TikTok was relatively slow to implement a formal advertising program. This is why brands had to find alternative ways to advertise on TikTok. This is one of the reasons why influencer marketing has thrived on the platform.
At the end of 2018, TikTok began experimenting with advertising, but it didn’t take off until the following year. In the early days there was a lot of discussion about the high cost of ads on TikTok. Acquiring a popular channel on TikTok, for example, can cost brands anywhere from $50,000 to $100,000, and the cost of a hashtag challenge is a flat fee of $150,000 for six days, plus additional dollars spent by brands. companies to promote the challenge.
However, now that TikTok has introduced short native video ads, things are much more affordable for brands looking to advertise on TikTok.
How Much Do TikTok Ads Cost?:
Does TikTok Now Have a Formal Advertising Program? Will it cost a Fortune?
TikTok has taken a while to break into the advertising market, but now it has established its formal advertising program . However, this was a slow and gradual process. At least this means you don’t have intense competition to win coveted spots on TikTok – unlike on Facebook and Instagram, where the competition to win the best ad placement can be fierce and ruthless.
Is Advertising on TikTok Right for Your Business?
TikTok is rapidly growing in popularity as a platform for sharing short videos. In fact, there were months when TikTok was the most downloaded application, outside of the video game category, in the Apple and Android App Stores (Google Play). It shouldn’t be a surprise that many brands want to participate in it. They already have active accounts on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn as well as a YouTube channel.
However, any advertising on TikTok (or even running a company’s TikTok account) will very much depend on the brand’s target audience.
The developers of TikTok (and its predecessor Musical.ly) chose to create an app aimed at people under the age of 18. Okay, many TikTok fans may stay with the app as they get older, but it’s clear that the majority of users are young. Even now 41% of TikTok users are between the ages of 16-24. In fact, 66% of TikTok users are under the age of 30.
Also TikTok has a strong female bias. This probably does not surprise many, since when it comes to talking about types of content, it tends to reflect a typical difference between genres. TikTok became known as a virtual form of karaoke, a pastime more often enjoyed by women than men.
So if your target market is young women, you should seriously consider advertising on TikTok, as well as establishing your own presence on the platform. On the other hand, if you sell products for Generation X or Baby Boomers, you will probably perform better on other platforms that they use.
Advertising on TikTok Can Be Expensive Compared to Facebook and Instagram
Obviously, some of the biggest advertisers on TikTok, like Nike and Disney, have deep pockets for advertising. They are unlikely to complain about costs unless there is a huge difference. However, it may seem more expensive than the more popular Facebook/Instagram ads.
Ads on TikTok are still new. This means that TikTok can afford to charge a higher rate for them, knowing that advertisers aren’t going to abandon TikTok to compete for top Facebook/Instagram ad slots.
Ads on TikTok start at $10 per CPM (cost per 1,000 views). Also, you need to spend a minimum of $500 on a campaign. That is, you are not going to use the formal advertising of TikTok for a cheap viral marketing campaign.
Types of Marketing and Advertising on TikTok
Work with influencers
Until relatively recently, if you were a business that wanted to do marketing on TikTok, you only had one option available to you – partner with a TikTok influencer and work with him/her to promote your brand. And in many respects, this has not changed. If you can develop a harmonious relationship with popular and well-performing TikTok users whose followers match your target audience, it’s probably still the most cost-effective way to spread your message.
If you can collaborate with an influencer to promote your products to a massive network of interested followers, you have the opportunity to earn a good return on your investment. Of course, for this you need to sell a product that allows you to make interesting and attractive videos, achieving as a result that the influencer’s followers notice your brand.
Promote Your Own TikTok Channel
If you have a young social media marketing team and your brand’s target audience matches that of TikTok, you might consider creating a TikTok account for your company. This is no different from the accounts a business has on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, or the videos a business shares on a YouTube channel.
But remember that people are not going to TikTok to learn about your brand and its products. They usually go there for entertainment or to share their creative efforts. The last thing they want to see is ads for your products.
So if you are going to create a Tik Tok channel, you have to give value to your followers. You need to share videos that interest them, perhaps trying to generate enough curiosity that they take a closer look at what your brand offers.
Of course, some products and services find it much easier to gain traction on TikTok than others. Movie studios can easily set up and share short video clips of the latest blockbusters. Similarly, it is a logical choice for music companies to share music clips.
Just because something was created on TikTok doesn’t mean it should just stay there. You will find, for example, numerous channels on YouTube where people share TikTok video highlights.
You could even promote relevant TikTok content (yours or that created by other influencers you’ve made deals with) through your Instagram Stories or Snapchat Snaps. Just avoid spending too much time sharing TikTok promotions on social sites that have a markedly different audience than TikTok.
TikTok Challenges
The name of TikTok has become synonymous with challenges or challenges. Probably one of his best known challenges was Jimmy Fallon’s #Tumbleweed. Jimmy challenged people to make a video and share it on TikTok of someone rolling on the ground like a tumbleweed with western music playing in the background. The challenge was a huge success. TikTok fans uploaded 8,000 videos, resulting in more than 9 million views in seven days.
While a successful brand-focused challenge might elicit a lot of hype, it would also be harder to get skeptical TikTokers to follow through on the challenge.
TikTok Paid Advertising Program
TikTok eventually followed Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn, and established its official paid advertising program.
While TikTok’s other forms of marketing are relatively unofficial, you may prefer the structure of TikTok’s official paid advertising program. It’s relatively early days for this, so the platform lacks the finesse of the Facebook and YouTube versions in particular. But you may be able to offset this with the fact that your competition is less likely to flood TikTok with higher ad bids than yours.
TikTok offers three main ad types:
- Native in-feed ads
- Brand takeover ads
- challenges hashtag
As you might expect, native in-feed ads are generally short videos, although you can choose static images if you want. You can even use custom filters to enhance the look of your work.
On Quora, experienced marketers who have used native ads on TikTok advise a budget of at least $1,000 for a simple campaign. One marketer goes so far as to suggest that you should be prepared to pay between $50,000 and $100,000 to run ads on the platform.
TikTok Native Ads
Native in-feed ads work in a similar way to Facebook and Google. This means that you have to bid on ad slots for them to reach your target audience on TikTok. Above we have referred to the CPM (technically cost per thousand, that is, the cost per 1000 views). Some people choose the related metric, CPV (cost per view). However, in some cases, you may prefer to bid on CPC (cost per click).
If you opt for a brand takeover ad, this means that your ad will play the moment a targeted TikTok user opens your app. Interested users will click on the app, and you’ll redirect them to a page on your website. As TikTok makes sure that no user watches more than one brand acquisition ad per day, there are only limited opportunities for these ads and this scarcity is reflected in the amount you will have to pay. If you do manage to use a brand acquisition ad, make sure the landing page is of high enough quality to justify the cost. There is no point in redirecting people to your website if they are going to leave immediately.
Challenges hashtag
Above I have talked about the popularity of challenges or informal challenges. You can go one step further and formalize it in the hashtag of an official challenge.
As with all challenges, the biggest benefit is the amount of user-generated content. All this engagement can only be positive for the company. And while you have to pay for challenge hashtag ads to start the process, the hashtag posts made by contestants are effectively free advertising.
However, the overall cost for a challenge hashtag is still too high for small businesses or those who prefer a more viral approach to their marketing. There is a net fee of $150,000 for the first six days of the challenge, plus a likely additional cost of $100,000 to $200,000 to promote the challenge.
