Today we talk about social media marketing: is advertising on social media like TikTok really useful? Why?
Since TikTok was launched in 2017, the platform has grown in popularity at an impressive rate, becoming one of the most used social media globally. In just a few years, TikTok has surpassed its competitors, including Snapchat, reaching an impressive number of users around the world. With over 1 billion subscribers and 40 million active users every day, it is undoubtedly a platform of global importance.
Considering these numbers, it is obvious that digital marketers must invest in TikTok to properly employ their resources. However, before embarking on a marketing and social media campaign on this platform, it is crucial thoroughly understand how it works.
If you are interested in understanding how to integrate TikTok into your social strategy, we also recommend visiting the Across page on social advertising, with services for companies and advantages, to learn more about the issue of social network advertising. And now let’s see how effective a marketing and social media strategy can be on a platform like TikTok!
Marketing and Social Media: Can You Advertise on TikTok?
On February 21, 2019, TikTok surprised all social media managers by announcing the opening of the platform to advertising. This has aroused the interest of many companies, who have realized that now everyone can advertise on TikTok. However, before starting a social media advertising campaign on this platform, it is important to check if your company meets the necessary requirements. Here are some factors that can help you decide whether or not TikTok is right for your business.
- Target audience: The results of campaigns on TikTok strongly depend on your target audience. If your business caters primarily to an adult audience and offers services like bank accounts or hosting, TikTok may not be the best choice. However, if your business is geared towards young people, with 66% of TikTok users are under 30, it could be a great investment.
- Visual content: To be successful on TikTok, it is essential to have a good amount of quality visual content to share. Your business needs to be able to create videos that represent your brand or product in an eye-catching way. TikTok is all about video sharing, so if you have the ability to create content that stands out on this platform, don’t hesitate to get started.
- Budget: Ads on TikTok are still relatively new to the advertising industry, which means that there are still very few ads on the platform. Right now, it’s hard to find small businesses on TikTok, but big brands like Nike, Disney, Grubhub, and Ferrero have already made their way. Keep in mind that ad costs on TikTok are currently higher than on other social media.
The benefits of advertising campaigns…
Marketing and social networks are a combination that always seems to be successful. But let’s see together the strong points of this combination and the main advantages of TikTok ADS:
- CPM e CPC: TikTok advertising campaigns offer an extremely low CPM (Cost per thousand Impressions). In some campaigns, you can achieve a CPM of less than €0.30, but on average, you can achieve a CPM of less than €0.50. Obviously, the cost can vary according to the creative and the objectives of the campaign (reach, traffic, conversion). The CPC (Cost per Click) is also remarkably low, with cases where you can get CPCs as low as €0.03. On average, we are still below €0.06-0.07 per CPC. Again, the costs depend on the campaign objectives.
- Awareness e TOFU: advertising on TikTok is extremely effective for working from a Top Of The Funnel (TOFU) perspective. Indeed, you have the possibility to showcase your brand and engage millions of users with a very low cost. This means you can raise awareness of your brand and reach a large audience of potential customers.
- Competitive advantage: Chances are your top competitor isn’t on TikTok yet. Currently, there are still few brands investing on this platform, but this figure is constantly growing. If you want to get an edge over your competitors and get ahead of them, you should consider using TikTok ADS.
In summary, TikTok ADS offers a low CPM and CPC, allow you to increase awareness of your brand and give you a competitive edge over your competitors. This allows you to achieve effective results in your marketing strategy.
…and the disadvantages on TikTok
But there’s always another side to the coin, which you should consider before embarking on a new marketing venture. So here are the main disadvantages of TikTok ADS:
- CTR: Click-through rate (CTR) on TikTok is generally lower than on Facebook. Because TikTok’s algorithm is still under development and doesn’t have a large amount of data like Facebook’s. Therefore it is unable to fully understand user behavior and predict the actions they might take. Also, TikTok users are less likely to click on sponsored video links and leave the app.
- Conversioni e bottom of the funnel (BOFU): TikTok is very effective in the early stage of the funnel (TOFU) for increasing brand awareness, but has limitations in the late stage of the funnel (BOFU). Converting a user from a sponsored video and getting them to take important actions on your site is not easy on TikTok. However, you can integrate a cross-platform strategy and use retargeting to reach users who landed on your site through TikTok and get more valuable shares on other platforms, such as Instagram for example.
- Targeting still limited: Unlike Facebook or Google, TikTok Ads Manager only offers macro-interest-based targeting options. This is due to the young age of the platform, which has not yet collected a large amount of user data. However, given the precision of the possible targeting, especially by gender and age range, the low CPM allows you to reach the target of interest without investing large sums.
For example, if you want to reach women aged 18-24, who are around 2-2.5 million people on TikTok, with an average CPM of €0.50 you can get 3 million impressions with a budget of €1500. However, it’s important to note that getting 3 million impressions doesn’t necessarily mean reaching all 2-2.5 million women, it will also depend on the frequency of exposure. In any case, if you need to target for specific interests, TikTok offers different macro-categories to choose from, such as “clothing, animals, cars, appliances, games, sports, beauty, technology” and many others.
In conclusion, is it worthwhile to Marketing on a social media like TikTok?
As experienced, for a company considering investing in TikTok, it is advisable to focus on advertising first, before considering creating organic content. If a brand has an adequate budget to allocate to increase its presence on the market and increase awareness, TikTok is certainly a very interesting and versatile social channel.
Conversely, just in case a brand has limited financial resources and you need investments with a quick economic return, using TikTok right away may not be the most suitable choice.