Now that you have the basics of advertising on TikTok down, it is time to test out some of the features the platform has to offer.
Bidding Strategies
No matter if your optimization goal is clicks or conversions, there are two different types of bidding available: Cost Cap and Lowest Cost. Cost Cap is designed to keep your costs per result lower than the amount specified, similar to a target CPA. This strategy is best for keeping your average cost per result at or below your target. The platform does have a suggested minimum bid based on settings and historical data and will let you know if your bid is too low. If you have your cap set too low, this will prevent your campaign from spending. TikTok recommends setting your cap at 2 – 3x your goal.
The Lowest Cost bidding strategy’s aim is to get the maximum number of results (clicks or conversions) for your budget. If you have tried Cost Cap and have seen a struggle with spending budgets, this is the bidding strategy to try. Since it will spend your budget, the higher you set your budget, the higher your CPA could be.
Audiences and Targeting
Custom Audiences
TikTok offers a few different avenues for creating custom audiences. Similar to other social platforms, you can create audiences from lists, activity, engagement, or traffic. This is particularly useful for creating Remarketing audiences or interacting with users who have engaged with your brand before. Make sure you have your TikTok pixel placed if you want to track people who took action on your site.
Depending on your goals, you may want to create some of the custom audiences to exclude from your campaigns to ensure your ads are reaching new users. For example, if I am trying to get users to sign up for my email list, I would upload a list of all current email subscribers to exclude from my campaigns. This ensures that my ads are showing up to people that have not already signed up.
Once you have created some custom audiences, you can create their Lookalikes. This can help you extend your reach to users who are similar to site visitors, converters, etc. There are three different ranges you can select for Lookalikes: Narrow, Balanced, or Broad. Narrow keeps your targeting very close to the custom audience while broad covers a lot more users but could lead to a less accurate audience.
Interest and Behavior Targeting
Another way to reach your ideal audience is through Interest and/or Behavior targeting. Interest targeting helps you find users based on their interests and how they have interacted with TikTok content. TikTok has recommended targets you can auto-apply that are based on their analysis of similar ads. There are categories you can select for Interest targeting, or there is a search bar where you can explore outside of the bucketed categories:
You also have the ability to select users based on their behaviors or interactions with TikTok content. Similar to other platforms, TikTok also has the option for Targeting Expansion, which when enabled, can extend beyond your targets to potentially achieve more results. Test different audiences to monitor results to see if you can get your targeting sweet spot.
Suggestions
Once you have been running campaigns, you should notice some suggestions at the top of your ads manager. These suggestions are based on your current campaigns and offer some recommendations to increase performance through bid, budget, or targeting adjustments:
You have the ability to make the recommended adjustments within these recommendations. My advice is to make sure you name your ad groups and ads in a way that lets you distinguish amongst each other, or you may get a recommendation based on ad group name and you wouldn’t know which campaign they were in. Suggestions are a quick way to gauge performance and view some quick updates.
Ad Testing
When it comes to ad testing, the whole process can become tedious and time-consuming. TikTok has this nifty feature called Creative Optimization in their ad group settings.
You provide the platform with different images, videos, and ad copy and TikTok will create multiple combinations to test. Once there is enough data, lower-performing assets are automatically paused, leaving the winning variation running. This can be useful if you don’t have the time or capacity to conduct lots of testing. One catch is that once the ad group is created, you cannot switch this feature off.
Identity
A new feature in TikTok is the ability to hook your ads account to your TikTok handle. Previously, you could only create a custom identity with your business name and profile image, but now you can run ads without having a TikTok account. If you do connect your TikTok account, you can also run Spark Ads which allows you to turn your existing organic content into ads and this allows for brand growth.
It is very evident that TikTok continually changes and there are new features available to test and more options for targeting to produce desired results. As always, keep on testing!
If you’re interested in advertising on TikTok for your business, Clix can help! Fill out the Get Started form below!
