Table of contents

1. Why you SHOULD be advertising onTikTok

2. The Biggest Challenge With TikTok Ads in 2022

3. How Our Client Almost Gave Up on TikTok Ads

4. The Secret Fix That Solved The Attribution Problem

5. Experimenting With Performance Reporting

6. Watch The ROAS Double As Revenue Skyrockets

7. How you can crack the TikTok advertising game – X steps

8. BONUS: CS*3 formula to go viral on TikTok

1. Why NOW is better than EVER to be on TikTok.

Unlike on Instagram or YouTube, the TikTok algorithm makes it possible for an account with no followers to make a new video viral and get millions of views. Of course the engagement will follow as long as the content appeals to the audience, 

Also, TikTok has really low CPMs (which determine the cost of advertising). Compared to Facebook you can benefit from CPMs at half the cost of Facebook, or, in other words: you can reach 50% more people with the same budget. 

The key thing on TikTok is creativity so you can’t just copy-paste ads from Facebook and hope they will do the job, they likely won’t. As TikTok advocates “Don’t make ads, make TikToks”.

A few other reasons to advertise on TikTok:

• The power of Influencer marketing is bigger than anywhere else
• Virality: you can get from 0 to a million views literally overnight
• Low CPMs make TikTok a cheaper alternative to other advertising avenues
• You can re-use the content  on other channels
• Great targeting (keyword search, creator targeting)
• Many ad formats (Top View ads, Brand Takeover ads, In-Feed Ads, Branded Hashtag Challenge)
• Engagement on the app is super high, making it easy to drive consumer advocacy

2. The biggest challenge with TikTok ads in 2022

From the advertiser’s perspective, the basic browser-based (pixel) tracking of website events for Tik Tok visitors is one of the biggest issues. We just don’t know if our ads are converting. And if so, which one converts best. It’s like walking through the dark, foggy, muddy path, not easy I must say. 

Why is TikTok tracking so bad? Like Facebook, and other advertising platforms TikTok relies on in-app events (good tracking) but also out of the app’s event (worse tracking through Pixel).

Once a visitor leaves the Tik Tok app only a fraction of visitors can be successfully tracked post-click to the website. You probably have heard this  a million times since last year but it’s all because of iOS 14.5 update. The Apple’s policy update cut out access to around 50% of all conversions. Each marketer / eCom business owner lost visibility to around 50% of conversion events. That’s why it’s harder to attribute conversions properly.

3. Case Study: How Our Client Almost Gave Up On TikTok Ads Before Hitting 3.5 ROAS

We work with a long-term client who has perfect products to promote on TikTok but they were not familiar with the benefits of the platform, nor the huge amount of traffic it attracts. 

After we provided some insights into the potential of the platform and the suitability of his product range, he was excited to jump on the opportunity. 

We were excited and then, boom – the TikTok platform reporting’s ROAS was disappointingly below 1.0x (i.e. a negative return) for the two weeks in a row. 

We  tested multiple winning audiences, creatives, angles and even offers. But nothing came close to delivering the target ROAS we were aiming for in the platform’s reporting.

Having dealt with cases like this before, our team was far from panicking. We knew that the sales were actually much higher than it’d appear in the books.  What was messed up though, was the attribution. After we reassured the client it wasn’t that uncommon, we quickly got down to work to address the issue. 

We have seen a trend of increased Shopify incremental revenue with increased Tik Tok spend. We were confident that TikTok was bringing a much higher volume of sales than reported. We just weren’t able to prove it with clear attribution. 

At this point the client was reconsidering whether the platform could even work for his products. But with some brainstorming, we came up with the simplest solution to improve TikTok sales attribution.

4. The Secret Fix That Solved The Attribution Problem

We pivoted from evaluating complex technical solutions with third party tools to improve tracking by simply asking people who finalized a purchase: “how did you find our store”. Simple? Yes. Effective? Hell yes! 

Launching a post-purchase survey took us 15 minutes using the enquirelabs.com app. One question, a few multiple-choice options – that’s all, and then, an anxious wait for the replies to come in!

Finally, as more and more responses were received, the picture became clear – Shopify and TikTok were indeed missing sales attributions to Tik Tok. With a 43% response rate to the survey, we saw a lot more sales attributed to TikTok than Shopfiy or TikTok Ads Manager were showing. And that’s only 43% of purchasers responding to the survey.

5. Experimenting With Performance Reporting

Without clear information about the channel performance we had to improvise with reporting. So we merged UTM tracking from Google Analytics, UTM tracking from Shopify, revenue per channel from Shopify, TikTok ads manager and  of course, our survey replies. 

We knew it wouldn’t be a perfect attribution but our main goal was to identify winning Tik Tok ads and to have a degree of confidence  that as we increased spend on TikTok – we’d get more revenue in Shopify, generating a healthy return on spend.

6. Watch The ROAS Double As Revenue Skyrockets

With proof that TikTok ads were actually working we had the client was more comfortable with the Tik Tok ad spend and the potential to grow the channel profitably.

But then the question was – can we use the TikTok’s algorithms to increase the ROAS and therefore profit? Can we do so without accurate attribution in the Tik Tok business manager??

With all the data we gathered from ads manager, Shopify, UTM’s, and survey replies we knew we were doing 2x – 2.5x ROAS on TikTok alone. With a Breakeven ROAS of 1.6x, we were profitable all the time with a pretty nice profit margin. Gathering proper and enough data gave us confidence that we were achieving ROAS goals while remaining profitable. Then, it was time for scaling without losing that profitability.

7. How To Master TikTok Advertising in 10 Steps

7a – Don’t Make This Mistake When Creating A New Account 

This step is similar to Facebook ad creation, and it’s super simple. If you need help though, you can find many guides on how to do it.

One thing to remember is to select the right country of registration. As of April 2022, you can’t, for example,  advertise in the US with a Europe-based account.

7b – do you have TikTok-ready creatives?

Believe it or not but TikTok is all about creatives, really.  As TikTok advocates: “don’t make ads, make TikToks”. This means you don’t need any fancy technical tactics, so common on Facebook a few years back.

All you need is a bunch of good creatives and TikTok will do the rest.  Make sure you have a good , scroll-stopping hook, a proper angle (message) to convince people of the value of your product/brand and a clear call-to-action (you want that traffic, right?!).

7c –5 Proven Ways To Improve Tracking

Without proper tracking in place, all your efforts will go in vain, so here comes the most meaty part of the post. Implementing the points below will help you identify where you’re at with advertising ROI.

• Set up server-side / API tracking
• Have proper UTM’s applied in each ad
• Install the TikTok app on Shopify
• You can use attribution apps like TripleWhale
• Follow this instruction to find last, but not least tracking recommendations that will change how you approach Tiktok ads!

7d – Time To Set Up Your First Campaign (setup, bidding, audiences)

If there was one thing to remember from this section, then it’s this: don’t over-complicate things. If you’re just starting with TikTok ads, use default settings whenever possible. Put more focus on creatives and play around with different targeting (have at least 3 ad sets with different audiences). In the account set-up phase, targeting is what will give you the highest leverage so for the time being— you can forget all other “advanced” strategies. Leave it for the future.

• Broad targeting – if you don’t have a gender or age-group specific product use broad and let TikTok and your creative to sieve target audiences from all the rest. Believe me, it works especially well for products that fit everyone needs.
• Keyword targeting – TikTok launched its own “Google Ads” inside of TikTok. What does it mean? Studies have shown that many TikTok users use it as a browser. They put in, for example, “what to see in Malta” into the search bar to see video recommendations. You can use this to your advantage. Just make a proper research on which keywords you’d like to present your videos in the results. For example – if you’re selling GoPro camera you might want to target keywords like “Action cameras footage” or “GoPro footage”.
• Interest targeting. Here you can really make or break your TikTok campaign. We tested at least 3 different ad sets with 3 different interest personas. Dig through Amazon reviews, Reddit, Quora, Facebook Groups and segment your ideal audiences into groups. For example: if you’re selling hair brushes you can have a group of people looking for a gift, people interested in looking good or hair & beauty professionals.

7e – Testing – hooks

This is probably the no.1 thing when it comes to creating viral creatives. You don’t want to create videos that people mindlessly scroll past after 2 seconds. You can consistently create masterpiece videos but if the first 3 seconds don’t get 100% of their attention, no one will ever find out what comes later.  What makes the best hooks?

• Stand-out visuals
• Attention-grabbing, relevant headlines / overlay text
• Using interesting sounds / voice over 
• Knowledge gap (create enough curiosity to have people glued to the screen until the end)

7f – Testing – ad format

TikTok allows businesses to run ads in a few different formats. The most popular type is “in-feed ads”. This means your ads are presented as organic content in a user’s feed.

Using the right ad format is essential to ensure your ad receives traction. The available ad formats are:

• In-feed ads: your ad is visible in “For You” feed among other organic videos and ads
• Top-view ads: they appear at the top of the “For You” feed right after opening the app. This ad format gives you the benefit of your ad being the first thing someone sees and when their curiosity is at the peak. You skip competing videos but you still need to have a great hook.
• Brand takeover: These (similar to Top-View ads) ads are full-screen static or dynamic displays that a user first sees when they open TikTok. The difference, however, is that users are unable to like or comment. These ads are similar to YouTube’s non-skippable ads or bumper ads. You need to support them with other campaigns to have a strong effect.
• Branded hashtag challenge: Designed to fit in with TikTok’s unique user-generated-content (UGC) aesthetic, the Branded Hashtag Challenge is a way of engaging audiences by encouraging the co-creation of content.
• Branded effects: Branded Effects allow companies and marketers to create unique filters and visual experiences through stickers and a bunch of special effects. Users can use these filters to share their own creative ideas on the platform. This is ideal for targeting a younger, camera-first demographic.

7g – Testing – angles

You might now think: “but what the heck is an advertising angle?”. In simple terms it’s a focused effort to deliver a specific marketing message. Angles spread messages about various kinds of offers and make promotional campaigns more perceivable. You want to test different ad angles to reach more clients. Usually focused on one specific problem or benefit.  Why one? Because if you try to target more than one problem/benefit at a time, you dilute the power of each individual problem/benefit. A human brain then sees all those “points” as overall less significant.  If you want to reach more clients, you need to test different ad angles and see which ones work the best. For example if you’re selling jewelry, one angle could be focused around giving it as a gift, while another could focus on increasing one’s confidence and getting compliments. One product, 2 angles & 2 different client needs.

7h – Testing – offers & pricing

Why test offers? To find the winning one and sell more. Believe it or not, there are many clever ways to increase your sales without revolutionizing your entire offer.

Starting from simple things like bundling or up-selling, you can also play around with other offer types like, for example, BOGO (one item free, second item X% off, etc).

You can also try to position offers on a landing page in a way to make most profitable offer most appealing. Don’t forget to test different price points too. Many eCom owners are scared of doing that but it’s an easy way to increase profit.

7i – Testing – TikTok ad features

From our experience of running Facebook ads for nearly a hundred client, TikTok  is much faster at implementing improvements. They seem to listen to advertisers and that’s great news! Other than what I mentioned before, you can, for example, play around with visible discount codes. This will make your offer more appealing to the people watching your videos.

7j – Disclaimer: landing page & offer

All of these I wrote before will apply only if you have a proven product, landing page and offer.  If you’re just starting with a brand new store you’ll be better off focusing on the fundamentals first.

Many store owners focus on media buying despite NOT having the 3 points above in place. The easiest way to validate if your offer converts or not is by running Google Ads. The only exception to that rule is when you have a product that people aren’t actively searching for e.g. a novel product category).

8. BONUS: CS*3 formula to go viral on TikTok

Some time ago we wrote an article on how to go viral on TikTok. It’s based not only on our own experience but also on a comprehensive research we did to deliver better ads to our clients. 

Feel free to use it and implement all of the tactics to your video production process. You can find it here: CS*3 formula to go viral on TikTok