How to Set up TikTok ads? One step at a time.

As far as social media platforms go, TikTok is the new kid on the block. The video-sharing app that has taken the world by storm has over 1 billion downloads from Google Play and App Store as of February 2019 and this has turned some heads.

As mentioned earlier, TikTok is a video sharing app that is available exclusively for smartphones. TikTok’s parent company ByteDance owns several other content sharing platforms such as Vigo, BuzzVideo, News Republic etc. With over 500 million users monthly, marketers were very keen to advertise their products on TikTok.

Considering this gold mine opportunity, ByteDance started to allow ads on their platforms around January of 2019.

Now let us see how you can advertise your product on TikTok.

TikTok mainly allows native ads which are ads that are similar to the content published on the platform.

Anybody can create ads on the platform, given they have the budget for doing so.

Now, let’s see how we can create TikTok ads.

Step 1

Go here and create a TikTok ad account by clicking the “Create an ad” button.

Step 2

Then you are going to be led to your TikTok ads Dashboard where you can add your campaign, it is going to look like this

In this Dashboard, you need to enter the necessary details regarding your campaign. These include

Your advertising objective :

You could choose from creating traffic or creating conversions for your website. You can also choose to promote your app.

Name and Budget for TikTok ads :

Add a name to the campaign and select your Daily or lifetime budget. At the campaign level, there is a $500 minimum limit and at the ad group level, there is a $50 minimum limit. The budget can be changed at any time during the campaign.

Step 3

The next step is to create an ad group by naming it. The following info is required in this stage

Placement of TikTok ads:

You have to choose the platforms in which your ads will appear. The platforms available in TikTok’s family of apps are TikTok, Vigo Video, Helo, BuzzVideo, News Republic etc. You can also choose the automatic placement option in which TikTok determines where you ad would perform best and places it there. The following is the placement details of the different platforms.

• TikTok: In-Feed Ads on the “For You” page
• News Feed App Series (TopBuzz, BuzzVideo, News Republic, etc.): Newsfeed Ads, Detail page ads
• Vigo: Poster Ads, Video ads
• Helo: In-feed Ads
• TikTok Audience Network

Ad Details:

Then you should enter all the necessary ad details such as Promotion type (Website URL or App link required), Display Name, Profile image, Category and so on.

Creative Type:

TikTok has come up with this ingenious method of presenting the creatives you upload for the ad. Their Automated Creative Optimization will automatically find high-performing combinations of the creative assets for your ads and drive performance, which helps manage your ads more efficiently and effectively and ease the process of creative building. You can choose to toggle Automated Creative Optimization on or off.

Targeting:

You can choose your audience with the audience feature in the Targeting part of the dashboard. You can go for Specific targeting which includes you setting the strict parameters like Location, Sex, Age etc for your target audience. You could also go for Broad Targeting, which just means the system will find the ideal candidates for your audience.

Budget and Schedule:

You can set up the budget and schedule for your ad group here.

Bidding and Optimization:

Bidding and optimization include selecting your bid rate and selecting the type of delivery you want for your TikTok ads. There are basically two types, standard and accelerated. In standard, your ad would be distributed evenly based on the crowdedness of traffic during the selected advertising period. If the traffic is busy, your ads would be sent more frequently, vice versa. In accelerated, however, when you start to run your ad, the system will help you get your targeting results as soon as possible and maximize the effectiveness of reaching your audience.

Step 4

The next step is adding your creatives into the advertisement. The following is the Image and Video specifications required to create TikTok ads.

For Image

For Video

You can insert an Ad Name, which can also be autogenerated. You are also required to enter the content required for the TikTok ads here.

You can also set up the call to action. There are various actions you can assign which includes, but isn’t limited to, Learn More, Download, Shop Now, Sign Up, etc.

Step 5

The final step is to add the details regarding your business, contact information and Tax information. And finally, you have to add funds to Tik Tok ads account.

It supports almost all kinds of payment gateways, including, credit cards, debit cards, UPI etc.

Tik Tok ads is still in its infancy stages. But many big-name brands like Club Factory, OYO etc. are already trying out Tik Tok ads. At this point in time, we can’t really pass a remark on whether Tik Tok ads will be a sustainable marketing tool, but it is definitely here to stay and we are excited to see what the future holds for Tik Tok ads.

Varun Raveendran

Content Writer | Google Certified Search Marketer |Hubspot Inbound Certified.