What’s new with TikTok ads?

After becoming the fastest growing social media company in the world, it’s not surprise that TikTok ads are becoming more and more popular with digital marketers and brands. The goal of every social media company has always been monetization, but it’s slightly different for TikTok. 

While brands are investing in advertising on TikTok, they still have to “play by the rules” to get significant visibility. 

And the goal is still to go viral. 

A brief overview of advertising on TikTok 

TikTok has, from the beginning, told advertisers to not make ads, make TikTok videos. And this is the mantra that all brands need to follow because TikTok is entirely different from Facebook and Instagram. 

The actual TikTok ads manager is similar to Facebook, with less targeting. However, that shouldn’t scare you off due to the potential reach your ad might have. 

Over a year ago, we predicted that TikTok would be making major waves in the ads space, and that seems like its coming true. 

Today, more brands are connecting with more creators through #paid and some brands don’t even need to

It just shows how limitless advertising on this platform could turn out to be.  

What’s new in TikTok ads? 

TikTok Pulse   

TikTok Pulse is way to attract brands and advertisers as it increases your chances of going viral. 

How? 

It allows advertisers to get ads next to the top content in the For You Feed. 

Therefore, these TikTok ads motivate brands to engage with the community and be part of the conversation. Most importantly, it means brands need to be savvy about who they’re speaking to and what they’re speaking about. 

This means more engaging ads and content that has to be relevant rather than salesy. 

Branded Mission

On the back of TikTok Pulse, TikTik ads are taking a new step with Branded Mission. 

If it wasn’t enough for brands to be part of the conversation, Branded Mission wants creators to connect with brands and potentially even end up earning cash while doing so. 

Tech Crunch notes that “with the new ad product, advertisers can crowdsource content from creators and turn top-performing videos into ads.” 

Therefore, brands and marketers can come up with campaigns and put their feelers out for creators over the age of 18 to join in. It also means that creative control is divided and the conversation will represent the culture. 

Personalised TikTok Ads Changes

TikTok recently released a press release where they stated that “from July 13th, all users over the age of 18 will now start seeing personalised advertising, which we’ll serve using your on-TikTok activity from that date”

This allows users to decide on the content they want to see and receive content that is relevant. This could be anything from their favourite fashion store to their passion for origami. 

As always, users will still be able to decide to opt-out of personalised advertising. However, it’s probably better to see an ad for something you’re interested in than have your feed clogged with randomness. 

About This Ad Feature

Furthermore, and piggybacking on personalised TikTok ads, they’re enabling a feature called “About This Ad”. 

Simply put, users can long press an ad and find out why they’re being shown it. 

This puts more control in the hands of the community to understand why they’re seeing an ad and determine their own personalised experience. 

Personalisation has always been tricky, but putting more control with the individual might solve this for TikTok. 

To conclude, 2022 has seen some major changes to TikTok ads and more still to come. It’s exciting time for brands and creators who are both being involved more in the evolution of TikTok. 

Will this mean that brands become more aware of their impact on society and their customers? Or will creators start becoming sounding boards for brands? Only time will tell.