ArabClicks’ Affiliate Marketer’s Guide to TikTok Ads

How to Create TikTok Video Ads Campaigns

1. Create a TikTok Ads Manager account at TikTok for Business

   A. Go to www.tiktok.com/business and click “Get Started”. Create your advanced TikTok for digital marketers account.
   You can create either:
   ■ Business account – to promote your products or services.
   ■ Individual account – to market your personal website, app page, specific landing page, specific post, etc.
   
   B. Include your geographic location and how you intend to make money online with TikTok.
   
   
   
   

2. Create your TikTok campaign Using TikTok Marketing Basics

   Click on “Campaign” and then “Create”.
   
   
   
   

3. Set your TikTok Ads Goal

   Remember! The Affiliate Marketer’s Guide to TikTok Ads 2020 allows you to make money online with TikTok by setting campaign goals that will determine future optimal campaign settings including:
   ■ Types of proposed ads (video or images)
   ■ Placements of the ads to be published on the TikTok platform and in the partner applications.
   
   TikTok Ads Campaign Goals
   By setting your goals for your TikTok Ads Campaign you’ll be better able to make money online with TikTok. Goales include:
   
   1. Enhance Brand Awareness
   Increase your brand’s reach.
   
   2. Increase Exposure of your Product / Service
   
   Main objective: Increase traffic to your site.
   – Sub-goal: Inspire viewers to take action.
   
   Main objective: Encourage viewers to download your application.
   – Sub-goal: Draw TikTok users to your landing page.
   
   Main objective: Increase number of video views.
   – Sub-goal: Maximize number of video ad views.
   
   3. Increase conversions
   Energize potential customers into taking action: buy your products / services, download the app, and more.
   Refer potential customers to your personal website, or retarget customers who have visited your site.
   
   
   
   

4. Define your TikTok campaign settings and budget

   Pick a strong name for your TikTok ads campaign.
   The name of your TikTok ads campaign must be clear so that you can distinguish the campaign content and purpose and compare it with other campaigns.
   
   

5. Use A/B Testing (Optional)

   Use A/B testing to assess the performance of specific ads or ad groups in your TikTok ad campaign. Test the performance of an ads/ad group on two different target audiences and then adopt the settings that were the most successful for future ads. Presently, the A/B test can only be used on the targeting factor.
   
   
   
   

6. Set your TikTok Ads campaign Budget

   TikTok marketing basics allow you to control the total budget for your TikTok ads campaign. There are also separate budgets for the different levels.
   For the TikTok ads themselves, you bid to improve your ads’ performance within a predetermined budget.
   
   Types of campaign budgets for TikTok ads
   
   1) Unlimited budget
   No restrictions on budgeting at the first level of the campaign.
   
   2) Total Budget/Lifetime Budget
   Total maximum budget that you want to spend on a specific campaign or ad group during a pre-defined period. To be specified when selecting the budget. TikTok will spread the budget over the period specified, though there’s no guarantee that this will be done evenly from one day to the next. Daily spending may vary from one day to the next according to your bid strategy and your target audience. Spending may increase with the number of clicks and impressions on any given day. Spending through the campaign might not meet your maximum budget.
   
   3) Daily Budget
   Determines the maximum daily spend for your campaign for the period specified. As with the Total Budget/Lifetime Budget, your daily spend may vary from one day to the next.
   
   ? Minimum Budget – TikTok Ads minimum budget is:
   ■ General Campaign Budget (First level) – at least $50/per day (or the equivalent in local currency)
   ■ Ad Group Budget (Second Level) – at least $20/per day (or the equivalent in local currency).
   
   Specify your budget and then click “Continue.”
   
   
   
   

7. Add New Ad Group

   1️⃣ Name your new ad group
   
   2️⃣ Determine the location in which you want your TikTok ads to display (Placements):
   ▣ Automatic placements – The system distributes the display of your TikTok ads on the TikTok platform (In-Feed) and on all partner applications  in a way that helps you achieve the goal of your campaign.
   ▣ Select Placements – You choose where on the TikTok platform and in partner apps you want your ads to appear.
   
   
   
   

8. Set You TikTok Ads Campaign Details

   If the promotional campaign type is not determined automatically according to the main objective of the TikTok campaign that you have set, you can choose between two types of promotion campaigns:
   
   ? App install – Get your target audiences to download the app you’re promoting.
   
   ? Website – Refer target audiences to your website or landing page. As you move to more Advanced TikTok for digital marketers, you can retarget customers who have visited your site or landing page in the past.
   
   ? To start your campaign, enter:
   ▣ App name / brand name – type the app name (4-40 characters) or the brand name (2-20 characters) that will be shown in the ad.
   ▣ Profile Image – The profile picture is part of the TikTok ad that will be shown to TikTok fans. The aspect ratio should be 1: 1 and the size should not exceed 50KB.
   ▣ Category – Choose the category that best expresses your promotional campaign. This will improve the display performance of your TikTok ads according to the advertising model used by the TikTok system.
   ▣ Ad Tags – hashtags (up to 20 tags) including App, Video, etc. Hashtags are used by the platform’s algorithms so that your TikTok ads display to viewers interested in your activity or content.
   ▣ User Comments – feature can be turned on or off, depending on whether you want TikTok fans to comment on your ads.
   ▣ Banning Video Download (currently available only in Japan) – disallows TikTok viewers from downloading your video.
   
   
   
   

9. Set You TikTok Ads Campaign Creative

   TikTok’s “Automated Creative Optimization” tool can be enabled to create ads that combine images, videos, texts and calls-to-action. The feature allows you to save time and effort while achieving ads designed to give you the top results.
   
   If you want to create TikTok Ads and ad groups yourself, don’t enable the feature. You can’t revise the mode, meaning that if you enable the tool, you can’t disable it.
   
   
   
   

10. Targeting

    The Affiliate Marketer’s Guide to TikTok Ads 2020 directs marketers to define the TikTok users (customers) you want to target specifically. You have multiple criteria and classifications that you can use to target specific audiences and make money online with TikTok.
    
    
    
    

11. Target Audience – Create your own audience in TikTok Ads campaign (optional)

    Audiences are TikTok and partner app users. 
    
    To create your own audience, you can select users who have interacted with your content (TikTok ads), visited your website, or shown awareness of you in the past.
    
    
    
    

12. Target Audience – Create custom audience of potential customers in TikTok Ads Campaign (optional)

    Click on “Create New” to go to the Audiences creation page. To get your ads shown to the largest possible number of potential customers, click “Narrow Targeting.” TikTok’s algorithms will show your ads to the largest audience possible.
    
    ▣ Customer File – use your customer profile and upload it to an account in TikTok Ads Manager. It will be  matched with appropriate TikTok users who are then converted into a custom audience.
    
    ▣ Engagement interaction – identify users who have interacted with your TikTok ads (or the content of your ads) in the past (they clicked them or viewed them). This method is recommended because you’ll be reaching the very people who are interested in what you have to offer.
    
    ▣ App Activity Action – identify users who have used the app you are promoting and have either performed a specific process or made a purchase with the app.
    
    ▣ Website visitors – identify customers who have visited your website in the past and interacted with the site in one way or another.
    TikTok algorithms take the targets that you create and then expand on them to help you discover additional audiences who have commonalities with the Lookalike Audience that you created.
    TikTok recommends that the LookAlike Audience that you create include at least 100,000 customers.
    
    TikTok algorithms take the targets that you create and then expand on them to help you discover additional audiences who have commonalities with the Lookalike Audience that you created.
    TikTok recommends that the LookAlike Audience that you create include at least 100,000 customers.
    
    
    
    

13. Traget Demographics

    Demographics to be determined in your TikTok Ads campaign include:
    ■ Geographical location
    ■ Gender
    ■ Age Group
    ■ Language
    
    
    
    

14. Target Categories and Smart Devices

    ▶ Category – determine your content’s category so your ads will be displayed to audiences who are interested in your product/service. If you want your ads to be displayed to a wider audience, don’t specify a category.
    ▶ Smart Devices – When targeting smart devices you can specify the
    ■ Operating system
    ■ Type of Internet connection (telecommunications networks or Wi-Fi)
    ■ Price
    This is important if you want to promote an application that does not work on all operating systems, or a device that supports 5G and/or other communications network.
    
    
    
    

15. Budget and Schedule

    If you haven’t set your budget yet, do so now.
    Schedule the budget and the ad group according to the way that you want the budget to be spent (starting and ending date). Alternatively, you can set a campaign launch date with no specific campaign end date so the campaign will continue until the budget is spent.
    You can schedule your TikTok ads to run all day or at specific times of the day (click “Select Specific Time”).
    
    
    
    

16. Determing Your Bidding Strategy

    First, determine your Optimization Goal based on the main goal of your TikTok ad campaign.
    Then, determine your Bidding Strategy. Your bidding strategy is determined by the type of TikTok ad campaign you’re launching and its primary goal.
    
    TikTok offers four different bidding strategies:
    
    ✅ CPC (Cost Per Click)
    A bid based on the maximum cost you want to pay for each click shown to potential customers. Optimal strategy for advertisers looking for increased exposure. 
    
    ✅ OCPC (Optimized Cost Per Click)
    The maximum cost that you are willing to pay for each referral (conversion) or (result). Bidding targets  conversions, but TikTok actually charges you for the number of clicks. Optimal strategy for advertisers looking for increases in conversions.
    
    ✅ CPM (Cost Per Mille/Thousand Impressions)
    The maximum cost that you are willing to pay for every thousand impressions. For advertisers who want their ads to be shown to the largest number of viewers to increase Reach.
    
    ✅ CPV (Cost Per Thousand Views)
    The maximum cost that you want to pay for every thousand views of 2 seconds, 6 seconds or the entire ad. For advertisers who want their video ad to be shown to the largest number of customers to achieve the largest number of overall views.
    
    
    
    

17. Video Ads With Optimal Specifications and Sizes

    As mentioned, there are two types of TikTok Ads –
    ▣ Video ads
    ▣ Picture ads
    
    It is worth noting that the TikTok platform does not support images ads though they are displayed in partner applications. To create video ads on TikTok, you can upload a ready-made video from your computer or create a new video. After uploading or creating the video, you can fill in all the ad details and “Submit”.
    
    ? Video Specefications
    ▣ Duration:  5 – 60 seconds. Recommended duration: at least 9 seconds and no more than 15 seconds.
    ▣ Aspect Ratio: 16:9, 9:16, 1:1.
    ▣ Video Resolution (in pixels): Greater than or equal to 720 x 1280, greater or equal to 1280 x 720, greater or equal to 640 x 640.
    ▣ Bit Rate: Not less than 516 kbps.
    ▣ Type and size: not to exceed 500 MB of mp4, mov, Mpeg, 3gp, avi.
    
    ? Ad content:
    ▣ Creative – The video must have background music
    ▣ Display Image or Thumbnail – Should be 1:1 aspect ratio, 50 KB, Jpg, jpeg And png. You can choose from among the suggested images from the video that you create or upload.
    ▣ Ad Name – You can choose a name or accept the suggested TikTok name automatically.
    ▣ App Name – 4-40 characters including punctuation and spaces. Emojis cannot be used.
    ▣ Brand or publisher name – 2-20 characters including punctuation and spaces. Emojis cannot be used.
    ▣ Ad Description – 12-100 characters, including punctuation and spaces. Emojis cannot be used. 
    ▣ Call-to-Action (CTA)
    
    ? Placements: In the feed and partner apps.
    
    
    
    

18. Business Details and Payment

    Complete your business details & Choose your payment method:
    ■ Business name details
    ■ Contact Information
    ■ Tax Information
    ■ Information to verify your business
    ■ Payment Method
    
    
    
    

19. Monitor and Track Your TikTok Ads Campaigns

    After  you create and launch your TikTok campaign you can track the campaign on all three levels:
    ▶ Campaign
    ▶ Ads Group
    ▶ Ads
    
    Monitoring the performance of your TikTok campaigns allows you to continue to improve your performance by:
    ■ Optimizing bids
    ■ Adjusting the overall campaign budget
    ■ Targeting additional audiences
    ■ Modifying targeting methods
    ■ Customizing the display of data to suit your goals
    ■ Adding filters and labels
    
    
    
    

20. Use TikTok Dashboard

    You can monitor the performance of all of your marketing and promotional activities on the TikTok Dashboard –
    with downloadable and editable charts that provide data about:
    ■ The overall performance of your campaigns
    ■ Your campaign status
    ■ Overall spend and bids
    ■ Total clicks
    ■ Total conversions
    ■ CTR
    
    
    
    

21. Use TikTok Reports

    You can go to the Reporting Page to create reports that monitor the performance of your TikTok campaigns according to the levels and dimensions on which you want to focus including:
    ■ Campaigns
    ■ Ad groups
    ■ Ads
    ■ Ad positions
    ■ Metrics of CPC, CPM and CTR