With TikTok becoming the most popular social media platform in the world, brands are queuing to advertise to billions of people in all geographies. However, tracking results must also evolve with the rise of new advertising formats, thus the need for TikTok analytics (or Tiktokalytics) - a new buzzword aimed at tracking and benchmarking results and providing insights into how to advertise more efficiently on TikTok and potentially other social networks.
In this blog post, we'll take a look at how the TikTok platform evolved into the advertising giant it is today and explore the advertising possibilities DTC brands have on the most downloaded app of 2021.
Evolution of TikTok
In September 2016, ByteDance launched TikTok in China. The app was originally known as Douyin but was renamed TikTok when it was launched internationally in 2017. TikTok quickly rose in popularity, particularly among young people. In 2018, TikTok was the most downloaded app in the world, with over 33 million downloads, and by the end of 2019, the app was downloaded over 1 billion times and had over 500 million monthly active users. Today, the app has counted over 2 billion downloads.
The success of TikTok can be attributed to a number of factors, including its user-friendly interface, creative video content, and partnerships with celebrities and influencers. Additionally, TikTok has effectively monetized its user base through advertising and paid partnerships.
Looking ahead, it is likely that TikTok will continue to grow in popularity and become an increasingly important platform for brands and advertisers. As more businesses look to reach out to young people through social media, TikTok is poised to become a key player in the digital marketing landscape.
Why should all brands be on TikTok
With over 800 million active monthly users, TikTok is quickly becoming the world's most popular social media platform. And that popularity is translating into big opportunities for brands who want to reach TikTok's massive global audience present in over 150 countries and 39 languages.
Advertising strategies for TikTok
When it comes to advertising on TikTok, there are a few different strategies that brands can use to reach their target audiences. One of the most effective ways to advertise on TikTok is to create short, creative videos relevant to your brand. These videos should be attention-grabbing and entertaining, as well as informative. Additionally, it is essential to use relevant hashtags and keywords in your videos so that users can easily find them.
Another effective strategy for advertising on TikTok is to partner with influencers who have a large following on the app. These influencers can promote your brand through sponsored posts and videos. Additionally, they can also host giveaways and contests in which their followers can participate. This is a great way to get your brand in front of a large number of people who might be interested in your products.
Finally, another advertising strategy that brands can use on TikTok is paid ads. This involves creating ads that will be shown to users who are within your target demographic. You can choose to run these ads on a daily or weekly basis, and you can also set a budget for how much you want to spend on each ad campaign. Paid advertising is an effective way to reach a large number of people who are likely to be interested in your brand.
Advertising formats on TikTok
TikTok advertising is still in its early stages, but it's already proving to be an effective way to reach people of all ages in all parts of the world. Today, advertisers have a multitude of TikTok advertising formats to choose from. Below we list the most popular ones:
In-feed ads are the most familiar to advertisers just because they are embedded within a user's “For You” feed. Video ads get to autoplay and have a very organic feel, which may be one of the reasons TikTok advertising is so popular and effective.
Top view ads are almost the same as in-feed ads from a format perspective, but their placement differs. They are usually the first ones to pop up at the top of the “For You” feed.
Brand takeover ads are full-screen ads that can be either static or dynamic visuals that appear when users open their app. As of today, this format is only displayed once per day per user, but chances are they will become more often.
Hashtag challenges are another format that is trending right now and give a chance to less-known creators or micro-influencers to become more popular by creating user-generated content style advertisements for certain brands. This increases the visibility of the brands launching hashtag challenges and allows for comprehensive, very diverse brand campaigns that feel almost organic.
Branded effects increase a brand’s visibility on the platform and raise awareness. By creating stickers, filters, and other effects for users to add to their content, brands can become an integral part of any posted video. This can represent a significant opportunity for software developers, game designers, creators, online sports etc.
Benefits of TikTok
As the currently hottest social media platform, TikTok offers a wide range of benefits for advertisers, including a unique opportunity for businesses to reach a wide range of potential customers. Another benefit is targeting specific demographics and controlling your advertising message.
Benefit #1 for TikTok advertisers: Reach new audiences
Having more than 800 million active users worldwide, TikTok is a powerful platform for reaching new audiences and connecting with potential customers. The platform has a diverse user base, with people of all ages and from all walks of life using it to create and consume content.
Also, unlike other social media platforms, which tend to be dominated by a few major players, TikTok is still relatively new and so hasn't yet been fully explored by brands and businesses. This presents a unique opportunity for companies to get in and reach new audiences who may not be familiar with their products or services yet.
There are several ways to go about reaching new audiences on TikTok. One option is to use influencers. There are many popular TikTokers with millions of followers who would promote a brand or product in their videos. Another option is to use TikTok's built-in advertising features. These allow you to target specific users with your ads based on their interests and demographics. This ensures that your ad reaches the right people and has a better chance of being seen by potential customers.
Benefit #2 for TikTok advertisers: Endless creativity
TikTok is all about creative content in video form and the perfect place for DTCs to show off their brand's personality and engage with potential customers on a more personal level.
However, there are a few things to keep in mind when creating videos for TikTok advertising. First and foremost, videos need to be entertaining and informative – no one wants to watch boring advertisements. Secondly, videos must be well-produced and polished; poor-quality videos will reflect poorly on any brand. Lastly, including a call-to-action (CTA) at the end of any videos is a must (e.g., website visits, app downloads, etc.).
Benefit #3 for TikTok advertisers: Fine-grained targeting possibilities
When using TikTok advertising, businesses have control over who sees their videos. This is done through precise targeting, allowing businesses to select specific demographics such as location, age, gender, interests, and even behaviors. This ensures that businesses only reach their ideal target customer with their advertising message.
For example, a business selling children's toys may only want to show its ads to parents with young children. Thus only the right people see the ad, and the business is not wasting money on advertising to people who are not interested in their products.
Benefit #4 for TikTok advertisers: Ease of going viral on TikTok
Going viral on TikTok is surprisingly easy, thanks to the platform's algorithm. The algorithm looks at several factors when deciding which videos to push to the "For You" page, including how often the video is watched and shared, how long people watch it, and how much engagement it gets.
TikTok is a highly engaging platform, with users spending an average of 52 minutes per day on the app. This means that businesses have a good chance of getting their content seen. Lastly, TikTok is a very shareable platform, with users sharing videos an average of 3 times per day. This makes it easy for businesses to get their content in front of even more people.
DTCs that create entertaining and informative videos have a good chance of going viral on TikTok. Another great way to increase the chances of a video going viral is to use popular hashtags. Hashtags make it easier for users to find videos that are relevant to their interests and also help businesses get their videos in front of a larger audience.
What is TikTokalytics?
James Hercher of AdExchanger first coined the term TikTokalytics in a September 2022 article referring to the breadth of new solution providers offering multi-touch attribution, data insights, media mix modeling, and many other services aimed at helping advertisers understand their marketing efforts and improve ad performance while minimizing costs. TikTokalytics refers to the need of advertisers on TikTok or any advertising platform to track and benchmark results and understand how to craft profitable campaigns.
Likewise, TikTok analytics is the entirety of data related to TikTok accounts, with a focus on advertising data and measuring various engagement metrics such as likes, shares, views, and others.
Behind the need for advertising analytics in general and TikTok in particular are two major events that have brought data analytics solution providers to attention. The first one is the incredibly rapid evolution of TikTok and its increasing user base making brands swarm in the past two years to the app and compete to obtain better CTRs, conversions, and views, ultimately chasing gen Zs dollars.
The second event has been the iOS14 update, directly influencing the accuracy and ability of social networks to track performance. . Promising to guard user privacy, Apple's update laid the foundation of an uprising industry - solution providers of marketing analytics, attribution, and ad performance.
How Admetrics can help with analyzing TikTok
Any brand advertising on TikTok must navigate the entirety of the opportunities and challenges posed by the platform and opt for the right tools to get accurate insights, make data-driven decisions and improve ad performance. Admetrics Data Studio is a marketing data multi-tool that tracks customer journeys across browsers and devices and then aggregates data from various sources, paid or organic, to provide actionable insights into conversion paths and ad efficiency. The unique features range from Bayesian experimentation allowing users to test an array of variants at once to predictive audiences, which allow you to reach more customers for remarketing and prospecting.
DTC brands or e-commerces can use Admetrics to analyze their TikTok performance down to the creative. Admetrics Data Studio aggregates more than 150 metrics, such as ROAS, POAS, CTR, CVR, CPM, and compiles unique insights into all paid, owned, and earned traffic sources.
With video metrics like Thumbstop rate and video views, brands can track the impact of their TikTok ads and get insights into the effectiveness of videos engaging audiences as they scroll through their feeds. Also, these metrics help understand a creative's potential to convert and to make more informed decisions, especially when it comes to scaling ads on the platform and across all channels.
If you want to understand the real value of your TikTok ads and make data-driven decisions beyond TikTok’s reporting, install Admetrics for free.
