In recent years, TikTok has become one of the leading platforms in the market. The platform allows users to record videos of up to 10 minutes in the app and upload videos of up to 60 minutes on any possible topic, and more than a billion monthly active users use the app across more than 150 countries worldwide. As advertisers, we are constantly looking to reach new audiences, and TikTok certainly enables us to do so. The main interest in this promotion is showing our ads in the feed, which enhances our advantage for excellent reach. Its advertising options are diverse, and in this article, we will review them and even learn how to build our first campaign, so let’s get started.
How to set up a TikTok Ads Manager account
1. In the first stage, we will want to open an account in TikTok Ads Manager, go to the following link and register here.
You can also sign up with your existing TikTok account and verify your registration via email
2. Fill in the remaining details in the next window: country, industry, business name, phone number (currently, only USD currency can be selected)
3. After filling in your details, a window will open where you will need to enter your website address and billing address.
We will choose the Automatic Payment method because we want the charge to occur automatically each time we reach a certain spending threshold.
4. Now you need to choose which mode suits your business needs best. Custom mode will provide you with a wide range of customization options within your ad groups and ads, while Simple mode allows you to create quick ads in less than five minutes. We recommend using Custom mode whenever possible to have broader control over your campaigns:
5. Now that the account is set up, we will build our first campaign, but before that, let’s head to Account Settings at the top of the screen
6. Let’s make sure all our details are filled in correctly across the various tabs and that we haven’t missed any details; if everything is fine, we will see the approved status Good to go!
Common reasons why an ad account is not approved:
– Make sure the website link you entered is valid
– It is forbidden to advertise policy-violating websites such as: cigarettes, tobacco, knives, and more
You can read about TikTok’s policy here in their advertising guidelines
7. Next, we will enter our payment details. We will do this in the second tab under Account Settings in the Payments:
We can pay by credit card or with PayPal
Now everything is set up and we’ll proceed to creating our first campaign
How to create our first campaign on TikTok
1. Under the Campaign tab at the top of the screen, choose Create
2. Now choose the campaign type:
There are several types of campaigns: Reach, Traffic, App Installs, Conversions, Video Views, Lead Generation, or even gaining followers or visits to our TikTok page, all according to your goals. At the bottom of the screen, we will choose a name for the campaign, and we can choose the A/B testing option, if we want to test 2 different variations for the same campaign. Another option we will encounter is choosing a campaign budget optimization (CBO) just like Facebook offers.
Important Note – TikTok requires us to allocate a minimum daily budget of $50 per campaign. This means that even if we choose a lifetime budget, we will need to define a target of $50 per day (for example, for 10 days we will need to choose a budget of $500)
* Please note: if we want to select a conversion campaign, we will need to create a TikTok pixel and embed it on your website via Events Manager. For a guide on how to install a TikTok pixel, click here
3. On the next screen, name our ad group (usually we will use the name of the audience we will work with) and start configuring the campaign
Placements
4. Now we will want to choose where to display our ads, either an automatic placement option or a manual selection containing TikTok and 2 other apps that are subsidiary apps of TikTok. Not all placements will be available for advertising; it highly depends on the creative, audience, and the country we target.
With automatic placements, our ads will be placed as TikTok sees fit; I recommend choosing manual placements on TikTok only for now.
You can choose whether users will be able to comment on your TikTok ads and whether they can download your video:
We can also choose whether we want users to comment on our ads, and even whether users can download the video to their phone or computer.
Creative Type
5. We can decide whether to optimize our creative. The system will ask us for multiple images/texts and will display them in different variations until it finds the winning ad.
* This option can burn through your money quite quickly, so we recommend avoiding checking this option
Audience
6. Here we can see 4 different targeting options based on audiences who know us, page engagement, interests, and demographics.
You can see a detailed breakdown of the different targeting types on TikTok in an article we wrote on the website
Budget
7. At the beginning of the article, we mentioned that a minimum budget of $50 per day is required for a campaign. In addition, the minimum for an ad group is $20 per day. We can choose whether we want a daily or lifetime budget, whether to schedule the ad group, set an end date, and whether to run the ads at specific times of the day:
Bidding and Optimization
8. There are three types of optimization for your campaign: Conversion, Click, and Reach.
The optimization will be determined according to the campaign type you selected (in a traffic campaign you can optimize for clicks, and in conversions optimize for conversions)
Bid types:
The bidding strategy is very similar to Facebook:
Lowest Cost – The system will try to achieve the best results within the budget we set
Cost Cap – The system will try to keep the cost per result around the bid we set or less; we will be asked to set a bid in the tab that opens. Drawback – this option does not guarantee utilizing the full daily budget
Bid Cap – We will set a maximum amount the system can spend to achieve a specific result, such as impressions or clicks. With this bid, the system will attempt to optimize accordingly. Supported advertising objectives for this option: impressions, video views, or conversions (conversions only when the optimization goal is set to clicks)
It is recommended to choose Lowest Cost as a starting point
Creating the first ad for your TikTok campaign
9. After we have finished setting up the audience and budget stage, we will move on to creating our ad. First, we will choose a name for our ad. Then we will need to authenticate with our TikTok account; if you didn’t do this when signing up, you will need to connect your account now. If you do not have an account and do not wish to open one, you can choose a display name to work with.
In the next step, we will decide whether to choose an image ad or a video ad. TikTok only supports video, but if you chose other placements, you can select an image format.
Creating a Video Ad
10. We will upload a video to the system, using one of 3 different options:
– Upload a video from our computer (this can be a video we created on TikTok and saved to the computer) or any other video you want (does not have to be an edited TikTok video)
– Upload a video we previously created through an ad account
– Use TikTok’s Creative area (ready-made templates that you can add content to, smart video generation – these tools are still in beta, so it is not recommended to use them yet)
* Make sure the video is up to one minute long and it is recommended to upload it in Story format, rather than a square image
In the example I uploaded a regular video, after uploading the video we will see the following options:
1. Choose a preview image for the video (thumbnail)
2. You can edit the video through TikTok’s editor; here we can choose various editing options including adding a background song, text, filters, stickers, and more
In the next step, we will need to write ad copy of up to 100 characters. The text will appear at the bottom left of the ad. It is recommended not to use overly long text because TikTok mainly focuses on delivering content through the video, and a minute is plenty of time, so if you manage to create great value in your video, exposure will increase and the conversion potential will too.
You can also use the Smart Text feature, where you enter the topic of your ad to get creative ideas (works in English only)
11. Now we will choose a Call to Action – there are several options: Read More, Shop Now, Contact Us; match the call to action to your campaign goals
In the last part, we will place a link to the destination website. It is recommended to use UTM tracking so the data enters Google Analytics (you can read more in our guide What is UTM)
12. After completing all these settings, we can successfully publish the campaign and take it live
Tips
- You can separate audiences into different ad sets to test which audience performs better.
- It is recommended to launch with 2-3 ads per audience, so that if one ad doesn’t perform well, we have additional ads to test as well.
- Always set up a pixel before starting; it will make measuring data much easier.
- Creative is king – videos with value! That’s how you’ll get higher reach and click-through rates.
- TikTok is a multi-user platform; many kids use TikTok today and are quick to tap. Try to avoid reaching audiences that include kids, as their attention is not effective for us, and they are usually not our target audience.
- Don’t give up – even if you are super confident that the campaign is going to be a huge success and you don’t see progress, keep testing additional ads and audiences to see what works more efficiently and direct the best of our budget there.
Summary
In this article, we explained how to set up your first TikTok campaign, how to decide on the budget type, and how to upload ads. TikTok’s advertising system is very reminiscent of other platforms, but it is quite simple and user-friendly. Through the platform, we can promote products, generate leads, and more, reaching new audiences. It is recommended to test the platform to distribute your marketing budget across several different platforms. Good luck!
About the Author
Ben Knaani, 26 years old, lives in central Tel Aviv, manages digital campaigns
across various channels. Sports is a way of life!
