TikTok’s latest ad product rollout aims to make creators’ (and advertisers’) lives easier — for the most part
Creators are having a hard time right now: canceled deals, stretched payment terms, even revenue shake ups from the platforms. It’s tough times for anyone in the content-making business. But it doesn’t have to be, according to TikTok. Or more to the point, it won’t be if creators work with the short-form video app. That’s the gist of the latest ad product rollout from TikTok.
TikTok’s branded content collaborations platform, TikTok Creator Marketplace (TTCM), has launched a ton of new updates, which aim to help brands find and activate creators at scale, as well as measure and optimize campaign performance.
According to Brian David Crane, founder of digital advertising agency Spread Great Ideas, branded effects and branded hashtag challenges, which are designed to boost user engagement as well as influencer collaborations, make TikTok a preferred advertising medium for most businesses.
“Since advertising is budget-friendly, and most of its video content consists of user-generated videos that get a natural click rate, most new businesses prefer TikTok over other platforms,” he said.
According to data collected by Statista, TikTok’s global ad revenue is forecast to reach $5.04 billion by the end of 2022, increasing to $6.4 billion by 2023 and $8.2 billion by 2024. In comparison, Facebook made nearly $115 billion from advertising last year. Closing that gap won’t be straightforward.
Digiday’s own research found TikTok still lags behind the top runners (think Facebook, Instagram and YouTube), when it comes to marketers’ confidence that the platform drives marketing success. To compare, 52% of marketers said they’re confident Facebook drives marketing success, 42% cited confidence in Instagram and 41% noted YouTube, while only 28% felt reassured by TikTok.
With that in mind, it’s no wonder TikTok has decided to now up its game with timely updates to its ads business alongside another play to entice more creators to the app.
The platform stated its new updates include:
- TTCM match: a recommendation functionality that the platform claims generates lists of creators based on a brand’s brief in under 10 seconds.
- Open application campaigns, which are available across the U.S., the U.K., Canada and Australia through invites. These allow brands to post details of upcoming campaigns on the TTCM platform so creators can apply.
- Invite links allow brands and agencies to work with any creator (provided they’re over the age of 18), including creators that are not part of TTCM.
- A gaming anchor, which enables gaming creators to add iOS or Android app store links to download games to their content as well as a comment anchor, which allows creators to add and pin clickable links to the top of comments — meaning viewers can get the lowdown on the product or service featured in their videos.
And for the brand advertisers out there, TTCM now provides branded content metrics, including audience overlap, audience interest distribution and spark ads campaign dates, so advertisers can better analyze performance and audiences.
“Audience is one part of the success brands find on TikTok, as the user number keeps growing and content gets more and more mature, advertisers are always able to find their target audience on TikTok,” said Crane. “The format of TikTok ads and the company gene of performance ads capabilities (the algorithm) keeps the performance budget growing, while the advertisers’ branding budget grows with the user base.”
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