Test with TikTok: Measure the Real Impact of Your TikTok Video Views

27 May 2022

TikTok For Business

TrendsInsightsBest Practices

Test With TikTok is all about inspiring advertisers across Southeast Asia (SEA) to achieve more with TikTok for Business solutions. This way, you can focus on designing and developing campaigns exactly the way you want, while TikTok helps improve campaign performance. Our solutions deliver leading returns on investment, and they even prime audiences for your advertising on other platforms too. So, we'll be offering tips and tricks for boosting your brand, driving sales, and growing your business on TikTok.

It’s no secret that short-form video content has become an integral tool for engaging audiences online. As a result, tailoring marketing strategies to fully utilize video is a known recipe for success. Before we get into the details, here are three studies that illustrate just how vital video content is for online campaigns.

The Nielsen Custom Authenticity Study commissioned by TikTok discovered that 83% of users prefer videos over other content formats such as GIF and text.

Based on the Kantar Media Reactions report (2021), TikTok is the most-highly-favored media channel among digital consumers, indicating the platform offers the highest value to advertisers.

Based on a TikTok-commissioned survey by Toluna, 9 in 10 users take action after viewing ads on the platform. From Nielsen MMX Study 2021, it showed TikTok delivers 1.6x higher return on ad spend (ROAS) compared to other media on average.

Based on the above statistics, we can see that marketing in 2022 demands strategies that include video in a meaningful way, and that TikTok is an ideal platform for such campaigns. In order to act on this information, our next step is to look at how users are actually consuming video content on TikTok and how that should guide campaign strategy.

The standard TikTok user watches videos on the platform daily. While consuming content, 80% of users discover products with the help of TikTok Ads. However, 54% of those seeing a brand's ads tend to remain immersed in watching more videos, and delay their visit to the brand's website or app until later.

As shown in the above graphic, the user journey from ad view through to purchase is not always immediate. Audiences consume content and research brands across a wide variety of platforms, and this multi-screening behavior makes consumer journeys more complex.

For a clearer understanding of your campaign's performance, consider a holistic approach that leverages Click-Through Attribution (CTA) along with the View-Through Attribution (VTA) model. This hybrid approach allows advertisers to optimize their spend for marketing effectiveness and efficiency, and it allows campaigns on TikTok to pass through the platform's learning phase quicker too.

Learning phase refers to the beginning period of ad delivery when the system continuously explores new customers to help the Ad group reach the most suitable audience. This is an important part of the ad delivery life cycle, as the data during this stage is used to train the system to help better optimize delivery, and offer the best performance. During this phase, the ad performance may fluctuate, but will become more stable as the learning data accumulates.

Based on our internal studies, advertisers who enabled VTA + CTA achieve a significant improvement in their campaign performance, with a 113% faster learning period exit, a 79% higher conversion rate, and 10% higher Auction stability.

The hybrid model, combining VTA and CTA, accelerates the learning phase for campaigns on TikTok, optimizing the model and attribution window for each brand's campaign. Based on a test undertaken with an Entertainment App, we found that both the cost per install and conversion rate improved when using the hybrid model, meaning this approach helped the advertiser better measure their campaign's results.

Case Study: Entertainment Industry

Background
An entertainment company in Southeast Asia wanted to acquire more viewers and subscribers. The brand had previously only used the CTA model for attributing conversions. This approach had impacted campaign stability, as the learning phase was often challenging to complete. The brand's cost per new installs had become unsustainable, leading the brand to invest more resources in stabilizing performance, at the cost of eroding market share and share of voice.
 
Solution
TikTok for Business recommended the hybrid VTA + CTA attribution model, to speed up the learning phase and achieve a more complete picture of campaign performance. Most importantly, the hybrid model gave the advertiser the opportunity to optimize their media spend and campaign performance at the same time.
 
Result
Compared to the CTA-only campaign, the VTA + CTA-enabled campaign's cost per install was 20% cheaper, and improved conversion rates up to 150%, delivering higher ROAS for the brand.

We have seen that advertisers who enable VTA and CTA in tandem achieve stronger campaign performance. With more signals being passed to TikTok, the system accelerates the learning phase and optimizes campaign performance using both metrics. To implement the hybrid attribution model for your next campaign, and get the most out of video views on TikTok, here are the four steps we recommend taking.

Step 1: Enable CTA + VTA Attribution
Enable VTA together with CTA to track the real impact of TikTok video views on your brand, and to establish a baseline.
 
Step 2: Apply Measurement Best Practices
Understand how TikTok users engage with the platform and optimize your measurement set-up. Take a look at thisprevious blogpostfor insights into how an attribution window is determined, and how to assess if your measurement model is working.
 
Step 3: Measure Incrementality with Brand Lift
Identify the lift generated by video campaigns on TikTok (covering Favourability, Purchase Intent, and more). Find out more about TikTok Brand Lift Case Studies in thisprevious blogpost.
 
Step 4: Create and Iterate Learning Agendas
Based on measured results, you can test, optimize, and evaluate iterations of your campaigns.

The key to success is being open to experimentation. We've shown that enabling CTA + VTA attribution models helps advertisers formulate effective and efficient campaigns, while optimizing spend and performance. Let's get started with your first hybrid attribution campaign today!

Stay tuned for more updates and advice from Test With TikTok.

Read the previous Test With TikTok blogposthere.

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