TikTok had a mind-blowing 672 million app downloads in 2022, and it’s only increasing. When you’re representing your company on TikTok, whether through organic posting or paid advertising, Arke can help you devise effective creative to resonate with your audience out of the 900 million active users of the viral app.
However you might be using TikTok – to grow awareness of your company, to engage a specific target audience or drive sales – we have put together our expert guide in order for you to get the best out of your creative for your audiences with your ads.
- Personalisation
Speaking of audiences, start by considering the personalisation of your ad creatives for your audiences. Make sure that the ad is designed for that audience specifically – that ideal buyer profile for example. If you’re looking to engage students, ensure it looks like something that would appeal to the average age of that group, and not like a retirement ad! The best way to make your TikTok videos feel native to that audience is to get them to create it! User-generated content will make sure you are directly appealing to that group with your ad, whether using brand ambassadors, customers or influencers – content led by the audience will always get better results.
As well as the look and feel of your creative, check out the audience targeting that you’re using. Does your ad match the factors that you’re honing in on?
Visuals aside, consider your messaging, and how these can be adapted for personalisation. That doesn’t mean writing an essay and squeezing it into your video! TikTok themselves say that being consistent and succinct will help your intended audience understand your messaging. And make sure that the most important bit of your whole video isn’t at the very end. Nearly two-thirds of videos with the highest CTR showed their key message or product within the first 3 seconds. So be upfront with your messaging.
And when it comes to running multiple ads – – double-check that the creative and image match that audience. It’s important not to just throw two typical A and B versions out there simply so that you can say you’ve done your experiments!, Go further than that – create specific, bespoke versions of the ad for your different audience segments!
- Safe zones
Sounds dangerous. And it could be – for the effectiveness of your ads… do you have a lot onscreen? Text, graphics, logos and some key footage? Regardless of whether you’re running video or image ads, make sure that nothing is going to be obscured by the platform’s controls and UI – you don’t want an important call-to-action or logo to be underneath the buttons on the right, or the captiontoward the bottom of the screen.
The latest social media format guides are great, and if you want to double-check that your creative is safer than a Fabergé egg when it comes to safe zones – why not get it straight from the source? TikTok has safe zone files available, containing images outlining the safe zones of vertical, square and horizontal ads. “Elements that appear out of the safe zone might be covered or cropped.” You have been warned! 🙂
- Go vertical with video
We’ve all seen them: vertical videos in our feed that consist of a tiny widescreen video with massive blocks of colour above and below – they look like a corporation shoehorning an existing video rather than making something specifically for that platform. They can appear haphazard and scream “hasty reuse of someone else’s content in an attempt to get attention”, which isn’t a great look. So you might need to rejig existing files to rectify this! Research found that ads that look and feel like TikTok content “proved to be particularly effective…with potential new customers viewing the ads for 27% longer than average.”
So you’ve got some content from another channel. Instead of simply reposting, consider repurposing your content. Make a vertical version of the video. And if that sort of extreme close-up of a crop isn’t going to work, owing to the action in the video, then add on-brand background patterns, and even consider putting your video into a shape that isn’t a rectangle. Something that is crafted to fit the space will resonate much better, and look less default and spammy, increasing confidence in the ad!
- Music/sound
So you’ve got a great animated asset. It is perfect for the campaign: on brand, using creative that has a great track record with your audience. All the important action is within the safe zone, but you don’t have a soundtrack.
Before you reach for whatever free, mediocre, generic, stock backing track you can get your hands on, consider using sound native to the app. You could add the music within TikTok and capitalise on popular, trending tracks to help your ads resonate better with the app’s users. You can even see which songs have been popular in the last 7, 30 or 120 days if you don’t want to risk betting on a stinker!
Using TikTok’s own sound library means that the sounds are pre-cleared for commercial use, and make the video feel more on-trend, relevant and native to the platform – encouraging users to watch rather than immediately scrolling past it as an ad.
So the next time TikTok plays a big part in your campaign and you’re coming up with your plan of execution:
- consider how your ads are personalised to your audience
- check the key content of your ads isn’t out of shot
- tailor your content for the platform
- and leave the stock muzak at home!
This will all help strengthen your campaign and get you closer to those all-important KPIs!
At Arke, we’re experts in creating award-winning creative, and we can help get your ads back on track to a whirlwind of conversions. Get cracking creating some record-breaking advertising with Arke this new year… is your creative due a refresh?
