Achieving success with TikTok Ads takes time and effort just like with any other traffic network. If you’re putting in a lot of time, creativity, and resources but not getting the impressions and engagement you want, this post is for you. Take a look at these important tips to make your TikTok Ads better and boost your campaign’s performance.
Campaign Objective
Before diving into your TikTok campaign, make sure to set the right campaign objective. TikTok offers five options:
- Reach: Show your ad to as many users as possible.
- Traffic: Drive users to a website or app landing page.
- App Installs: Promote downloads of your app.
- Video Views: Increase views on your videos.
- Conversions: Encourage users to take specific actions like making a purchase or signing up for emails.
For new brands on TikTok, it’s recommended to choose reach or video views initially to build awareness and connect with users before going for a more direct sales approach.
Audience Targeting Strategy
Even if you’re familiar with your customers, it’s essential to regularly assess your targeting strategy for TikTok ads.
While TikTok provides various audience filters like gender, age, location, and interests, manually testing each segment can be time-consuming. Here’s a simpler approach:
- Opt for Automatic Targeting: Allow the platform to optimize your targeting based on those who engage with your ads the most. Choose the “automatic” option when prompted to select your audience.
- Explore Lookalike Audiences: Let TikTok generate lookalike audiences based on your high-value customers. This increases the likelihood of engagement and conversions from your audience.
Boost Your Creativity
On TikTok, creativity is king, and it significantly impacts your ad’s success. Follow these creative tips to capture attention:
- Diversify Your Creatives: Create at least five different creatives for each ad group. This reduces the risk of boring your audience or causing ad fatigue. TikTok suggests avoiding the same creative for more than a week.
- Feature Affordable Products: Highlight products under $50 for more impulsive purchases.
- Use Vibrant Colors: Grab attention with vivid colors.
- Add Engaging Elements: Incorporate text, voiceovers, and visual effects to enhance your storytelling.
- Convey Key Message Early: Ensure your crucial message is communicated within the first few seconds.
- Keep It Short: Aim for ads under fifteen seconds; brevity is key.
- Optimize Placement: Position vital elements (product, text, logo) in the middle of the screen to avoid cropping or coverage.
- Experiment with Trends: Don’t hesitate to try trending sounds, songs, or transitions.
- Adhere to Specifications: Triple-check that each ad meets TikTok’s video and image ad specifications.
If you’re strapped for time or don’t enjoy the process of video editing, TikTok’s got your back with its Smart Video tool all you have to do is upload video clips or images, and it’ll automatically create a finished, edited ad.
TikTok offers an Automated Creative Optimization tool too, which tests different combinations of your ads based on the creative assets you provide (images, videos, CTAs, and text) in an effort to find the optimal creative for your target audience.
Experiment With Your Bid and Budget.
Boost your TikTok ad performance by playing around with your bidding and budgeting approach:
- Initial Budget: If you’re new to TikTok, set a budget around 1.2-1.5 times your usual cost per acquisition to kick off your campaigns.
- Hands-Off Period: After adjusting your campaign budget, refrain from making any changes to elements in that ad group (like creative or targeting) for at least two days.
- Bidding Strategies: Try out different bidding strategies available on the platform.
- Moderate Changes: When adjusting bids, aim to stay within a 20% range of your current bid to avoid drastic overnight changes.
Connect With Influencers
TikTok is the new top spot for influencers, beating Instagram in the game. Even if you can’t afford the big shots on the platform, there’s a bunch of budget friendly micro influencers who get lots of likes and comments, even with fewer than 10,000 followers.
Not sure how to dive into influencer marketing? TikTok’s got you covered with the Creator Marketplace. It’s like a hub where you can find and team up with influencers who fit your niche. You get the lowdown on their age, interests, how engaged their followers are, and who they’ve worked with before.
Don’t know where to find these influencers? Easy. Do a quick search within the TikTok app. Just type in hashtags related to your brand or industry (like #tiktokfinds or #tiktokmademebuyit), and sort the results by what’s popular. You’ll discover influencers perfect for teaming up with.
Split Test As Much As You Can
To figure out the best way to create your ads, decide who to target, and how much to bid, try A/B tests. This means you keep most of your ad the same but change just one thing, like the image or the words. Then, see what works better.
For A/B tests to really show you what’s best, run your ads for at least two weeks. Don’t pick times when a lot of people are busy, like during holidays, so you get accurate results.
Track Your Campaigns
To see if your improvements are working, keep an eye on the TikTok performance dashboard. If, after trying these tips, your ads still aren’t showing up, check a few things:
- Did TikTok approve your ads?
- Are your ad groups and ads turned on?
- Did you schedule your ads for the right time in your time zone?
- Is your video quality good enough?
- Do you have enough money in your account for your ads?
- Did you target too few people?
- Is your bid too low?
Final Thoughts
As you get the hang of optimizing your campaigns, you’ll eventually see more views, likes, and sales. However, keep in mind that changes take time. Even after tweaking things, it might be a few weeks before you notice significant improvements in performance. Stay patient and consistent with your efforts.
