TikTok Ads and TikTok Shop: A Full Funnel Platform - Passion Digital® (2024)

According to TikTok for Business, there are approximately 28.9 million monthly TikTok users in the UK and 92% of those TikTok users take action after watching a TikTok video. Impressive numbers, right?

The Paid Social team at Passion Digital were invited to a very insightful TikTok Marketing Masterclass at TikTok’s Headquarters in London, along with other digital marketing agencies. The purpose was to learn about the key points on how marketers can leverage TikTok ads, give us a sneak peek into their new platform features as well as opportunities on how to maximise client success, creative consultancy and more.

In this blog post, Carolina, our Paid Media Manager is sharing some key learning points from the session alongside commentary from Harry Seaton, Managing Director at Fluential who is super experienced in TikTok influencer marketing.

How and Why TikTok Drives Full Funnel Success

Harry’s thoughts – why is a TikTok marketing strategy a must?

We’re often told about the opportunities for organic reach on TikTok. It’s true, there are few content types that are as highly rewarded as TikTok videos when they’re made in the right style. That can translate into leads and sales if you meet certain other criteria, but we must consider the mindset people are in when using TikTok and the purpose they’re browsing with. As with all social platforms, users are largely looking to be entertained or informed. If you can do both in one video, you’re onto a winner. Many products which are considered an impulse buy and have an incredibly easy purchase journey on their website will sell with ease on TikTok with only a few good videos and a link in their bio.

If there’s more consideration required for your product or service, you don’t necessarily have to stick to generating brand awareness only (though it’s advisable you build as much as possible). TikTok ads can help you reach a more targeted audience right away. Better yet, shorter, simpler ads have the most success meaning you can spend less time briefing/creating and more time testing. Many have found TikTok ads to be as – if not more – powerful and effective than Meta ads.

Carolina’s thoughts

I learnt from the ‘TikTok for Business Masterclass’ that TikTok is a great channel for agencies due to:

• Platform format: TikTok is full screen and therefore takes a huge amount of the user’s attention. On top of this, it’s also sound-first and sound on. You are fully encapsulated with the content seen which translates to high engagement levels, allowing you to create strong communities which can turn into potential clients
• Unique Selling Point (USP): TikTok’s USP – in comparison to other social media platforms – is positivity. TikTok is a positive place, an authentic place and a place to discover. This allows agencies to provide their clients with a new channel that may resonate better with their clients’ target audience who are fed up of the negativity of more traditional social media platforms

Reach opportunity: TikTok offers agencies the opportunity to reach people who are more likely to take action after watching a video. TikTok’s stats show that 63% of users are inclined to watch ads and 61% discovered a new brand, which provides insights into the power of this platform.

TikTok Shopping Ads and TikTok Ads

Carolina’s thoughts – the differences between TikTok Shop and TikTok ads

TikTok ads are pulled through TikTok Ads Manager, which is a platform where advertisers can build and launch campaigns for different objectives, with engaging ad formats and detailed targeting solutions to reach audiences from different industries such as fashion, food, electronics, real estate, retail, etc. TikTok ads help shoppers discover and shop from businesses through authentic, immersive and entertaining videos.

On the other hand, TikTok Shop is an e-commerce solution integrated within TikTok: “It enables merchants and creators to showcase and sell products for the TikTok community to discover and purchase directly through a complete in-app experience”.

TikTok Shop is TikTok’s latest ad solution. In-app, seamless and efficient shopping experience with two solutions: TikTok video shopping ads and live shopping ads.

Source: TikTok Shop

• Video shopping ads: Drive users directly to your button link, where they can click and initiate checkout and complete payment in a matter of seconds

• Live shopping ads: Drives users directly to a live shopping experience, supporting user retention, button link clicks and complete payment. This offers a live video of the live shopping experience. These are also called spark ads.

TikTok for Business research shows that there are many verticals available on the platform, from clothing, travel, gaming, food and beverages, etc. Some TikTok for Business stats that back this up are:

• Clothing is a huge vertical with users being 2.5x more likely to make an impulse purchase on TikTok than any other platform
• Travel – 77% of people say that TikTok plays an influence on where they go on holiday
• Food and beverage – 46% of TikTok users made a purchase after seeing an ad on TikTok

On the other hand, TikTok ads allows:

1. A new way to connect with your consumers: TikTok is a fun and authentic place to connect, which is engaging and entertaining. Overall, this represents a unique opportunity to reach your desired audience
2. Access to unique audiences: Many people think that TikTok is a platform to target just Gen Z but actually there is a huge age demographic range on the platform from 18 to 65+
3. Full funnel marketing solution: TikTok is not just a suitable place to promote brand awareness based on trends and fun videos, but also to drive all stages of the funnel (awareness, consideration, conversion and loyalty)

Harry’s thoughts – thinking about your audience’s mindset

TikTok Shop takes away the middle man. If you’re happy to surrender a certain amount of control, you can take advantage of the fact that an audience no longer needs to click through and can buy directly from the app. This benefit passes over to paid ads too making the buying journey easier for users. Remember how people approach apps like TikTok –are they sat there hoping to dig into a 5-minute video and learn about a relevant product then scroll the website before eventually buying or are they unsure of what to do now with their attention at the risk of being lost at any moment? It’s likely the latter and TikTok Shop requires less time and effort to engage with.

The Key to Successful TikTok Creatives

Harry’s thoughts

Whilst this is similar to most, if not all social platforms, you’re working with less attention and need to essentially create content that feels fast-forwarded in many ways. In the first few seconds you need to reveal one of these things:

1) Why this video is going to be interesting

2) Why this video is going to help the person watching

3) Why this video is going to be entertaining

If your video contains all 3 of these things, you’ve cracked the code. In this case, interesting means something they aren’t expecting might or will happen. Help is fairly self-explanatory. Entertaining means it is going to be funny or amusing in some way.

If you want to make a video that contains only 1 of these things, try to keep the video under 15 seconds. This especially applies to your ads. You have very little time to give someone a reason to watch and engage with your brand.

Carolina’s thoughts

One of the keys to success of TikTok ads, is to create content that converts and drives actions. To master client creatives into stories and sales, TikTok shared a couple of insights:

1. Create a strong hook: Within the first two seconds, the creative needs to include the hook, to inform/make sure users understand what they need to do. Within the next four seconds, the creative needs to include the brand, product or service, so users can remember it. This is crucial as 90% of the ad recall and 80% of the awareness impact happens within the first six seconds
2. Identify your most suitable hook: There are different types of hooks on the TikTok platform:

• Suspenseful hook (leads to a 16% increase in watch time)
• Surprise hook (leads to a 1.7x increase in time viewed)
• Emotional hook (leads to a 1.7x increase in awareness)

It is important to understand what a good hook looks like and how to make it better. The best kind of hook is one that not only includes the product or service but one that includes your client’s whole brand identity

3. Highlight your USP: Your client’s USP needs to be quick, snappy and clear. It is important to show the product and service to your audience

4. Strong CTA: By the end of your creative, you need to make sure you state your CTA, which should match the hook

Examples of Brands’ Success With TikTok

Big brand: Pretty Little Thing

Objective:

“The goal of this TikTok Shop meets PrettyLittleThing campaign was to get the word out that the fashion brand would soon be available on TikTok Shop while using PrettyLittleThing’s creators and marketing channels to raise awareness and build trust in TikTok Shop as a marketplace and shopping platform.”

Results:

“This bespoke campaign powered by their partnership with TikTok Shop and creator and celebrity collaboration was a huge success. PrettyLittleThing saw 9,720,000 campaign impressions, an out-of-home reach of 118,852 and 1,976,000 TikTok impressions!”

Source: https://shop.tiktok.com/business/en/newsroom/detail/10019858

Small brand: Healthxcel

Objective:

“Ramping up conversions and increasing sales with audience targeting

Healthxcel was founded by Rima Deu, a pharmacist with over 10 years of experience in the healthcare industry. It was born from a desire to help and empower people to live healthier lives. Through years of seeing patients and helping treat them, she knew the vital importance of health education working in tandem with medical treatment.”

Results:

Source: https://www.tiktok.com/business/en-GB/inspiration/healthxcel-tiktok-success-story

The use, reach and engagement that users around the UK have with TikTok are huge and this is why it is important for digital marketers to not only leverage the emerging objectives and features available on TikTok’s ads platform but also to keep top in mind how this can fit within your client’s social marketing strategy and how TikTok ads can boost and complement organic activity for your small or big business.

If you are keen to learn more about how TikTok ads can complement your paid social strategy, please get in touch. We would love to help you achieve your business goals!