Performance 101: Everything you need to know about performance on TikTok
We are in an age of peak media fragmentation, and getting noticed by consumers is more complex than ever. In today's world, consumers have evolved past disruptive ad solutions that are designed purely to sell. Instead, consumers crave advertising that is impactful, engaging, and most of all, entertaining.
That's where TikTok comes in. As the home of entertainment and creativity, 2 in 3 of our users are open to purchasing directly on the platform specifically because it's entertaining [1]. TikTok is particularly effective at product discovery and introduces brands to new customers who generate sales: 78% of consumers discovered new products and brands on TikTok [2]. And it's a platform that's built to perform – TikTok users are 1.8x more likely to consider a purchase because of video content they’ve seen [2] and 61% purchased something directly on TikTok, or right after seeing it on TikTok [3]. With TikTok, the opportunity to connect with a hyper-engaged audience and merge data-driven insights with creativity results in performance marketing on overdrive.
Our performance solutions enable brands to combine creative entertainment and commerce across the entire marketing funnel, powering a seamless customer journey from discovery to purchase and beyond. So, if you want to run a campaign that drives concrete, measurable business results, we've put together this guide to the three key pillars to winning performance on TikTok.
Pillar 1: System fundamentals
The bedrock of a successful performance campaign on TikTok is providing our system with all the data it needs to help you achieve your objectives. Follow our fail-safe framework to make sure your campaigns are set up effectively.
Establish the right data connections for you
Putting in place safe and reliable data connections is the most important thing you can do for successful performance marketing campaigns on TikTok. This is because data connections power all of your measurement, targeting, optimisation and automation capabilities. Therefore, the more you fuel your TikTok Ads Manager with data connections, the better it becomes at generating conversions.
We recommend that our advertisers use TikTok's Pixel and Events API together, combined with enabling Advanced Matching, to maximise performance. Strong data connections deliver strong business outcomes aligned with the KPIs that matter most, delivered through TikTok Ad solutions like Lead Generation, Video Shopping Ads, and Website Conversions.
Improve your business outcomes with optimisation
Optimisation is the second step in building a successful performance campaign. Our system is capable of adapting and optimising to achieve your brand's performance objectives, so we recommend the following tools to power this process. Click on the links to find out how advertisers have achieved success with them.
Lead generation: Identify and cultivate prospects for your business.
App events optimisation: Acquire users that will take specific in-app actions.
Value-based optimisation: Achieve better ROAS by optimising directly towards those purchase values.
Further boost campaign performance with automation
Utilise our latest end-to-end automation solution to further boost your campaign performance. Smart Performance Campaign (SPC) takes out the manual work from your traditional campaign management to run performance campaigns at scale, helping brands to optimise for the best placements, bid strategy, targeting and creative.
Smart Performance Campaign is a completely hands-off tool, with minimum input needed from advertisers to get started. Read more about it here.
Pillar 2: Creative that converts
We know that creativity is important, not just for branding objectives, but for campaigns across the entire marketing funnel. In fact, Nielsen reports that 47% of a brand's sales lift from advertising is the consequence of the creative, more than any other advertising element [4].
So how do you, as a performance marketer, create high impact content for TikTok? Here are our tips:
Go native
On TikTok, being native wins – it lifts intent, increases watch time and engagement, and drives action. Use engaging creative cues to be native to the platform, including faster-paced music, transitions and scene changes, movement, text, emojis and brand visibility and/or early product placement.
Top tip: Find out how you can help your brand assets to go native with our 3Rs framework. Additionally, work with creative production experts using the TikTok Creative Exchange (TTCX), our one-stop solution that enables fast, scalable high-performing video production for TikTok.
Partner with creators
Creators are a production shortcut to TikTok-first creative that performs. In fact, we've found that watching Creator-made content on TikTok strengthened Brand Favourability by +18%, Recommendation by 18% and Purchase Intent by 20%. [5]
Top tip: The TikTok Creator Marketplace (TTCM) is our official platform for brand and creator collaborations. Access the right creators and generate creative to make your branded content go further.
Automate and optimise
Smart Creative is TikTok's next-generation automated creative solution that allows you to simplify ad creation while driving performance through anti-creative fatigue strategies. Use it to easily build multiple creative iterations at scale that drive results.
We have a host of tools and resources designed to make creating for TikTok easy. For more tips, explore our Creative Center.
Pillar 3: Go beyond last click with performance you can measure
Recent research identified that 79% of all conversions attributed to TikTok by users themselves were missed by last-click attribution models [6]. To really understand the power of your TikTok campaigns, leverage our suite of measurement solutions:
Attribution: Track the performance of your TikTok ads through Attribution Analytics in TikTok Ads Manager.
Incrementality: Use Conversion Lift Studies to analyse the true incremental impact of your lower-funnel conversion campaigns. See how Bibit used CLS to reveal incrementality of an ad campaign that drove +120% on purchases and +49% lift on registrations.
Qualitative: Understand audience consumption behaviours by using customer-sourced data as input for your attribution framework with post-purchase surveys.
Whether you're running a branding, performance, or full-funnel campaign, there is a TikTok solution for every business. Have a read of our measurement guide to see some of the tools available to help you measure the success of your TikTok campaigns.
Accelerate your performance journey today
Our three pillars are designed with performance marketers in mind, so make sure to focus on the system fundamentals, creative best practice and using a combination of our measurement tools to build effective campaigns that really pack a punch.
Ready to level up your TikTok game? Get in touch with your TikTok rep and start driving impactful results today!
Sources
TikTok Marketing Science Global Entertainment Study 2021 conducted by Material
Future of Commerce research by Boston Consulting Group, commissioned by TikTok. Conducted in ID, TH, VN, JP, KR, AU, Apr 2022
TikTok Marketing Science Global Shopping Ad Products Study 2022 conducted by Material February 2022 (n=17,937)
Nielsen Catalina Solutions, 2017, Period 2016 - Q1 2017, analysis of nearly 500 campaigns across all media platforms
TikTok Marketing Science, Creators Like Me Study, Global, 2021, conducted by Hotspex
TikTok Marketing Science Post-Purchase Analysis conducted by KnoCommerce, 2022