Thinking About Advertising On TikTok? Here’s Your Full Guide!

TikTok is the rising star of recent years, becoming one of the most downloaded apps in the world. It’s hard to believe it’s first launched in China in September 2016 and has been available in the markets outside of China for only four years. 

It’s no wonder marketers are seeing a huge opportunity to grow their businesses. The app has millions of users in hundreds of countries. 

In this article, you’ll learn 

Let’s dive in. 

Is TikTok Advertising Right For Your Business?

TikTok has 800 million active users! And TikTok is available in 155 countries and 75 different countries. If that’s not enough, we can list some more: 

The four-year-old platform has more than doubled the number of active users Twitter has, which is 330 million active users. 

A screenshot of a cell phone

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Image source: https://wearesocial.com/blog/2020/01/digital-2020-3-8-billion-people-use-social-media

Nine out of ten TikTok users access the app multiple times a day. Check out that strong relationship! They not only access the app daily, they are also highly active. GlobalWebIndex’s data shows that 68 percent of TikTok users watch someone else’s videos on the app, and 55% upload their videos into the platform. 

And the numbers continue to grow! The number of US adult TikTok users is expected to grow 5.5 times in less than 18 months. 

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Image source: https://www.marketingcharts.com/charts/number-of-us-adults-using-tiktok-october-2017-march-2019/attachment/comscore-tiktok-adult-users-may2019

Who Uses TikTok?

TikTok audience base demonstrates a ton of potential for marketers. We’re talking about an excellent opportunity to select and target your most suitable market from 155 different countries, the opportunity to target 800 million active users from 155 different countries. 

So before we continue with how to advertise on TikTok, let’s examine that 800 million users in detail. 

Age:

If younger people are a part of your target demographic, TikTok ads could have amazing results for your business. Roughly half of the global TikTok audience is under the age of 34. 41% of TikTok users are aged between 16 to 24.

But not all TikTok users are from X and Y generation, about half of the TikTok user base is over 34, meaning roughly 400 million people!

Gender:

55% of TikTok users are male, and the remaining 44% are female. 

Location:

The app is available in 155 countries, the top 10 countries with the highest TikTok user count are as follows:

  1. India – 119.3mn TikTok users
  2. USA – 39.6mn TikTok users
  3. Turkey – 28.4mn TikTok users
  4. Russia – 24.3mn TikTok users 
  5. Mexico – 19.7mn TikTok users
  6. Brazil – 18.4mn TikTok users 
  7. Pakistan – 11.8mn TikTok users 
  8. Saudi Arabia – 9.7mn TikTok users
  9. France – 9.1mn TikTok users
  10. 10.Germany – 8.8mn TikTok users

How Can Brands Use TikTok?

  1. They can create their TikTok channel and upload relevant and entertaining videos. Examples: 
  2. They can work with influencers and take advantage of their reach. Examples:
  3. They can start investing in the TikTok advertisement. 

You don’t have to choose one of them; combining two strategies or applying all of them is also an option. In this blog post, we will mainly discuss #3: How to advertise on TikTok.

How To Advertise on TikTok?

Creatives are everything! When running a TikTok campaign, it should be kept in mind that creatives play a massive role in delivering success. Creatives that adhere to the following guidelines yield better results.

Dynamic

Creatives should be dynamic rather than static. Action lures the viewer in. Check out HollisterCo’s sponsored content for inspiration:

You can design catchy ads using TikTok’s video creation kit. This tool provides image and video templateş you can use to customize your images. The video creation kit also has 300+ free background music tracks you can use. If you do not have enough budget to invest in video creating, you can use TikTok’s resources. 

In addition to Video Creation Kit, you can also take advantage of other built-in ad tools of TikTok. Automated Creative Optimization tool lets you automatically combine your creative assets. You can upload images or videos, write some ad text, and select your call-to-action (CTA) buttons and the automated ads to be continually explored, evaluated, and optimized. 

Duration & other best-practices

TikTok offers image and video specifications for you to create best-looking ads. For ad content that looks best on TikTok and its partner apps ensure that your videos meet the following specifications:

  • A recommended aspect ratio is 9:16 or 1:1 or 16:9. 
  • Resolution should be greater than 720px x 1280px, 640px by 640px, or 1280px by 720px. 
  • Video can be between 5 to 60 seconds in length, although TikTok recommends ads that run under 10 seconds. 5-10 seconds is optimal.
  • The optimal brand name is 2 to 20 characters (English) in length or an app name that is 4 to 40 characters in length. 
  • The description of your advertised product/service should be between 12 to 100 characters (English) in length.

Music

Music is essential and should be catchy. Hip-Hop, R&B, Rap, and Trap are the go-to genres. One of the reasons chipotle’s guac challenge video got viral was because of its clever use of energetic music:

Nativeness

There is a continuous flow on the TikTok interface. Ad viewers tend to react better to sponsored content when it is similar to user content.

Human Interaction

Almost all TikTok content has real people in them. Content with human interaction adds to nativeness and prevents viewers from immediately realizing that they are watching an ad. UGC is one of the magic ingredients of a great marketing strategy. Nowadays, people do not just want to view the content but also want to be a part of its development. The benefits of user-generated content are:

  • Increased sales volumes,
  • Building trust in the consumer,
  • Strengthening the relationship between the brand and the customer,
  • Organic follower increase,
  • Increased number of the audience reached,
  • Increased authority and credibility,
  • Increased SEO value.

Call to Action

Voice or text, it should be there. It should be simple and should be delivered in the first few seconds. Viewers can learn more about your app on the landing page. 

Choosing the best CTA that converts users is not an easy task. Check out How To Write The Best Call to Action for Mobile App Marketing to learn the best practices for writing an ideal call-to-action.  

First Impact

The first impact is critical. Viewers decide whether they’re going to continue to watch or not in the first 1-2 seconds. Content should be alluring enough to get the viewer hooked. This TikTok ad shows that you don’t need to have explosions or fireworks to get people’s attention:

Challenges

TikTok is known for its ‘Challenges.’ TikTok users enjoy taking part in challenges and creating videos according to that trend. Becoming viral can boost every aspect of your business in only one night, and TikTok challenges are a great way to do so. Creating ads that are focusing on a trendy challenge or creating one for your brand can be a great strategy.

These challenges usually have a specific name and hashtag; that’s why sometimes they are called “hashtag challenges.” Follow hashtag challenges to develop highly engaging and result-oriented ads.

Tiktok Content Rules

TikTok is quite strict when it comes to content rules. The most critical TikTok rules are as follows.

  • TikTok doesn’t allow dangerous individuals or organizations represented in their app.
  • They prohibit illegal activities and regulated goods. 
  • They do not allow violent or graphic content. 
  • TikTok doesn’t tolerate hate speech, harassment, or bullying.
  • They do not allow nudity. 
  • TikTok values integrity and authenticity.

You can learn more about TikTok’s community guidelines here

TikTok Ad Options

  • In-Feed Video: Ads appear in the news feed of TikTok on the “For You” page.
  • Brand Takeover: Ads pop up when users open the TikTok app and take over the screen fully for a few seconds before turning into an In-Feed Video ad.
  • Hashtag Challenge: Ads are shown on the “Discovery” page and encourage users to participate in challenges that are trendy among the app’s users. These can include a shoppable component for retailers.
  • Branded AR Content: Ads appear as branded lenses, stickers, and other 2D/3D/AR content for app users to utilize in their videos.
  • Custom Influencer Package: Ads are shown as a part of sponsored content created by a TikTok influencer.

Boost ROI of your Tiktok Ad Campaigns with App Samurai

The advertisers are always looking for new opportunities to expand their user base and new inventories to reach out to more engaged audiences. In this manner, TikTok plays a critical role in being a potential source for them. App Samurai is next to you to support while you are trying to fulfill your KPIs. 

By using TikTok via App Samurai you will be able to get;

  • Full-stack Creative support from App Samurai design team, 
  • 24/7 customer support for CPI optimization, 
  • CPI-based model instead of CPC or CPM.
  • access to the dynamic and engaging TikTok audiences in Turkey, USA, UK, France, Italy, Canada, Australia, Russia, Egypt, UAE, Saudi Arabia, India, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Taiwan, Korea and Japan without any restriction,

To build-up on the excitement generated from the announcements above, we are delighted to offer a 10% bonus for each $1000 deposit coming from the first 100 TikTok Advertisers on App Samurai platform. All you need to do is to get in touch with us to become one of the early birds to benefit from this proposal.

App Samurai is an AI-powered, secure mobile growth platform. Register, add your app and start driving high-quality users.