TikTok Ads, the future of paid advertising?

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TikTok is fashionable, to say the least. In France alone, the platform has more than 15 million users per month and is still growing. That's almost as much as Snapchat, but, for the moment, still less than Instagram or Facebook. Very popular with young people, the social network is a gold mine for advertisers: it allows to reach a large engaged audience, with very precise targeting techniques. Can we say that TikTok is the future of paid? Is it still too early? We tell you everything.

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The advantages of TikTok Ads

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Reaching a young audience

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The first advantage offered by the advertising network is the possibility to reach a young audience. Mostly composed of Internet users under thirty years old, TikTok gives you the opportunity to reach an audience that is often quite difficult to reach. Teenagers, young adults: on TikTok you can find users that you don't necessarily find on other social networks. This strength makes it a particular channel, which is not necessarily relevant for all advertisers. It is important to take into account this demographic aspect to succeed in your campaigns. But if your product or service targets this age group, then you're in the right place: it's the third most popular social network for people under 25, ahead of LinkedIn or even Facebook and Twitter.

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Use a wide variety of formats

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TikTok Ads allows you to reach your audience through a variety of formats: in-feed videos, custom hashtags, custom banners, pop-ups... Thanks to this variety of ad formats, you can build complete campaigns and be sure to address the right message at the right time to the right person: the dream of any advertiser in digital! By playing with the different formats available, you can create a real conversion path within the app, doing as much branding and awareness as conversion.

The objectives of the campaigns are also numerous: you can boost your stats on the application, by increasing your reach, your number of views and followers, or attract traffic outside of TikTok, to achieve conversion on your site. TikTok also offers, of course, to use retargeting to connect with an audience already aware of your brand. 

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Reach users at a time when they are engaged

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TikTok's great strength lies in the engagement of its users. The ads, especially the in-feed videos which are the most popular format, fit very naturally into the organic publications of the platform. The average engagement on TikTok shows that users are very active. Moreover, in its very functioning (one is forced to pass the videos of a few seconds to the channel), TikTok makes sure to always capture the attention of users: there is no question, as it can be with YouTube or Instagram videos, to leave the video in the background and not look at your phone. TikTok asks for active participation from its users: for advertisers, this is a godsend!

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Some limitations to TikTok

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Of course, the social network is not yet perfect and there are some limitations that make advertisers hesitate to launch.

The first one is the demographic aspect: not all companies have an interest in using TikTok Ads. If your target is not the same as the users of the application, it is likely that you will lose time and money and it will be better to focus on other social networks, which offer a more relevant targeting for you.

On the other hand, the platform has quite strict regulations regarding the content displayed: you can't promote just any product on it.

Finally, the last point and the one that perhaps poses the most difficulties for advertisers is that TikTok has a very particular language and codes. It is important to understand them in order to propose content that will appeal to Internet users. The use of trends and scenarios is essential. By failing to do so, you can very quickly build yourself the image of an outdated brand, not up to date: facing a young audience, which masters all these codes, it's shooting yourself in the foot.

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How to get the most out of TikTok?

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If you want to use TikTok Ads to reach your audience, how do you go about it?

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Create a global strategy

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The first thing to do, and as for any advertising network, is to understand the environment, the products offered to master them and build your strategy. Campaigns that respect all the best practices have a much better chance of success than campaigns that are not thought through beforehand. Take the time to build your advertising path before you launch, set your objectives and the means to achieve them.

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Use engaging content

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TikTok is a network of short and punchy videos. Funny, moving, surprising, instructive... You'll have to create some too. This is where mastering the concepts and codes specific to the application is essential, to be able to create videos that correspond to what Internet users are looking for on the network.

On TikTok, everything has to be calibrated: the use of music, the rhythm of the videos, the taking of pictures, to fit naturally into the users' flow. A too corporate, too classic communication could have negative effects on your branding. Beware also of the opposite effect: if you want to be young and trendy, if you don't perfectly master the codes, you involuntarily create parodies of TikTok content. Here again, the effect is disastrous for the brand's image.

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Get help from others

Our advice, to be sure to perform well on TikTok Ads, is to be accompanied. By creative agencies, already, who master the codes of the platform. Trust them for your videos and to be on the lookout for the latest trends to exploit. They will be able to guide you to create videos that work for your audience.

By a TikTok agency, then. It will control the parameters of your campaigns to maximize your performance. In addition to saving time on operational management, it will also allow you to gain skills and get the best out of your advertising investments.

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TikTok Ads: can we talk about the future of paid?

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So, can we say that TikTok is the future of paid advertising? The platform seems to have become a permanent fixture in the landscape of advertising networks that count. If, for some time, advertisers were reluctant to commit to this network, which was growing extremely fast, because they thought it would be a fad that would fall like a bellows, we have to admit that TikTok is now well established. Investing in the platform is therefore promising if the network's audience corresponds to your target. If this is the case, then yes: TikTok allows you to reach your audience in a new, more engaging way, and to create a real proximity between your brand and your target. A real opportunity for any company!

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