TikTok Ad Formats: With these 6 Steps to Your TikTok Campaign

1. TikTok Video Specifications
2. TikTok Ad placements & Formats
3. Which placement is good for branding and which for performance marketing?
4. Campaign strategies for performance ads in the in-feed placement
5. Optimization objectives for conversion campaigns
6. Tips & Tricks for successful TikTok campaigns
7. Conclusion
8. The matching tools you can use for your social media

TikTok is a social media platform that has taken the world by storm. Millions of users spend hours every day creating and watching short videos on TikTok. With this reach and popularity, the platform offers a variety of advertising opportunities for businesses to reach their target audiences.

As an advertiser, TikTok can be used for branding as well as for Performance Marketing. We at Ecom Labs have already set up many advertising accounts on TikTok for e-commerce brands and generated some learnings from the formats & campaign types. Our guest author Timo Sailer gives you an insight.

TikTok Video Specifications

The TikTok platform is characterized by short-lived vertical videos. The TikTok feed consists exclusively of 9:16 videos. 

Therefore, most video ad formats are also kept in 9:16. Although there is also the possibility to use other aspect ratios, but portrait format is the way to go.

The specifications for TikTok videos:

• Aspect ratio: 9:16, 1:1, 16:9
• Video format: .mp4, .mpeg, .mov, .avi
• Resolution: 720 × 1280 pixels, 640 × 640 pixels, 1280 × 720 pixels
• Duration: 60 seconds
• File size: Max 500 MB
• Text: 12 - 100 characters, ideally one should keep the description relatively short as it is truncated after a length of about 70-80 characters.

TikTok profile danielamonida

TikTok Ad placements & Formats

TikTok offers similar to Meta various ad placements & formats, i.e. at what point and how your ad is displayed.

The different ad formats have different advantages for certain marketing goals.

The “classic” in-feed placement

The in-feed video ads are advertisements that appear in the user's feed just like on Instagram & Facebook. This is the “classic” form, as the ads simply “swim along” with all the other videos in the feed. They can be up to 60 seconds long and appear as “Sponsored” or “Promotion” marked videos.

This format is suitable for all advertising objectives and should be part of any marketing strategy.

Example TikTok In-Feed Video

TikTok Brand Takeovers

These are full-screen ads that are displayed when opening the TikTok app. They are a full-screen ad as a 3-5 second GIF or as a three-second still or video without sound.

TikTok TopView placement

The TopView format is somewhat similar to a classic TV advertisement. With this placement, your advertising video is shown to users as the first video when opening the TikTok app.

The difference to Brand Takeovers is that Top View ads are reduced to an in-feed video at the top of the For-You-Page after five seconds. They can be up to 60 seconds long.

You can use this format to leave a strong branding effect. It is definitely the placement with takeovers that attracts the most attention.

TikTok Top-Feed placement

Top-Feed is an option for Reach & Frequency campaigns. Your video ad gets the first advertising slot in the TikTok feed of the users when they open the app.

D. h. In contrast to the TopView placement, where the video ads are displayed when opening the app, before the user gets to their actual feed, your ad appears in the TopFeed placement after a few “normal” videos in the feed.

TikTok Branded-Hashtag-Challenge

The power of hashtags is no longer a secret today. A hashtag challenge, on the other hand, challenges users to imitate a certain video concept. These challenges have often caused a stir in recent years. That's why TikTok created the Branded Hashtag Challenge as an ad format.

D. h. These are interactive advertising campaigns where users are asked to create videos that use a certain hashtag. The campaign can be created by a company or a brand and aims to start a viral challenge on TikTok. The TikTok Case Study of the Brand Simmons about their Branded Hashtag Challenge shows how this ad format works.

Example TikTok Hashtags

TikTok Branded-Effect

Branded effects are filters or lenses that brands can create as part of their advertising campaigns on TikTok. I.e. in cooperation with TikTok, a separate effect is created for the brand. This filter can then be used by the brand or users to create videos. This format can be a great, interactive branding measure.

Examples of Branded Effects:

• An effect to try out makeup colors and styles
• An effect to put on different hats or change hair color
• An effect to “stick on” a sticker, e.g. the brand logo as a sticker that is “stuck” onto an object in the video

Which placement is good for branding and which for performance marketing?

Branding

• TopView
• TopFeed
• Branded Hashtag
• Branded Effect
• In-Feed

Performance

• In-Feed

For branding purposes, all ad formats & placements are ultimately suitable. Here, of course, you can run very creative campaigns through the options that TikTok offers, which have a long-lasting effect on the users. Ideally, you should run a combination of the formats.

When it comes to performance marketing, I recommend a strong focus on the classic in-feed placement. Because this format can be managed most simply and individually via the ad manager just like with Meta.

Campaign strategies for performance ads in the in-feed placement

For most e-commerce brands, performance marketing is the most important part of their online marketing strategy. Therefore, I will show you here the best campaign strategies for a strong performance of your ads on TikTok. First, we distinguish between the CBO & ABO campaign types.

ABO and CBO campaigns on TikTok

ABO stands for “Adset Budget Optimization”. In the ABO campaign, you can set an individual budget within each ad group of the campaign to ensure that each ad group spends exactly the budget you have set for it.

CBO stands for “Campaign Budget Optimization” and is an advertising campaign in which the campaign budget is distributed across different ad groups. The budget is then automatically allocated to the best performing ad groups to achieve the best result. Unlike the ABO campaign, the budget is established at the level of the overall campaign.

Both types of campaigns have their advantages and disadvantages and can be used depending on the advertiser's objectives and budget. 

• CBO campaigns are easier to use and are good for advertisers who want to manage their campaigns with as little time as possible.
• With ABO campaigns you have more control and flexibility, but you also have to put more time & energy into managing your campaigns.

In the further course, I will give you guidelines on when to use which campaign type.

Settings Campaign Level

Bid strategies for campaigns

The Lowest Cost Bid Strategy

The Lowest Cost setting is the basic option for creating TikTok ads, where TikTok tries to select the best ad placements with the lowest possible bid. 

This option makes your campaigns the most predictable as your stated daily or lifetime budget is adhered to.

I recommend this bid strategy for most cases as it works wonderfully and is simple. Only from four-digit advertising budgets per day can you think about other bid strategies.

Adgroup Level

The Cost Cap Bid Strategy

With the Cost Cap strategy, you define a bid with which you bid on ad placements. The higher your bid, the greater your chance of getting good ad placements. The problem is that this does not mean that you achieve more conversions as a result. 

I recommend this option for advanced users with higher advertising budgets. You can achieve very fast and profitable scaling with it, but you can also quickly burn a lot of money. Furthermore, your advertising budget is not necessarily predictably spent. Because if your bid is too low for certain days, sometimes no budget is spent, or even the whole daily budget is spent in a few hours. D. h. It requires more work and monitoring.

Adgroup Level – Cost-Cap Bid Strategy

Optimization objectives for conversion campaigns

You can choose between the standard setting “Conversions” and “Value” or “Value”.

Optimization objective Conversion 

TikTok tries by default to play out your ads in such a way that as many users as possible perform an action e.g. a purchase. This setting is the standard and works very well in most cases. 

Optimization Goal Value

If you choose the option “Value”, you indicate to TikTok to achieve a certain value per conversion. TikTok's algorithm then tries to play out your ads in such a way that your campaign achieves the highest possible conversion value. I.e., it tries to reach users who tend to spend more money on an order than others.

This is a good option if you market higher priced products like jewelry.

Adgroup Level – Choose Value

Tips & Tricks for successful TikTok campaigns

Everything stands and falls with your video ads. The more you test here and the better you understand your target group, the better your results will be, no matter which campaign strategies you pursue.

But I want to show you a simple approach here, with which you can easily use all the options for yourself.

1. To test video ads, to find well functioning videos, I recommend you to create the normal ABO campaigns, with the standard lowest cost bid strategy.
2. Once you have found video ads that work well, you can bundle these in a new ABO campaign with Lowest-Cost bid. I.e., you put all the good video ads in one ad group. That is then your “Winner Adgroup”.
3. If this campaign starts well, you can create a CBO campaign in which you again only use your best videos.
4. With this set-up, you are well taken care of up to almost four-figure advertising budgets per day.
5. If you want to scale further, you can try the Cost-Cap bid strategy or try the optimization objective “Value”. Simply create a new ABO campaign each time, use your best video ads again and change the setting.

This set-up works wonderfully as long as you diligently test new videos in step 1. That is the decisive point.

Standard Campaign Setup for TikTok

Conclusion

Regardless of which option you choose, it is important to understand your target group and your goals in order to create a successful TikTok campaign. Consider what type of content and ads are most appealing to your target audience and how you can best achieve your goals. 

With the right strategy and execution, TikTok campaigns can be an effective way to promote your business and reach your target audience.

Keep it simple! Don't worry too much about all the options you have. It all comes down to the content. That's why focus on that and work your way along the mentioned six steps.

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