TikTok Advertising for Business: Top Strategies for Success

These days, it's becoming increasingly important for businesses to try out new ways to promote their products or services and connect with different groups of people. There are many advertising platforms where you can do it: Facebook, Instagram, Google, YouTube, and so on.

 

Even though these platforms have been around for a while and are really popular, there's another platform that many businesses underestimate – TikTok. TikTok ads provide one of the best ways to reach customers, sell products, and build brand loyalty.

 

In this article, we’re going to take a closer look at why advertising on TikTok might be a great idea for your business and share useful tips on how to create truly effective TikTok ads.

 

Why advertise on TikTok?

If you’re already running ad campaigns on popular advertising platforms, you might ask these questions: are TikTok ads worth it, and are they actually effective?

 

The fact that there are plenty of businesses and companies using TikTok for marketing purposes and getting great results seems sufficient to answer these questions. However, let’s also check some TikTok ads statistics to back up this claim.

 

Key TikTok ads statistics

Even if not as big as Facebook, YouTube, or Instagram, TikTok has over 1.5 billions monthly active users, and that’s a huge number for a platform that is usually considered to be popular only among younger demographics. The platform is forecasted to reach more than 2 billion users by 2027, which means it might get on the same level as social media giants like Instagram.

The number of TikTok users worldwide steadily grows year over year, showing that the platform’s potential hasn’t been exhausted yet. Source: Statista

 

Moreover, there are almost 150 million monthly unique TikTok users in the United States alone, which makes the platform still seem very promising to advertisers seeking to find customers in the US even with all the news about the possible TikTok ban going around.

 

All these statistics show that you should at least consider including TikTok ads in your digital advertising strategy. Now, let's check what specific benefits TikTok ads can provide for businesses. 

 

TikTok ads benefits

Advertising on TikTok can also be a great idea for your business for several reasons. Here are the key benefits of TikTok for businesses:

 

1. Helps brands connect with young audiences

As the go-to platform for young people, TikTok's short video format perfectly fits their preferences. It offers plenty of opportunities to create content that resonates with them. If you want to reach Gen Z customers, there are not many better ways to do it than to advertise on TikTok since many young people choose TikTok over Instagram and other popular platforms. Over 36% of TikTok's user base are young people of 18-24 years, which makes TikTok a top choice for businesses that target younger demographics.

 

TikTok will also be beneficial for businesses that want to reach new audience segments, revamp their brand image, and cultivate a more genuine and relatable brand personality.

 

To make the most out of TikTok advertising, understand your audience: dive deep into what content your potential customers enjoy and how they engage with branded content. Each audience segment has its own unique traits, so figure them out and tailor your TikTok advertising strategy accordingly.

 

2. Allows brands to build communities

Creating and sharing videos on TikTok is easier than on YouTube. TikTok is also super addictive, leading to higher engagement rates than on other platforms.

 

With its quick content creation and interactive videos, TikTok is perfect for building communities. TikTok has communities for everything, so you'll definitely find the one that fits your brand. By joining or even making communities that match your brand's values, you can take part in trends and discussions, showing people what your brand is about and offering solutions to their problems.

 

Keep in mind that TikTok isn't all about polished content like some other platforms: TikTok users value authenticity and creativity over perfect content that lacks a personal touch. You can try different types of content to connect with your audience in a genuine way.

 

3. Helps consumers and brands find each other

Contrary to popular belief, TikTok isn't just for fun – it's also a place to learn and find new things. Its immersive content makes it similar to a search engine: many people use TikTok to look up products and check the reviews and recommendations to make the right choice.

 

TikTok shows content tailored to each user, so even if someone doesn't follow your brand, they still might see your ads or videos if they match their interests. Moreover, short videos on TikTok get lots of engagement, making it a great place to show your products or services in a way that makes people want to try them. That's why there are many hashtags like #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt that prove how effective word-of-mouth marketing can be.

 

In short, many products have become popular because of TikTok, and you can use this to promote your brand too. But remember that being honest and trustworthy is important: TikTok users like facts and transparency, so make sure you're upfront with them and give them reliable information.

 

4. Allows brands to team up with content creators

TikTok has many creators who are popular among different demographic and psychographic groups, and working in tandem with them can help you reach more people. On TikTok, what matters most for a creator is being real and making relevant content, not just how many followers they have or how professional their videos look. Smaller creators often have more engaged audiences than those with thousands of followers. 

 

If your promotional content aligns with the creator's and their audience's preferences and interests, you can collaborate with them and reach new people who are likely to fall into your target audience as well. You can build relationships with them and find loyal followers for your brand. TikTok also lets you connect with people through user-generated content, which is a great way to promote your brand in an organic manner using other people's approval.

 

Besides these 4 main benefits, TikTok offers additional perks for advertisers. First, TikTok has higher engagement rates. TikTok ads are integrated seamlessly into users' feeds, which makes them feel less disruptive and more engaging. The platform's algorithm ensures that ads are shown to users who are likely to be interested in the content, increasing the likelihood of engagement.

 

Moreover, TikTok allows advertisers to experiment with various ad formats including short videos, challenges, and branded effects. This flexibility helps brands to show their personality and connect with audiences in creative ways.

 

Also, TikTok provides a lot of helpful tools, features, and resources you can use to run better advertising and marketing campaigns:

• TikTok Business Center to access and manage all of TikTok’s marketing and advertising solutions;
• TikTok Ads Manager to create and manage your TikTok ads;
• TikTok Creator Marketplace to connect with top TikTok creators and Branded mission to make authentic content;
• TikTok Creative Center to check the most successful TikTok ads;
• TikTok Commerce to access features like TikTok Shop and Video Shopping Ads and set up a seamless product discovery and purchase process;
• Various tools to turn assets (like photos, videos, or text) into engaging TikToks;
• Smart Video to automatically edit longer videos for optimal viewing experience;
• TikTok Effect House to create branded effects and utilize augmented reality to engage your audience;
• Pulse Ads to run contextual ads that are displayed after the top 4% of content within 12 categories;
• TikTok Marketing Calendars to create the best posting schedules based on where your business or your target audience is located.

Overall, TikTok ads offer a unique opportunity for businesses to capture attention, drive engagement, and foster authentic connections with their target audience in a fun and creative environment.

 

As you can see, there are plenty of good arguments for why your business should be on TikTok. Now, let’s consider the specifics of advertising on TikTok and the best practices for running effective TikTok ads.

 

TikTok ads best practices

Many advertisers who don’t have experience with TikTok ads think like this: you can make it on TikTok as an advertiser only if you have big budgets for running sponsored campaigns via influencers, or if you’re incredibly creative, know the latest TikTok trends, and can hop on them quickly.

 

Luckily, it is far from being true. While TikTok certainly demands financial investments and creative efforts from advertisers, there are multiple examples of smaller brands achieving great results with their TikTok ads and successfully competing with bigger advertisers.

 

Here are the best practices that can help you advertise on TikTok effectively:

1. Choose the right campaign objective

To choose the right objective, you need to have a basic understanding of the conversion funnel and its stages – it’s essential for running truly relevant ad campaigns for specific audience segments. You can learn more about how a conversion or sales funnel works in our blog.

 

There are three main categories of TikTok ad objectives you can choose:

1. Awareness

You should choose this category when you want more people to know about your brand, see your ad, and remember it afterward. This is most suitable for cold audiences that aren’t familiar with your business yet.

 

Here’s the main ad objective you can use for running awareness campaigns:

• Reach: it allows you to display your ads to as many users as possible and get maximum impressions at the best costs.

2. Consideration

This category helps you run ads to make people want to learn more about your products and consider the purchase. You should choose it if you’re targeting users who already know about your business and need the right incentives (like additional information and facts about your products) to convert.

 

Here are ad objectives you can use for consideration campaigns:

• Traffic: it helps you drive users to your landing pages, posts in your blog, your app, and so on.
• Video views: it allows you to show your ads to people who are more likely to watch your videos and get as many video plays as possible.
• Community interaction: it helps you get more traffic and followers on your TikTok page.

3. Conversion

This category corresponds to the last and the lowest stage of the conversion funnel and allows you to encourage users to take the desired action, e.g. buy your product or install your app.

 

Here are the ad objectives you can use for conversion campaigns:

• Product sales: it allows you to get more sales on your TikTok Shop, website, or app.
• Website conversions: it helps you make people take specific actions on your website, e.g. add items to their cart, download your app, sign up, or make a purchase.
• Lead generation: it helps you generate leads through customizable instant forms on TikTok itself or on your website.
• App promotion: it allows you to promote your app to new audiences and engage with the existing users to make them take specific actions in your app.

Choosing the right ad objective is essential for reaching your advertising goals and spending your ad budget wisely – you’ll pay only for the results you actually want to get.

 

2. Experiment with different ad formats

TikTok's "For You" page is a golden opportunity for brands to get noticed. When a piece of content starts to catch on, it can spread to a huge audience quickly and help advertisers grow their brands just as fast. Plus, TikTok offers lots of different content and ad formats that can help you make fun and engaging ads.

 

Here are the main ad formats available on TikTok:

• In-Feed ads: these are short videos that show your products and pop up in users' feeds. They usually look like organic content and can be liked and shared;
• TopView ads: these are the first videos users see when they open TikTok;
• Branded Mission: this is the content made by TikTok users that features your brand (so it’s a UGC) which you can boost as an ad;
• Branded Effect: these are the special effects you can create for people to use in their videos (which also motivates users to make UGC);
• Spark Ads: these are boosted videos that can be made from your own content, content made by TikTok users, or content that mentions your brand.

What's great about TikTok is that you can turn regular content into ads really easily, and they will fit right into the user's experience. You can add music, voiceovers, text captions, animations, and so on to your TikTok videos to keep people interested and be more creative.

 

To see what the successful ads in your industry have in common, check them out on TikTok Creative Center – this will give you ideas you can use in your own ads.

TikTok Creative Center allows you to find top ads by country, industry, campaign objective, time, language, ad format, and their level of success. 

 

Besides running TikTok ads, you can also keep your audience engaged with organic content: you can share tips on how to use your products, industry insights and recommendations, or post funny and relatable videos. TikTok users will often follow a brand for quality content, which shows how important content truly is.

 

If you make content that matches what your audience likes and is interested in, you can build a loyal following – that’s essential not just for turning followers into customers but also for building a positive brand image.

 

3. Embrace trends and hashtags

With TikTok taking on the functions of search engines for many young people, it's vital to understand the platform's algorithms and the content users love. To catch the eyes of your audience, sync your advertising strategy with TikTok's trends.

 

However, TikTok trends are never stable and can change in the blink of an eye. To keep up without drowning in trends, focus on bigger and more lasting ones.

 

Latest TikTok's Trend Report breaks down trends into three ‘forces’, or behavioral patterns that can be observed at a large scale:

1. Curiosity Peaked

On TikTok, curiosity leads to discovery and action: TikTok users love exploring various perspectives, discovering new topics, and engaging with creative content. Encouraging engagement by interacting with communities and crafting content that resonates with their interests and answers their questions gives tangible benefits to businesses. As users are 1.8x more likely to discover new topics they didn't know they were interested in, they can also discover new products this way.

 

2. Storytelling Unhinged

TikTok reshapes storytelling, allowing multiple narratives to unfold simultaneously. The best thing about TikTok content is that it’s always open to reinterpretation and contributions from the community (e.g. ‘stitches’), empowering brands to shape their identities and narratives in collaboration with their target audience.

 

For instance, TikTok ads that evoke curiosity through engaging narratives increase the viewing time by 1.4x, which shows the platform's unique storytelling appeal.

 

3. Bridging the Trust Gap

TikTok provides brands and businesses with direct communication channels to connect with their audience, which can take the form of making brand allies out of TikTok creators. Every campaign and organic post is a chance to exchange ideas, creating an opportunity for deepening the relationship with your core audience. 

 

Effective TikTok ads can make viewers trust a brand 41% more and be 31% more likely to show brand loyalty. By fostering trust and sharing values, your business can deepen loyalty both online and offline.

 

Besides trends, there are also hashtags: you need to spend time researching and picking the most relevant ones for your campaigns. Whether it's seasonal, lifestyle, community-related, or audience-centric hashtags, using the right hashtags boosts discoverability and aligns your ads and content with audience interests.

 

You can even create branded hashtags to promote them through In-Feed ads or banners, encouraging user-generated content. And don't overlook memes — they're definitely a TikTok staple. Many brands (like Duolingo and others) nail their TikTok marketing and advertising strategies by blending in with user interests and humor.

TikTok's Creative Center helps you check trending hashtags and sounds you can use in your ads, as well as top creators and videos to get inspired. 

 

Always start brainstorming your next ad campaigns by checking the latest TikTok Trends Report to get inspiration and understand the landscape. Also, don’t forget to check TikTok Creative Center to check trend insights for specific industries and find trending hashtags, sounds, and a lot more.

 

In essence, staying on top of trends and memes that resonate with your audience is key to success on TikTok. Keep an eye out, get inspired, and get the creativity flowing for new ideas to use in your TikTok ads.

 

4. Master storytelling

As we’ve explored before, effective storytelling is crucial for creating successful TikTok ads and content. Compelling narratives foster connections and affinity with your brand, making it more memorable and relatable.

 

Follow these practices to create the best TikTok ads with storytelling:

• Prioritize storytelling over promotion: connect emotionally with your audience by addressing their needs, and only then offer your product as a solution to their problems;
• Follow storytelling basics: catch users’ attention, build the tension by presenting a problem, offer a solution to it, and end on a positive note. You can also create a story with unexpected twists to keep people more engaged;
• Speak on your audience’s terms: use language and trends that speak to your audience and their interests. Find out what your potential customers like to discuss and become a part of the conversation;
• Encourage audience participation: try to start trends on your own by prompting users to tell their stories using branded hashtags and repost engaging videos;
• Enhance your stories with sounds and effects: no good TikTok video, whether organic or an ad, is complete without a trendy and fitting sound or a special effect. If you research what’s trendy right now and figure out what can fit your brand’s personality, you can easily make your business a part of a popular trend;
• Cut it short: while longer videos are also quite popular on TikTok, it can be harder to keep people interested and make them watch till the end. You might do a lot better by creating shorter videos that quickly catch people’s attention and present the main point in under a minute or so.

 

5. Engage with your audience

Engaging with other creators as well as regular users on TikTok can be vital for fostering genuine connections with your audience.

 

Here’s what you can do to interact with your TikTok users effectively:

• Boost and engage with videos featuring your brand or relevant to specific industry topics;
• Partner with influencers for sponsored tutorials or product showcases (but make sure the videos have appropriate tags on them for partnership disclosure);
• Duet other creators' videos to share your brand’s perspective and insights;
• Respond to audience questions and comments with videos to engage with them and spark a conversation.

To initiate interaction, identify shared interests and topics relevant to your brand. You can do it by checking the comments on your and your competitors' pages, exploring trending hashtags like #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt and #GRWM, initiating discussions on industry-related topics or product experiences, and so on.

 

Don't overlook the chance to inspire your audience to create videos – you can create a branded hashtag challenge or trend where users will showcase your products using special effects or hashtags. To keep the engagement rates up, boost top content with your branded hashtag and reward creators with relevant prizes.

 

Recap

Multiple statistics, as well as actual experiences of numerous brands, suggest that embracing TikTok ads could be the key to discovering new growth opportunities for your business.

 

However, it’s important to understand that success on TikTok is built on authenticity, creativity, relevance, engagement, and proper timing. You will need to keep an eye out for emerging trends, engage with your audience's content, and embrace the fun side of TikTok to maximize your results. With the right strategies and tools at your disposal, it won’t be hard.

 

Follow the tips in our article to develop an effective TikTok advertising strategy and get the most out of your TikTok ads. And remember that you can always make sure your TikTok ads are being properly managed and optimized with the help of ConvertBomb’s automated rules. This way, you won’t have to worry that your ads are underperforming or you’re spending too much.