Nine Strategies to Keep In Mind for TikTok Ads

We recently recorded a Foxwell Founders Membership podcast and discussed a variety of topics, one being how can we, as marketers, be better at TikTok ads, whether we’re a seasoned TikTok ad buyer or a brand-new one.

Nine takeaways from the podcast that were too good to not share with the world:

  • Content is KING. You can’t approach organic or paid TikTok without having a creative-first and creative-driven strategy. If the creative isn’t hitting on TikTok, nothing else will, either.

  • The thumbstop rate has decreased with the rise of TikTok and Instagram Reels because of declining viewer attention spans. What used to be 3 seconds is now as low as one second, or even a few video frames.

  • For creative, it must be laid out in a reverse chronological order to start with the benefit to the customer and the end result, then work towards the product and how they got to that end result with the product

  • Word of mouth marketing - is NOT dead. What we’re calling word of digital mouth is friends tagging other friends in content to share content, as well as sharing content or social proofing content from complete strangers. This is the “TikTok made me buy it” or “Things I found on the internet” type content

  • Authenticity is key - while professionally shot content is beautiful, it looks edited and unrealistic. Customers can now see right through inauthentic content and want to see what’s real, even if it’s less than aesthetically pleasing. They want the product to show up at their door looking just like the video ad they saw online

  • Install the TikTok pixel (server-side if possible) as soon as you know you may want to ever run TikTok ads in the future. TikTok needs data ‼️

  • If it makes sense for your brand, establish an organic TikTok account (and strategy) before launching ads as a vehicle for testing who your audience is and what type of content they relate to/interact with. Ads can then also use engagement and video view data (i.e. zero-party data) for targeting and lookalikes, AND ads can also help with organic reach and organic account followers.

    • Keep in mind, an organic TikTok account is not required to run ads on TikTok as it is for Facebook or Instagram

  • Test, test, test. Even if a you don’t think a video will convert or is off-brand, as long as it’s not incorrect and still keeps the customer needs/product first, try it

  • Utilize trending audio or trending styles of videos. The more organic, the better. Also, don’t sleep on voiceovers.


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