TikTok Advertising
If you haven’t heard about TikTok yet, you’ll know all about it by the end of this write-up.
Starting out as Musical.ly in 2017 (a platform made famous by its celebrity duets), TikTok went from being known as something you say to hurry people up, to the most downloaded app of 2020; hitting 2 billion global downloads in August of 2020.
It’s easy to see why. Open the app, and you’re immediately sucked into an extremely addictive scroll-fest of insanely talented musicians, eye-widening make-up transformations, and mind-boggling transitions that make you wonder how they’re all done on a smartphone and not a multi-million dollar movie studio.
Upon collating the existing TikTok research out there, Montag, Yang & Elhai (2021) put down it’s staggering popularity and exponential user base growth to the app’s very clever artificial intelligence which:
- Determines user preferences through likes, comments, and level of engagement
- Drip-feeds this content back to them, then
- creates a feedback loop which results in an insanely high level of instant gratification
WARNING: Like I said, it CAN get ridiculously addictive.
Welcome to the colorful and chaotically entertaining lounging grounds of Gen Z: a population that makes up 48% of TikTok users between 18-29 years of age.
While this age bracket might not be known as the highest earners and biggest spenders, it’s not one to be sniffed at, and here are two very compelling reasons why:
They spend an awful lot of time on the app: TikTok was found to be the fourth most popular social media app behind the monsters of Facebook, Whatsapp, and Instagram in terms of time spent. Trend transfixed scrollers spend on average 13.3 hours a month marveling at the skill, creativity, or just sheer audacity of posters.
They also spend the most liberally: It’s the second biggest app in consumer spend ranking only behind Tinder. That’s right, Tiktok users spend more than YouTube viewers, parents babysitting their kids with Disney+, and all those chillers on Netflix.
Apart from the willingness of TikTok viewers to part with their cash, the platform also happens to make it easier than most to go viral; whether with intention, or even accidentally. That’s a nice little bonus when you’re investing in TikTok ads.
Speaking of which, when it comes to ad effectiveness, Here are the goods on how you should best structure, design, and format your ads:
Hit them in the face within the first 3 seconds. It’s going to need to WOW or pique curiosity immediately.
Whack them in the feels with real and relatable content. Don’t make it look like you’re trying too hard now!
Give ‘em value. When you’re mindlessly scrolling through science experiments, sewing tutorials, or investment hacks over a sausage roll at lunch, something weird starts happening. You can’t help but start picking up bits of knowledge from many different areas of expertise. So much so, that Hayes et. al. (2020) found that 8 out of 10 people watching chemistry experiments on TikTok strongly agreed that they learned something new and the videos increased their interest in the subject.
And super importantly: know your formats, trending sounds, current trends, and ad placements. These could be a giant article all on its own!
The long and short of TikTok advertisements is, If you can’t get your ad to blend in with the top scrollable content while showing viewers what it is you do, how it benefits them, and convincing them they’ll love it within the first 3 seconds, then you need to go straight back to the drawing board.
No idea what I’m talking about? Don’t worry because I do!
If you’re selling primarily to the under-30s and millennial crowds, TikTok advertising might be something your brand could use to pull in brand interest, and ultimately the sales.
Want to know if this is for you? Let’s chat about it a little more!
