Although it enters the social media scene much later than the likes of Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat, the phenomenon that is TikTok has grown to become one of the most popular social media networks in the world.

As of today, the service has over 1 billion active users!

With such a large user base, it’s the perfect place for many businesses to use TikTok as an advertisement platform. Conveniently, TikTok has the TikTok Ecommerce Ads feature, which allows businesses to sell their products directly on the platform.

In this article, we’ll show you how to set up, track, and optimize TikTok Ads for your eCommerce store to maximize your marketing efforts and reach the largest audience possible!

Setting up TikTok Ads Ecommerce

#1 How to Set Up TikTok Ecommerce Ads

Step 1: Create a TikTok Ads Account

The first step is to create a TikTok Ads account. Do note that this is a separate account from a normal TikTok account, so even if you’re already a platform user, you still need to register through this link to gain access to its Ads features!

After creating an account, you can access TikTok Ads Manager. This is the “central command” where you can access all of TikTok’s ad features and control your campaign.

Step 2: Choosing Right Objective & Ad Campaign

Now it’s time to create a campaign to make your eCommerce TikTok ads stand out. There are three main objectives (based on the sale funnel) that you can set your campaign toward on TikTok:

Awareness (Reach)

Use Awareness objective to bring awareness of your product or brand to the users, making them more likely to remember your name or product as they browse. You can use social proof to that end!

Business Goal: Maximize your ad exposure and save budget by targeting the most relevant audience at the best possible price. 

Consideration

Make people consider your product or service better and seek more information about you.

Campaign Objective: Traffic

Business Goal: Get those clicks rolling and direct your audience to wherever you want them, from a website landing page, blog post, or app.

Campaign Objective: Video Views

Business Goal: Reach the viewers that matter most- maximize your ad plays by targeting audiences likely to take action.

Campaign Objective: Lead Generation

Business Goal: Get more leads and greatly impact your business growth with TikTok’s lightning-fast, tailor-made forms.

Campaign Objective: Community Interaction

Business Goal: Maximize the reach of your TikTok account by strategically gaining followers and creating content that compels users to visit your profile

Conversion

Encourage people to see your ads to do something, such as subscribe to your service, buy your product, or download an app.

Campaign Objective: Product Sales

Business Goal: Sell products from your TikTok Shop, website, and app

Campaign Objective: Website Conversions

Business Goal: Encourage the audience to take specific actions on your website (add to cart, download app, make a purchase)

Campaign Objective: App Promotion

Business Goal: Get the new audience to install your app. Or retargeting current users to take a specific action.

Once you’ve determined your objective, you can choose from various TikTok ad formats that suit your needs. Ads can range from in-feed video ads, which means your ad videos will play in the user’s feed as they scroll. Or TopView, where your ad will appear at the top of the user’s feed.

Plan out TikTok ads eCommerce objective before starting your campaign - Pexels
Plan out TikTok ads eCommerce objective before starting your campaign – Pexels

Step 3: Defining Target Audience And Setting Up Targeting Options

TikTok allows you to target a specific segment of viewers. You can choose age, gender, location, interests, and more. We recommend setting up an Ideal Customer Profile (IDP) before you tackle this.

Setting up your ads for the right audience will ensure they’re effective and convertible.

Step 4: Setting Up Your Budget

At the campaign level, TikTok requires a minimum of $50 daily. At the ad group level, the cost is $20 a day.

So, the minimum budget you should set aside for a TikTok ad campaign is $500 per month. You can adjust your budget accordingly depending on the scope and size of your campaign.

Step 5: Creating the Ad Creative And Uploading It To TikTok Ads Manager

The last step is to create your ads and upload them to the Ads Manager! Once uploaded, you can deploy it via the same interface.

Your ad campaign is now in motion!

#2 Tracking TikTok E-commerce Ads Performance

What is TikTok Ads Manager’s Dashboard & How To Use It

TikTok Ads Manager’s Dashboard is the heart of your ad campaign on TikTok. This is where all the performance data about your active campaigns will be displayed (clicks, views, etc.) It’s also here that you can edit and deploy new campaigns.

You can access it by logging into your TikTok Ads account. The dashboard is the front page. It is five tabs where you can micromanage your brand’s activity on TikTok:

  • ​Dashboard
  • ​Campaign
  • ​Assets
  • ​Reporting
  • Insights

Understanding key performance metrics for eCommerce ads

There are dozens of data metrics that you can check out on Ads Manager’s Dashboard. While all of them can tell you important things about the performance of your campaign, only a few are critical.

  • CVR (Conversion Rate): The number of people who perform a desired action in response to your ad (click on it, comment, etc.) You can further fine-tune your CVR with the Eggflow app circle!
  • Impressions: The number of people who have seen your ads
  • CTR (Click-Through Rate): The number of clicks your ads received compared to the impressions.
  • CPC (Cost Per Click): The amount you spend on ads divided by the number of clicks
  • ROI (Return on Investment): The money you make is divided by the amount you spend on ads.

#3 Optimizing TikTok Ecommerce Ads

Identifying Areas For Optimization

TikTok has several tools that you can use to optimize your ad campaign based on the data you see in your dashboard. One such tool is the A/B Testing tool (split testing tool.) It allows you to field different versions of ads to find out which one works best for your audience and purpose.

From there, you can decide how to optimize your campaign using the best ad version.

Experimenting With Different Ad Formats

Different ad formats will yield different results. So, play around with the various formats available on TikTok (to the scope of your budget) and view their effects on your convertibility and ROI through the Dashboard.

Different ad formats will give you different results
Different ad formats will give you different results

Keeping Up With TikTok Algorithm Changes

TikTok algorithm decides who and when people see content (including your ads.) Updating your content based on the algorithm’s guidelines will increase your views, impressions, and other metrics.

Subscribe to TikTok’s newsletters and keep yourself up-to-date with any changes in the algorithm, then make changes accordingly!

Wrapping up

TikTok eCmmerce Ads offer a unique opportunity for businesses to reach a vast audience of potential customers and increase sales. Fortunately, the platform has made it easy for advertisers to create an account, onboard, and deploy their ads to the billions of active subscribers on TikTok.

Be sure to follow all of the steps outlined in this article, and you can set up your TikTok ads eCommerce and start selling your products on the platform!

FAQs

Do I Need To Have A Large Budget To Run TikTok eCommerce Ads?

Not necessarily! TikTok ads are super scalable and versatile. You can set up your budget, and as your campaign’s scope grows, you can scale up accordingly.

But there’s a minimum spending level that you have to meet. At the campaign level, TikTok requires a minimum of $50 daily. The minimum spend is $20 a day at the ad group level.

What Are Some Best Practices For TikTok eCommerce Ads?

  • Keep it short: TikTok videos are 15-60 seconds long, so keep your messages as short as possible.
  • Use a lot of visuals: TikTok is a visual platform, so add a lot of visual content, like bright colors and advanced video editing, to make your ad stands out.
  • Leverage music and sound: Besides visuals, your videos’ music and sound design will decide how well it vibes with the audience.

Can I Run TikTok eCommerce Ads In Multiple Countries?

Yes, you can run TikTok eCommerce ads in multiple countries. TikTok lets you pick where your ads are shown on the world map, so you can fine-tune your ads targeting specific countries.

Are TikTok ads Better Than Facebook ads?

Not really. They have their pros and cons. TikTok offers users a more engaging and interactive platform, so advertisers may find TikTok ads more effective. But Facebook still has a very large user base and may be more useful for certain businesses.

Ultimately, it all boils down to what ad program you want to run and how well you run it!

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