What To Consider Before Running TikTok Ads
TikTok is such a huge platform from both a content perspective and viewers perspective that it only makes sense to start promoting your business through this medium with organic content. However, have you ever thought about running ads through TikTok? If you are already versed in social advertising, it may seem like a no-brainer, BUT before running TikTok ads, there are a few things you should consider to prevent wasting your budget.
Are You Already Posting High Quality Content
If you are not already posting content and building a community, then I would highly recommend this is added to your to-do list before running any form of ads. Upon seeing an ad the user will often enter the research phase, in this research phase they may look at reviews, competitors and you guessed it your TikTok page! If you have a page populated with low quality content or even no content at all, this will be a HUGE turn-off.
Having lots of content paired with a decent level of engagement really puts the user at ease, gains their trust and helps guide them during their decision making phase.
Is Your Product Or Service Good For TikTok
Like with any platform, TikTok has certain demographics that make up the majority of its user base. Although a number of businesses use the platform which works great if you run on a B2B model. When it comes to B2C OR D2C, a large number of users on the platform fit in the Gen z to Millennial age bracket.
With this in mind, not only should your product cater to this demographic, products/services that are relevant to trending topics or are easily impulse buy purchases have the potential to thrive on this platform.
TikTok is very visual and gives you a short window of time to promote your product/service. Therefore it needs to be something where the benefits can be explained/understood very quickly. If the user is not able to grasp the concept of your product and why they need it to a surface level at the very least in a short period of time, this platform may not be the best for you.
Do You Have Top-Notch Ad Content
When it comes to paid ads, although content and targeting work in harmony with one another, the right targeting typically does a lot of the heavy lifting.
However TikTok certainly challenges this. High quality and engaging ads are more important than ever within this platform, you can find the best audience combinations and reach users who are the perfect fit for your brand, but if you have lazy ad content, you are not going to get anywhere.
Before you start your TikTok journey, it’s important to make sure that there is someone onboard who can make killer ads, whether that be yourself, a colleague or a freelancer!
Are You Able To Analyze Trends and Data
If you have run ads in the past then you are likely familiar with the concept of analyzing data and trends, this will be your secret weapon in your TikTok ads journey!
A successful TikTok ads campaign relies on the analysis of performance and making changes based on the data to optimise your account. If you lack the knowledge in this area, then it’s something that will be highly beneficial to learn and get familiar with before you start. Gaps in this area mean you not only limit your ads from reaching their full potential but also risk wasting ad spend.
Alongside performance analysis comes trend analysis, due to the fast pace of the platform, it’s vital to be on top trending content and utilising this as much as you can whilst it is still trending. Creating content that features trending music, voiceovers and video style not only compliments the algorithm, it also does wonders for your engagement.
It’s important when jumping on the trend bandwagon to tread carefully, you DON’T want to be that cringey corporate company capitalizing on out of date trends.
Do You Have The Budget
TikTok ads need a minimum ad spend of £20/$20/day applied in order to publish your campaigns. If you are a small business, there are some limitations from an ad spend perspective and whilst there are ways you can run TikTok ads under a small budget, if you do have an ad spend that is too restricting, it will take longer to find patterns on what is working. This means having enough budget to allow for some wiggle room here will be very important, especially in the early phases of a campaign where performance fluctuations will be more frequent.
If you have no wiggle room for that initial learning phase, then it would be more beneficial to focus on your organic content and building your reach this way first.
Are Users Going To A Good Website and Do You Have A Presence Elsewhere
It’s important to remember, TikTok is primarily push marketing, meaning you are pushing your ads onto the user. In many instances of push marketing, users may not decide to purchase your product or service straight away and they will instead research your business and convert later down the line via an alternative medium.
What does this mean?
This means you will need to aid the user in their journey and gain their trust as much as possible to really prove to them why they should choose you over your competitors. Common touch points the users will refer to are:
- Your Website
- Reviews
- Social Media
Ensuring these are to a high standard will provide comfort to the user and shine a positive light on your brand.
Are You Tracking Everything
As mentioned above, users may not instantly convert off the back of an ad they see on TikTok. Instead TikTok may act as a touchpoint for the user as well as a powerful tool for increasing your brand awareness. This is why you can’t rely on TikTok’s reporting alone and you will need to monitor how much it plays a part in the users journey and how much it contributes towards conversion generation on your website.
If you have a tight budget, you don’t need to splash out on expensive Analytics platforms, Google Analytics works fine for this and it’s free!
