Advertising on TikTok

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What is TikTok?

What is TikTok?

TikTok, originally known as Musical.ly, is a short-form, video sharing social network invented in 2012 by a Beijing-based tech company called ByteDance. This app is especially popular for short, choreographed dances, lip-syncing and memes. Once a user creates a profile, they can edit their videos directly from the platform and interact with other user’s videos via likes, comments or shares.

Tik Tok has 1.5 billion downloads and over 800 million active monthly users. Sixty percent of TikTok’s American users are between the ages of 16 and 24, which makes it a great place to young millenials and gen z audiences.

There are a total 466 million downloads from India, 173 million from China, and 123 million are from the U.S.

How to Advertise

The TikTok ads platform is still in beta, therefore, to receive access to their ads manager you have to first create an account on Ads.TikTok.com. After this step is completed, it takes 5 business days or more to get in touch with a representative who will see if you qualify to run ads and help set up your TikTok ads manager.

According to Forbes, in mid-2019, TikTok introduced 6 different ad formats:

- Brand Take over

- In-feed native video

- Hashtag challenge

- Snapchat-style 2D lens filters for photos

- Influencer package

- “Top-view” video

Advertising Objectives

Within the beta platform, there are 3 different types of advertising objectives offered to brands: traffic, app installs, and conversions.

TikTok does have a pixel that can be placed on a brand’s website and used to track conversions.

What should your budget look like?

There is currently a minimum of $500 budget at the campaign level and $50 at the ad group level. There is an average CPC of $10 which means running ads on TikTok is significantly more expensive than Facebook, but if you are confident your target audience is active on the app, then the higher costs could be worth it.