TikTok has rapidly emerged as one of the most popular social media platforms worldwide, captivating billions of users with its engaging short-form videos. TikTok’s rise to fame has made it an essential tool for brands looking to tap into the power of video advertising.
This article will explore how TikTok ads can elevate your marketing strategy. We’ll dive into why effective TikTok ads resonate so well with users, the advantages of using the TikTok Ads Manager account to manage your campaigns, and the best ways to leverage TikTok videos to create ads.
Whether you’re looking to maximize your reach or drive conversions, TikTok advertising offers a robust solution.
Why TikTok Video Advertising is So Effective
The rise of TikTok ads as a means to target new audiences, educate viewerss, and encourage purchases through the tiktok shop is highly lucrative, with many brands seeing success from their efforts. So, why exactly is TikTok advertising so effective?
In addition to delivering the highest ROI compared to other types of marketing, short-form videos and as an extension, TikTok ads, promote creativity and authenticity. Tiktok advertising also increases overall user engagement and connects viewers with their favorite content creators.
User Engagement
Thanks to TikTok’s unique algorithm, brands are better equipped to foster user engagement among their target audience for products and services through tiktok advertising. One study noted engagement rates are 835% higher on TikTok ads compared to ads on Meta or other social media platforms.
Combine the tiktok ads manager with the algorithm and viewers receive tailored content strategically placed throughout their tiktok discovery page. Whether it’s increasing your website traffic through a clear call to action, or increasing purchase intent thanks to your carousel ads, Tiktok video ads are ideal for user engagement.
Short-form Video Popularity
Let’s face it - our attention spans aren’t what they used to be and the fast-pace of online shopping and consumption is the primary culprit. Your target audience values fast, engaging content that delivers results and answers questions, which they can easily find on the tiktok platform.
The TikTop app satisfies short attention spans and the instant gratification that comes with it, by providing engaging short-form videos that solve problems, educate, and convert potential customers.
Your tiktok campaign and ad groups are capable of building brand awareness in a shorter period and reaches customers where they spend most of their time online.
Influence of Creators and Trends
Influencers, creators, and viral trends throughout the tiktok community are another reason creating tiktok ads can be an effective means to positioning yourself in front of potential customers.
Influencers and trends like branded hashtag challenges play a significant role in shaping consumer behavior. 50% of TikTok users have bought something after watching a TikTok Live, showcasing the importance of influencer opinions, thoughts, and guidance in your viewers’ shopping habits and decision-making when considering a purchase.
Brand Spotlight: Gymshark
From humble beginnings upon first launching in 2012, Gymshark is now a $1.3 billion brand.
Gymshark’s business growth is widely attributed to their effective use of influencer partnerships and marketing. Prior to the launch of TikTok, the brand was already working closely with Instagram influencers to promote their company and products.
What differentiated Gymshark from apparel giants like Adidas and Nike was that it paid close attention to how TikTok influencers resonated with consumers, Gen Z in particular.
By leveraging the existing fan base of the influencers they worked with, Gymshark uncovered a whole new legion of followers and built authority and trust with consumers through their content creator partnerships.
Mobile-first Experience
TikTok’s mobile-friendly interface drives higher engagement with users interacting with your tiktok account and ad success. This meets the tremendous shift many digital marketers have continued to see in the past few years from desktop to mobile, with the average user spending three hours on their mobile phone.
TikTok’s recent release of its Promote feature makes it even easier to create smart creative ads. Designed for small businesses, Promote offers better ad performance to boost videos, promote carousel posts across your users’ tiktok feed, and go live directly within TikTok’s mobile app.
Benefits of TikTok Video Advertising
TikTok ads are highly beneficial to supporting your overall advertising and marketing goals. With advanced targeting features, e-commerce integrations, as well as numerous advertising options available on the tiktok ads manager, the platform offers ample benefits to help you get your video advertising strategy off the ground and showcase your brand, products, and services to new audience segments.
Massive User Base
When you advertise on tiktok, you gain access to its global user base, increasing your brand’s potential to reach new customers. Downloaded a whopping 4.7 billion times, TikTok users span the world over, with its largest audiences situated in Indonesia, the United States, and Brazil.
Despite its astronomical growth, the platform and subsequent tiktok ads remain tailored and curated, offering users content tailored to their wants and needs. Given the platform's primary users are composed of millennials and Gen Z, your TikTok ads will need to be interactive and engaging to younger generations in order to achieve your overall advertising goal. You can oversee all these elements from within your tiktok ads manager account.
Creativity and Authenticity
Tiktok’s playful yet engaging environment fosters a culture of user-generated content, giving space for tiktok creators and brands to produce innovative tiktok ads that resonate with their audiences. What’s more, TikTok has noted the importance of entertainment throughout its platform. Not only is this achievable by tapping into new trends and challenges, but also by utilizing effects and transitions that make your tikok video ads more enticing and engaging.
By tapping into up and coming trends that promote creativity while applying your brand’s unique, authentic spin, you hook in potential users of your product and ultimately create effective tiktok ads that are modern, fun, and engaging.
Cost-Effective
Another benefit to TikTok ads and running tiktok campaigns? They’re cost-effective!
Given short-term video ads tend to run cheaper than traditional forms of advertising, you can expect your Tiktok advertising cost to be significantly lower, making it a beneficial tool for reaching potential customers without breaking the bank. With the average cost-per-click (CPC) sitting at $0.22, Tiktok advertisements are an affordable yet effective option for small businesses and startups looking to leverage video advertising campaigns, while still seeing a lucrative return on investment.
If you’re looking to experiment with upcoming apps, TikTok’s ByteDance offers their global app bundle, which grants companies access to additional audiences on the company’s emerging apps outside the realm of TikTok. This ensures your ads are shown on other reliable apps while still being featured on premium ad spots.
TikTok Advertising Formats
Below, we’ll take a closer look at a few types of tiktok ads and what each ad format entails. Each of these advertising formats is available for preview within your tiktok business account and can be utilized as a standalone tactic or form a part of your larger advertising campaign.
Regardless of which advertising format you choose, ensure your video ad features specific ad details, including your ad name and a call-to-action (like pointing viewers to a particular landing page). It should also offer clear video resolution for viewers and fall into one of the suitable video formats for the platform (i.e. mp4, mov, mpeg, 3gp). Each type also features different ad specs to to suit your advertising objective.
1. In-Feed Ads
The first of the three advertising formats we’ll be looking at that you can incorporate into your marketing campaigns are in-feed ads. These types of tiktok ads integrate into your potential customers’ existing content feed, making in-feed ad placements a seamless part of your viewers’ overall experience alongside native Tiktok videos. Similar to organic tiktok videos, your potential customers can like, comment, and share your in-feed ads, increasing user engagement between you and your brand.
Among the types of in-feed video ads to choose from include Spark Ads, which let you leverage organic post elements and features within your own ads, as well as TopView ads, which is simply an ad placement that is displayed to users when they open the tiktok app.
An in-feed video ad features a maximum run time of 60 seconds and incorporates a CTA button to suit the goals of your ad campaigns. Ideally, you’ll want your in-feed tiktok ads (and your ad description) to be short, sweet, and punchy, hence the importance of keeping your in-feed ad even shorter than the maximum ad limit time, if possible.
2. Hashtag Challenges
Another advertising format brands can leverage is viral challenges to increase their own awareness in the form of branded hashtag challenges (HTC).
These interactive ads not only position you as a forward-thinking brand but one that sparks trends and inspires community movements. Hashtags continue to play an important role in outreach to new and potential customers of your products. However, leveraging branded hashtag challenges invite viewers to interact with your brand in a playful yet engaging way.
Typically, your brand will produce a TikTok video demonstrating a task or action related to your brand. This might include a new dance or a unique use case for your product. Within your video, you’ll include a corresponding hashtag related to the challenge and invite viewers to create their own video, take on the participatory challenge or task you’ve presented, and put their own spin on it.
Hashtags become more powerful when incorporated into a challenge, and are truly the gift that keeps on giving for increased engagement through strategic ad placements and click-throughs. Alternatively, brands can make their ad creative by sponsoring hashtags and collaborating with content creators to spread awareness and engagement with their HTC.
If you’re a small business or start-up, consider piggybacking onto existing branded hashtag challenges or trends to get a sense of the overall process, and gather inspiration from larger brands that have achieved HTC success.
If you’re looking for an example of a brand that's nailed the Branded Hashtag Challenge, look no further than E.L.F Cosmetics and how their HTC ad specs were sed to meet the company’s campaign objectives.
Brand Spotlight: E.L.F. Cosmetics
E.L.F Cosmetics achieved many firsts with their Branded HTC, launched in 2019. It’s widely considered the most viral TikTok campaign ever, with nearly 5 million user-generated videos produced as a result of the challenge, including unsponsored celebrity videos. The #eyeslipsface challenge aligned with E.LF.’s brand pillar that “E.L.F is for every eye, lip, and face,” and amassed 1.6 billion views in the week after its release.
Source: https://moversshakers.co/elf-tiktok-challenge
What set the brand’s HTC apart from its competitors was the original song E.L.F commissioned to accompany the challenge. It was the first time a brand had created original music for a TikTok hashtag challenge and also served as the brand’s first venture into musical brand expression.
The tune quickly became a viral success on its own for its popular and catchy hook and went on to rank amongst Spotify charts in several countries.
3. Branded Effects
The final of the three tiktok ads we’ll touch on is branded effect campaigns. Utilizing Artificial Reality (AR) filters, lenses, and stickers throughout your video ads can appeal to tiktok users.
Incorporating AR filters, lenses, and stickers for brand engagement can make for smart creative ads that give brands the freedom to truly express their values and beliefs to potential customers, while inviting viewers to connect and engage. In the instance of the Green Screen effect, this lets users superimpose themselves against any image or video of their choosing.
Key Stats on TikTok Video Advertising
To give you an idea of the impact of Tiktok ads compared to other social media platforms, we’ll share a few different statistics to consider when determining which of the different ad formats to implement and how your tiktok videos or ad group performed against your overall advertising objective.
Engagement Rates
You don’t necessarily need a large following to benefit from high engagement rates across your tiktok ads. One study demonstrated brands and businesses with less than 5K followers had a median view rate of 22.45%. Despite being smaller in size, producing personal and relatable branded content with a clear call to action, can positively impact your engagement and view rates with potential customers.
Ad Spend and ROI
All of your hard-earned efforts when producing great ad creative concepts throughout your tiktok ads won't add up to much if you’re not seeing a return on your investment. Before you fork over your budget for tiktok ads, consider the following stats on tiktok ad spend.
In 2026, U.S. Tiktok ad revenue is expected to reach $15.26 billion, demonstrating a vast amount of growth opportunity for tiktok ad revenue over the next year and a half. Additionally, a report from Influencer Marketing Hub found that 42% of marketers believe TikTok delivers the highest ROI for short-form video followed by Instagram at 34%.
User Preferences
Your potential customers’ wants, needs, and preferences will continue to influence your tiktok ad campaigns. Tapping into user preferences and harnessing key statistics for how these may fluctuate in the years to come, can boost the effectiveness of your tiktok ads.
Preferences can include what your viewers would like to see across video ads regarding authentic content, trends, as well as influencer collaborations. In fact, 47% of US Tiktok users say they trust product recommendations from social media influencers and celebrities.
Understanding your audience preferences, but also understanding they are impressionable to the content creators they follow, can help you choose the right accounts to collaborate with as well as cater your tiktok ad specs to meet viewer wants and needs.
Best Practices for TikTok Video Advertising
To wrap things up, we’ll look at some best practices for your next TikTok video ad. The tiktok ads manager and accompanying resources have tons of extra tips, tricks, and insights to help you get started too, that we encourage you to check out.
Leverage Trends & Challenges
We can’t stress the importance of trends and challenges to help your brand stay relevant, connect with new customers, and enhance your tiktok ad campaign performance. In fact, 77% of users appreciate when brands use trends, memes, or challenges on TikTok to make new content.
If you’re not sure where to start, keep an eye on the Discovery page of TikTok for trending topics, hashtags and challenges for new video ad opportunities. Or, visit the Trends page on the Creative Center while browsing your tiktok ads manager. Additionally, monitor your competitors’ video ads for how they participate in trending challenges so you can apply your own spin to your ad group.
Explore Tiktok Ads Manager
Your tiktok ads manager account will serve as your hub for every tiktok ad you create. It's where you will manager your different ad groups, browse each ad format available, including spark ads, carousel ads, and collection ads, and edit your tiktok shop.
It can also give you a sense of tiktok ads cost by exploring different pricing options for different ad formats, or if you're thinking about partaking in the global app bundle option.
Use Data to Refine Campaigns
All of your efforts towards producing compelling, engaging TikTok advertising are wasted if you don’t take advantage of available data to determine how your tiktok ad is performing.
Not only does this entail monitoring your collection ads’ performance but also tracking your advertising expenditure and identifying key metrics like cost-per-click (CPC) and cost-per-impression (CPM).
Other non-cost related metrics you’ll want to keep an eye on include video and profile views, follower demographics, and engagement rates. These deep insights not only help you to refine your campaigns but determine how your videos are performing and what your audience likes to see from you.
Unlocking TikTok's Full Potential: A Roadmap for Future Advertising Success
Simply put, tiktok ads work. The platform has proven itself to be a game-changer in the world of video advertising. With its highly engaged user base, innovative ad format like video shopping ads, collection ads, playable ads, and topview ads, and the ability to create authentic, shareable content, TikTok offers distinct advantages for brands looking to connect with audiences.
From its intuitive ads manager to the creative flexibility of tiktok ad groups and different ad formats, TikTok provides a platform where marketers can experiment with different ad specs and deliver compelling messages that resonate deeply with their target audience.
TikTok’s potential for marketers will only continue to grow. With the platform’s expanding user base and advanced targeting capabilities, brands that invest in a tiktok ad campaign will be better positioned to reach new customers, enhance engagement, and drive conversions.
To maximize success on TikTok, it’s essential to tap into the platform’s ad creative formats. By crafting ads that align with TikTok’s spontaneous, user-driven content, brands create memorable experiences that build connections with tiktok users.
