10 Reasons to Advertise on TikTok Based on Real, Hard Data

Wondering whether to advertise on TikTok?

Social media platforms are an excellent launchpad for advertising campaigns due to their huge reach and capacity for personalization. It is now a given that any serious company should invest at least some capital in advertising on these platforms. But surely Facebook, Instagram, Youtube and Twitter cover all bases? Is there really room for a newcomer on the scene here?

Enter TikTok, a trendsetting video-sharing app. As a social platform, TikTok has shown itself to be somewhat divisive since its inception in 2016. Perhaps as a direct consequence of its popularity among younger generations, older people generally regard it cynically as a pointless fad. Similar to how parents of 1950s young people sometimes denounced rock and roll as a vulgar juvenile obsession, the parents of today often resent TikTok.

However, this interpretation of TikTok is misguided and stems from an incomplete understanding of the true nature of TikTok. It is generally assumed to be a place entirely populated by young people performing silly finger dances. Should these people investigate TikTok sufficiently, however, they would find that TikTok plays host to many forms of personal expression, old and new.

Furthermore, there is huge marketing potential inherent in an app as widespread and influential as TikTok. Regardless of how we might feel about TikTok in general, data can provide us with an objective depiction of just how beneficial advertising on TikTok could be. In this article, we’ll use the relevant data provided by omnicoreagency.com to explain ten reasons why it’s a good idea to place adverts on this platform.

Not Just for Gen Z

Much of the press that you see regarding TikTok will focus on its teenage users and how it is insidiously damaging them with evil indoctrination. If you’re looking to advertise on TikTok, in actual fact, the hard data shows something that may surprise you.

Image Source

While Generation Z does make up the majority of users, it certainly isn’t an overwhelming majority at 41% (users aged 10-19: 32.5%). This means that almost two-thirds of users come from other age demographics, making it a viable option for a broad range of products.

So if you were quick to dismiss TikTok based on the assumption that the users are too young to be interested in your product, think again.

International Reach

The breadth of appeal that TikTok has demonstrated expands beyond the element of age. It appears to have universal appeal, having active users in 150 markets and 75 languages. It is particularly popular in China where the users accounted for 80% of the total users of the app in 2019. It is also growing in India with 43% of new users coming from there.

It goes without saying that if you are looking to expand your brand into new markets then TikTok is a solid choice.

Now, you might be wondering how many of these users are actually engaging with the app. Surely there are many who will have downloaded it just to see what it’s like and then never look at it again? Well, there is a stat for that too: 90% of users visit the app more than once a day. This means that the majority of users are active and have a high chance of seeing your ad.

Easy to Implement

TikTok doesn’t allow non-video posts so many people think that content creation will require additional skill and costs. However, TikTok makes content creation a breeze for a couple of reasons.

For one, the essence of TikTok is authenticity. So ads don’t have to be all glitzy and perfect. In fact, that might put users off. Ads can be as simple as any other TikTok post. Your goal should be to be as authentic as the users, so the effort involved in creating content should be equivalent to the effort extended by users for their content.

Image Source

TikTok also houses many editing tools for you to design ads within the app. This includes the ability to create your own filters and branded effects.

TikTok’s thinkers have also initiated their Back to Business program which offers businesses affected by the pandemic up to $300 in ad credit.

Marketing automation and product management tools can be integrated with TikTok to further streamline your marketing procedure on the app.

Different Advert Options

There are multiple different advertising formats available on TikTok that you can mix and match to suit your brand image. Let’s go over each of these individually:

• Top View – This type of advert is displayed five seconds after the user initially opens the app. They can be up to 60 seconds long and are full screen with sound. You can add links to internal and external pages.
• Brand Takeover – this type is very similar to the first but appears immediately upon launch so it is the first thing the user sees. These can be short videos, GIFs,  or static images that are full screen and can also be published in users’ “For You” tab. Users see just one brand takeover a day.
• In-Feed – These are 9-15 second long video ads that feature in the users’ “For You” feed and can feature a call to action link to external sites. Users can interact with these ads with comments and likes.

Influencer Marketing

Great marketing recognizes the importance of customer expectations. Influencer marketing is a good way of monitoring these expectations. TikTok is particularly conducive to influencer marketing due to the highly influential content-producers present on the app. These producers regularly partner with brands. The benefit of this style of marketing is that users are more likely to trust the recommendation of someone they respect than that of a brand.

Image Source

In the same way as co browsing software adds a human touch to customer support, seeing an influencer using a product with ease in a real-life setting, for example, also helps users feel more ready to consider using it themselves.

TikTok has the added advantage of having a reputation for authenticity. Recommendations can be trusted as they come from a trustworthy source. A whole different way to advertise on TikTok!

Partnering with relevant popular figures will also help to keep your campaign current and effective. What’s more, it could save you money, as influencers can help to naturally and organically boost a branded hashtag challenge to appear on TikTok’s Discover page. Without this aid, it would cost upwards of $100,000 to achieve such a profitable position.

Increase Brand Relevance

Since TikTok is continually instigating new trends and is gaining more popularity by the day, it can be used to increase the relevance of your brand. By contributing to the latest of these trends you can propel your brand into the mainstream and simultaneously convey currency and relatability. As a result, fans of your brand are more likely to develop loyalty and act as ambassadors for your products.

Exclusive Video Marketing

TikTok only allows video posts. As a consequence, software used for analyzing social media has revealed that marketing videos are much more likely to be watched on TikTok than on other social media sites such as Facebook or Instagram where videos are often scrolled past or left muted.

As people are using the app for videos in the first place, a video is likely to be less intrusive to their experience and they are more likely to watch it. They are also more likely to hear the associated audio as videos are not muted as default. All this makes video marketing on TikTok much more effective than elsewhere.

Image Source

Users are Engaged

The average TikTok user will engage with the app for 45 minutes a day and there is reason to believe that this engagement is enthusiastic and active as opposed to the passive engagement prompted by Facebook. The very nature of the app is designed in a way that keeps it current with new trends being set by the users themselves. This keeps engaging content novel, and maximizes chances of conversions.

Popularity is on the Rise

Furthermore, the app itself is still on an upward curve in terms of downloads. It has only recently entered into the top 5 downloaded apps meaning that it is still very much fresh and exciting for users.

Advertising to users when they are engaged in this way is far more effective than advertising to an uninspired passive audience.

The combination of the fact that TikTok is becoming ever more popular to a diverse audience of engaged users and the huge potential for relatable marketing with the aid of influential figures means that TikTok is a superb instrument for brand exposure.

I hope that this article has provided you with some insight into why you should advertise on TikTok, and how it has established itself as a mainstay for any marketing portfolio. Alongside a great team, a solid product, and product lifecycle management software to see it all through to the end, TikTok should become part of your marketing strategy.