The Pros + Cons of TikTok Advertising That Every Brand Content Creator Should Know

Luiza Kamalova/Shutterstock

A global audience

TikTok has more than 1 billion monthly users, spread out over more than 160 countries and 75 languages. Most users go on the app multiple times a day, with U.S. users averaging approximately one hour per day browsing videos on the app. With such a vast and highly engaged user base, success awaits those who can create great content to attract an audience.

Targeted TikTok ads for maximum results

TikTok’s self-serve ad platform allows you to target your ads to different audiences to help grow your brand. 

There are five ways to target your ads:

1. Audience: This option allows you to retarget users who already know or have previously engaged with your brand. There are various data points that it can use:

• Customer File uses your data to identify the users who have shopped with you before, allowing you to personalize remarketing campaigns for repeat business.
• Engagement targets people who have previously shown an interest in your brand, clicking on or viewing your ads.
• App Activity targets those users who have completed certain events within your app, including Install, Launch App, and Add to Cart.
• Website Traffic targets those users who have previously visited your website and taken specific actions, including Page View, Subscribe, and Place an Order.
• Lead Generation targets people who have interacted with your lead ads on TikTok. You can retarget users who have viewed or submitted a form.

2. Location: This option targets users based on location such as country, region, state, and province, allowing you to target different ads to different cultures.

3. Interest: This option targets users based on their long-term content consumption, interactions, and what they are most interested in seeing.

4. Behaviors: This option targets users’ recent in-app behavior based on their Video-Related Actions (videos they’ve liked, commented on, etc.) and Creator Following Actions (the creators users have searched for or visited).

5. Device: This option targets users based on device-specific categories, including their operating system (Android or iOS), device model, and device price.

Once you’ve pinpointed your target audience, you can use the Automated Creative Optimization (ACO) to upload multiple images and videos with text descriptions and calls to action. ACO will launch ads with different combinations of these assets, delivering them to different audiences to find the highest-performing combinations, reducing the need for A/B testing and extending the life of your ads.

An enthusiastic Gen Z audience

Reaching your Gen Z audience can be tricky, but with a combined disposable income of over $360 billion, they’re worth seeking out. Nearly half of all TikTok users fall in the 10–29 age bracket, and this demographic has much higher brand engagement and conversions than other age groups. 

Gen Z values authentic content and genuine connection. As a brand, it’s up to you to wear your brand values on your sleeve and share relatable, authentic content with your audience. It’s also “important to tailor your advertising message to a younger generation,” says Iñigo Rivero, managing director of the TikTok marketing agency House of Marketers.

Creative audience engagement

Going viral has never been easier. TikTok’s algorithm helps users discover new content that resonates with them. It doesn’t recommend content based on follower counts or a history of high-performing videos. Instead, it recommends videos based on an individual user’s interactions with the app via the For You Page.

That means everyone—including brand-new users—has the same chance to go viral, which is why the algorithm is ideal for brands and content creators who are new to the platform.

TikTok helps content creators by providing fun, built-in functions for your audience to engage creatively with your brand:

• Stitch: Users can trim and add bits of your videos to their own. The original content creator is credited on every Stitch, amplifying your reach.
• Duet: Users can incorporate your videos into their own. The videos play side-by-side, giving users a chance to film their reactions to your content or join in with viral challenges.
• Sounds: You can add your original sounds to the library for other users—a must for brands and corporations who are limited to royalty-free music. It’s an excellent function for music producers, but brands such as Asos have also created viral sounds.

“The brands selling the most are producing TikTok creator-led content and then utilizing the audience engagement features that TikTok provides to build highly engaging campaigns,” says Rivero.

TikTok Creator Marketplace

TikTok makes it easy to browse and connect with the influencers you want to work with on your next campaign, saving you time and money. Partnering with creators will help your brand get seen by millions of potential customers and boost brand awareness. Simply tap into the global community of artists, creators, and influencers who create and share videos via the Creator Marketplace. 

To guarantee results and sales you must “make sure the creator’s audience is a good fit with the audience who usually purchases your product,” says Rivero.

In-app shopping experiences

Studies find that TikTok drives higher levels of receptiveness to brand messaging, calls to action, and breakthrough ads, with the platform’s in-feed ads achieving significantly better detail memory than TV ads. (Detail memory involves our response to the minutiae of an ad; a strong response means the audience retained information such as a logo, call to action, or tagline.) Its overall engagement rate is far stronger than other leading platforms, and it has integrated Shopify to drive sales from this engagement. Users can browse and buy products directly in the app or via the brand’s website, and influencers can add affiliate links to earn commissions.

This shopping experience creates a full circle: Users see the ad and buy the product on TikTok, then return to share their experience, further fueling a product’s popularity.

Trackable ad performance 

Ads Manager makes tracking your ad performance easy. You can track, measure, and evaluate the results of every ad you run and use this data to improve your subsequent campaigns. It includes metrics for impressions, conversions, click rate, conversion rate, and cost, alongside valuable audience dimensions, including gender, age, country, and interest.

Use TikTok’s ad targeting tools for retargeting custom audiences, and once you have an audience of more than 10,000 people, you can start to leverage the data from your existing audiences to target Lookalike Audiences.

This clever algorithm looks at the attributes of your custom audiences and finds users and groups who share similar characteristics, allowing you to grow your following based on the users who are engaging with your brand.

Luiza Kamalova/Shutterstock

It might break the bank

Ads Manager is an effective platform, but the minimum spends are pricey. Smaller brands and content creators may have to think twice before launching an ad campaign.

Let’s take a look at what it can cost:

• Brand takeovers: $50,000+ a day (5 million impressions guaranteed)
• In-feed ads: $10 per 1,000 impressions (minimum spend: $500)
• Hashtag challenge: upwards of $150,000 for the whole campaign
• Branded filters/lenses: at least $500 for a simple campaign

Only videos can make the cut

TikTok is a video-first and mobile-first platform. Images don’t perform well in this space. It’s best to shoot videos with a 9:16 aspect ratio, but 1:1 is also possible.

While these constraints may be limiting, video length can now be up to 10 minutes for videos recorded in the app and 60 minutes for videos uploaded into the app. You now have even more time to inform, entertain, and engage your audience. This is “ideal for creating organic content because it gives brands the opportunity to engage more with their followers,” says Rivero—but it could also increase production costs.

You’ll hear crickets if your audience isn’t on TikTok

While the platform’s giant monthly user base sounds like a safe bet for practically any brand or content creator, you may not get the response you were hoping for. Its audience skews young and female—although recent trends show an increase in the age of TikTok’s audience, and some brands are reporting a good response when advertising to users aged over 45. 

“It might seem difficult for brands that target audiences over 25 years old to get results on TikTok, but using the right influencers and the right content, it’s proven that they can achieve great results,” says Rivero. If you’re new to marketing to younger audiences, “start by generating organic content to see how the TikTok community reacts and whether there’s enough interest in your product before investing more.”

Safety concerns for child-focused brands and content creators

If you’re working with a brand for children or teens, or are looking to partner with a young content creator, this section is for you. 

With a large Gen Z user base, TikTok seems like an optimal place for child-focused brands to grow and build partnerships with young content creators. But you’ll want to keep the following elements in mind when targeting younger audiences using the app:

• Highly addictive: You only have to look at usage stats to see how irresistible the platform is, and the majority of users report feeling at risk of tipping over into addictive behavior. People under the age of 25 are particularly susceptible, as their ability to implement impulse control has not yet fully formed.
• Unethical beauty standards: Body checks, which encourage users to compare their bodies to others, trend regularly. Often the top-rated videos show very little body or cultural diversity and inadvertently promote Eurocentric beauty ideals. Teenagers consume this kind of content, which can lead to a negative self-image, body dysmorphia, or poor mental health.
• Cyberbullying and harassment: TikTok users can remain anonymous, which unfortunately makes it appealing to those who want to harass and bully others from different communities, religious backgrounds, and beliefs. According to cyberbullying research, young children are particularly susceptible.
• Predatory behavior: The app is attempting to crack down on this, but sexual predators can use the platform to groom and send explicit messages and images to underage children.
• Privacy concerns: Child content creators may accidentally share something that reveals more about their lives and where they live than intended. Ensure young creators aren’t sharing identifiable personal landmarks such as street signs, house numbers, or their school.

You may lose control of your brand messaging

Gen Z loves authentic content, so handing influencers your advertorial to copy and paste won’t fly. Plus, you’ll lose credibility and damage your brand image if you get caught.

To avoid disaster, research the influencers you want to work with to ensure their reputation fits your brand, and hand over control of your brand messaging to the influencers you’re partnering with. Let them advertise your products in their words.

That may sound scary, especially for brands used to executing laser-targeted campaigns, but it’s the only way to keep that content authentic.

This is why it can be beneficial to “work with a marketing agency that can put together a creative idea and guide the influencer in the content creation process. Brands then approve the idea and the script the influencer is going to use to avoid disappointment,” says Rivero.

Now that you’ve weighed up the pros and cons, is TikTok the right platform for you? If sharing entertaining videos fits your voice and you’re looking to reach Gen Z, then the chances are that the platform’s vast audience and meritocratic algorithm makes it an excellent place to grow your brand. It might be time to start making TikTok ads that get you noticed.