—Enter the bid (the maximum amount you want to spend per result—clicks, views, or impressions), and this strategy will ensure your average cost per result is below the bid
• Lowest Cost—This approach doesn’t require a bid. It will use your ad group budget to generate as many results as possible at the lowest cost per result

Lastly, choose how you want your ad to be delivered:

• Standard Delivery—Divides your budget evenly for the scheduled duration of the campaign
• Accelerated Delivery—This approach means your budget will be spent on getting as many results as possible in the shortest time frame

Create and Submit Your Ads

Source: PlannBefore you submit your ad, you should choose the best ad format based on your ad placements. For in-app advertising, you can only use videos, but for ads that will be shown in TikTok‘s partner apps, you can upload your images or videos and create an ad from scratch in Ads Manager. Next, add the ad display name, text (caption), and a relevant CTA. Add a thumbnail for your ad by either choosing one of TikTok’s default images or uploading your own.Click Submit, and your ad will be reviewed by TikTok. If the platform accepts your ad, it will automatically go live.

Best Campaign Practices To Optimize Ad Performance

While paid ads are good for building brand awareness and boosting reach in general, they can be made more effective if you embrace the following practices during ad creation.

Use Sounds, Captions, and Text

According to TikTok, 93% of top-performing videos use audio, meaning that sounds are vital for the success of your ad. You can choose to include an existing music track or an original audio clip. For businesses and creators, there are thousands of commercially licensed tracks you can use to avoid copyright issues. Adding audio of any kind causes a significant rise in impressions.You can also include closed captions in your ad so that more users are able to watch it, widening your reach. More people tend to watch TikTok ads with captions to the end since text grabs their attention.Text overlaysare used to call users to perform a particular action. When you include a strong CTA as on-screen text, you increase the ad’s view-through rate (number of times an ad is viewed to completion), making the overall campaign more effective.

Keep It Short

Video ads have a limited duration of 60 seconds, unlike organic videos, which can be up to 3 minutes long. Although you have a whole minute to work with when creating an ad, TikTok recommends keeping ads between 21 and 34 seconds for optimal performance.To avoid losing viewers, highlight the key message of your ad and make it interesting within the first three seconds.

Work With Influencers

Source: Liza SummerInfluencer marketing is another excellent way your ads can reach wider audiences. TikTok has thousands of influencers across all niches, and finding one to collaborate with shouldn’t be difficult. Brand collaborations are the main way for content creators to make money on TikTok, other than applying for the Creator Fund.You can find content creators and influencers by checking the Creator Marketplace, observing who your competitors are working with, or by scrolling through the Discover and For You feeds. When creating ads, influencers and content creators can be involved directly during content creation. For example, you can pay a creator to make a new post for your account. Other ways you can work with them include:

• Spark Ads—Through these ads, you can promote a TikTok video that an influencer created and published on their page to promote your business
• Stitch and Duet tools—These in-app features allow established creators to make videos responding or reacting to your video. You can hire an influencer to create a Stitch or Duet based on your video to reach more users

When choosing an influencer to work with, consider your budget. You don’t need world-famous influencers like Charli D’Amelio and Addison Rae Easterling to be successful. Nano and micro-influencers may even be more effective since they’re mainly niche-focused and have better engagement rates.

Examples of Successful TikTok Campaigns

Numerous brands have already enjoyed the benefits of paid ads. Take a look at how some of the most active and popular companies on TikTok used different types of ads to grow their business accounts:BrandAd(s) UsedCampaign ResultsSephora

• Video promotion (Spark Ads)

• 40,000+ followers in three weeks
• 20%–40% higher engagement rate

Jobs.ie

• In-feed ads

• The reach of more than 629,000 users
• 46,858 clicks
• 7 million impressions

Oxy Vietnam

• Branded effects
• Branded hashtag challenge
• Brand takeover

• 284.4 million views
• 28.2 million users reached
• 145,000 user-generated videos

Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups

• Auction In-feed ads
• Spark Ads

• 2.8 million reach
• Over 370,000 engagements
• 24 million impressions

Puma

• In-feed ads
• Influencer marketing

• 9.4% increase in Purchase Intent
• 112,000+ clicks to the product
• 16 million impressions

While these ad results are impressive, they’re not so easy to reach. You need a solid TikTok advertising approach that has been tailored and optimized for your specific business goals.

Optimize Your TikTok Campaign

For brands, it can be rather difficult to succeed on TikTok. The platform is relatively new and requires a different approach compared to older platforms like Instagram or Facebook. This is because TikTok is unique in regards to how it works, what type of content does well on it, and who the target audience is. In other words, copy-pasting a marketing approach from another social platform won’t work. You need to:

• Publish ads that match the general style of TikTok videos
• Create entertaining, attention-grabbing ads
• Incorporate your brand’s personality into ads

There are a lot of activities involved in making your campaign successful. For social media managers and in-house teams, TikTok campaigns can get overwhelming fast, especially since TikTok isn’t the only platform they need to take care of.

Let Kubbco TikTok Experts Handle Your Campaign

As an official TikTok partner, Kubbco has immense experience in developing winning TikTok marketing and advertising strategies that have helped businesses grow rapidly on this platform. We have a diverse team of experts, including content strategists, graphic designers, video producers and editors, sound engineers, writers, and other professionals,devoted to creating the best organic content and paid ads.Our team is well-equipped with the knowledge and skills to handle every element of your campaign. We can:

1. Ideate and develop your entire strategy
2. Test different types of content to find out what your audience will engage with the most
3. Produce high-quality, campaign-relevant TikToks
4. Identify and contact influencers for sponsored posts
5. Set up paid ads and promote organic videos
6. Monitor the performance of your campaign using advanced analytic tools and tweak our approach accordingly

If you want to learn more about how we approach TikTok paid ads or organic promotion and receive free advice on how to improve your marketing efforts, subscribe to our newsletter!

We Have Already Helped Many Brands Succeed on TikTok

So far, we have worked with plenty of brands and helped them reach new heights on TikTok by creating custom-made strategies that perfectly match their needs and goals.

Source: OLAPLEX We helped brands like NATURLI’ Foods, OLAPLEX, and essence cosmetics build their presence on TikTok and reach new people who are now their loyal customers. The results speak for themselves:

• NATURLI’ Foods—Over 23 weeks, we worked with this brand on increasing their follower count and engagement. The entire campaign resulted in over 5,300 new followers and 179,000 interactions, with paid ads generating 1,300 new followers and 49,000 interactions
• OLAPLEX—Within five weeks, we published 28 videos for this brand, and two went viral, receiving over 1 million views each. The brand’s follower count increased by 22,000, and the number of campaign interactions reached 224,000
• essence cosmetics—We grew this brand’s following by 386,000, generating over 7.1 million new interactions. Out of 144 videos we created, 12 went viral, gathering over 1 million views each

If you want to see similar numbers in your campaign reports and build a stronger presence on TikTok, contact us, and we’ll have your campaign set up in no time!