With over 1 billion monthly users on the platform, it’s no wonder businesses are moving to TikTok to diversify their marketing efforts. Over 7 million registered businesses are on the app as more consumers sign up daily.
It can feel like quite the undertaking to leap to a new platform, but TikTok has included some helpful tools to ensure your efforts fall exactly where you want them to. With TikTok Ads Manager, TikTok Shop, and TikTok Insights, you will have the support and information to start a profitable venture in a space still in many ways the Wild West.
Here’s everything you need to know to succeed as a TikTok business.
TikTok Ads Manager, a.k.a. TikTok Ads HQ
This is where businesses create and optimize paid ad campaigns using targeting options to pinpoint behavior-based information, demographics, and user interests.
Behavior-based information
Aristotle said, “We are what we repeatedly do,” in a statement as relevant today as it was 2300 years ago.
Taking a page out of the Ancient Greeks’ book, TikTok tracks recent actions users make within the app so businesses can target based on the following criteria:
👀Content Consumption: Similar to interests, TikTok knows what types of content resonate most with you as a user on the platform. A profile with a sports-heavy feed will be targeted differently than someone who watches Nature and Outdoors content all day. We all have behavioral tendencies, and TikTok probably knows what you want more than you do some days. Amirite?
📹Video Interactions: Ads Manager targets users who have liked, commented, or shared similar content in the last 7, 15, or 30 days on the platform. The idea is that if they enjoyed categorically similar content, they are likelier to enjoy yours and, as a result, drop some items in their cart.
#️⃣Hashtag Engagement: If you sell concert tickets and band merch, users who have engaged with #concerts, #bandshirts, or #merch move straight to the line in your Ads Manager targeting algo. TikTok continues to use hashtags to target users, which, from a business perspective, is #veryhelpful.
Demographics
Beyond gender, TikTok businesses can target by age, location, language, household income, and spending power.
A 24-year-old likely has very different interests and disposable income than a TikTok user nearing retirement. TikTok breaks down demographics into the following age brackets:
- 13-17 (oldest Gen Alpha/youngest Gen Z): This demographic might need to borrow a parent’s credit card and should be asking for permission to make purchases.
- 18-24 (Gen Z): This age group is likelier to have some income from a part-time job, paid internship, or early career role. High-powered earners are right out of college and ready to splurge. Expect them to favor fashion, trends, and personal care — and to shop from brands with a mission they can get behind.
- 25-34 (oldest Gen Z and youngest Millennials): They have hit their stride in their careers and spend considerably on health and wellness, experiences, and value quality and convenience.
- 35-44 (Solidly Millennial/Elder Millennials): Similar to above. They have seen it all, so targeting this group has historically been a challenge, but worthwhile if you can crack the code.
- 45-54 (Gen X): Those born in the mid-1960s and early 1980s are interested in products and services, including: Home goods, travel and experiences, Health and Wellness, and luxury goods — favoring reliability over trends.
Interests
Understanding user interests is where the rubber hits the road for businesses wanting to gain traction on the app.
TikTok tracks user data over time and quantifies tendencies and behaviors within the following categories:
😎Fashion and Apparel: If you are in any way into the fashion and apparel world, you lean towards a specific aesthetic. If you are a business that plans to sell gear or merch that people wear, this is where you would go to dial in that ideal customer.
🎵Music and Audio: Admittedly, the lines between genres of music have blurred in recent years. Most people have a preference for a type of music that they turn to regularly. Imagine if TikTok and your personal DJ on Spotify met at a concert, this is the conversation they would have.
🏈Sports and Fitness: American Football? Cricket? Ping Pong? Skateboarding? Cardio? Water Polo? Bodybuilding? TikTok’s Ad Manager knows selling online isn’t a spectator sport. It’s game-on for targeted marketing.
🍕Food and Beverage: Who doesn’t love it when someone on TikTok splits a delicious sandwich in half, resulting in its contents overflowing all over the cutting board? Getting hungry just thinking about it. Ads Manager has the secret recipe, catered to your audience’s tastes and preferences, to make their mouths water.
TikTok Shop: Business Optimized
Here’s what you need to know about TikTokShop.
It’s a great time to be A-Live (Shopping)
If you have a TikTok account, you already know how popular Live Shopping events have become. Who doesn’t want to watch someone unbox an item, show how it works, and walk through the gadget’s manual while giving an earnest review?
Leveraging Live Shopping can happen in a few different ways. Often, businesses will connect with an influencer who will showcase a product of theirs through demos, unboxings, and behind-the-scenes (BTS) looks. This approach creates an atmosphere of excitement, and introducing a limited drop of merch makes things even more exclusive. Using time-limited discounts is also a common tactic to encourage buyers to add an item to their cart.
Product tagging is like a game of tag, but the winner gets a bunch of money instead of playground clout.
Adulthood is all fun and games until you’ve got the responsibilities of running a small business, having a mortgage to pay, a car payment…and all those other bills required to stay alive 💀. Maybe that’s why you’re considering selling on TikTok; your chihuahua can’t compromise their lifestyle now.
Product Tagging on TikTok enters the chat
Creating regular videos and tagging products directly is how to get viewers to purchase your products without leaving the app. Once they click out, you’ve most likely lost them (oh no).
Someone is more likely to click on a link to a checkout page when there is a clear call to action. “Tap the link” directs people to your product details page if they don’t know how to get there already. 50% deal, BOGO, free shipping — you know the tricks of the trade.
User-generated content (UGC) campaigns are perfect for building a fanbase to buy your products. If TikTok is a platform that favors authenticity over pomp and circumstance, then UGC’s are modern infomercials, but ones that are fun to watch.
People want genuine connection. Whereas a celebrity doesn’t always make the most convincing appeal to the hearts of the everyday TikTok user, fans of a brand do.
It can be as easy as making a hashtag challenge to drum up interest. Often used as an opportunity to get a curated roster together, it’s customary to offer incentives to users to make content for the company: free products, swag, and discounts.
Resharing the best UGC helps build social proof while driving traffic to your TikTok Shop.
TikTok Insights: A Look Behind the Curtain
What analytics does TikTok give users? Let’s get into it.
What’s working/What’s not
You can dive into A/B testing, conversion, click-through rates, and a bunch of awesome data points, but really, what we are talking about is how engaging your content is. It’s important to replicate successes and drop whatever isn’t working to make a pivot or adjustment.
Not all content is created equal. You will undoubtedly post some flops, middle-of-the-road-performing videos, and — if you do your homework — a couple of bangers that make the blueprint for highly engaging content into the future.
Tracking product performance is what separates the wheat from the chaff. TikTok Insights gives you a clear idea of what videos or creators are making the sales in your TikTok Shop. Whether it’s influencer, affiliate-driven, or derived from a Live Shopping experience, you can see where your sales are coming from.
You will quickly know which products are the most popular by looking at sales numbers, while clicks, saves, and shopping cart fills contribute to a better understanding of what is working.
Make sure to optimize posting times and frequency. If you think posting at random will result in a successful business experience on TikTok, I’ll be the one to break it to you gently — that isn’t going to happen, friend. But fortunately for you, TikTok Insights sheds light on key data points to help you dial in your approach.
TikTok’s Tools of the Trade
TikTok’s innovative business tools are revolutionizing, democratizing, and simplifying how companies reach customers in the digital age. The old 30-second ad just isn’t keeping people’s attention anymore. Lucky for you, industrious internet-preneur, Ad Manager, TikTok Shop, and Insights can open up a whole world that was historically only available to the biggest ad agencies.
And once your account reaches a bigger audience than you can handle manually, TikTok automation is here to save the day!
