TikTok is one of the latest social media platforms to develop its ecommerce capabilities with shopping functions for its one billion active global users. Social commerce—the sale and purchase of items through social media sites—continues to grow in popularity, giving merchants the opportunity to showcase their products to young audiences with great spending power.
With TikTok’s immersive ad capabilities, merchants can reach an engaged audience in a sound-on, video environment that favors authentic content. In order to take advantage of this opportunity, merchants need to understand the different ad solutions and unique features available to them on TikTok.
Keep reading for tips on how to get started and effectively use TikTok for ecommerce.
How do I get started selling on TikTok?
Setting up a business account on TikTok is simple. First, sign up for a regular creator account, then switch to a business account in the app settings. When prompted, make sure you pick the most accurate business category because your choice impacts the customized content, events, and solutions TikTok curates for your retail strategy.
Once you’ve created your business account, you can take advantage of more features, such as:
- Performance and audience data to help tailor your campaigns to the type of content your audience likes best.
- A commercial music library with access to more than 500,000 songs and sound effects that have been pre-cleared for commercial use.
- Video showcases that help brands stay on top of trends and get more ad visibility.
What ad solutions does TikTok offer?
In a 2021 report by Kantar, TikTok was ranked number one globally for ad equity—the measure of an audience’s positive attitude toward ads across media channels (TikTok received this same ranking in 2020 as well). This, and the unique ad solutions TikTok offers, make it a powerful channel for merchants to showcase their products.
TikTok offers a variety of ad formats and solutions, including:
- Top View: This makes your ad the first video users see when they open the app. It captures users’ attention through visual storytelling before they look at other creator videos.
- In-Feed Ads: These are video ads that pop up as users scroll through their feed. In-feed ads allow merchants to capture the attention of users in a full-screen and native-content environment (83% of users say that ads on TikTok are enjoyable).
- Dynamic Showcase Ads: This ad format uses your product catalog to showcase specific products with up-to-date information about the product, such as price, availability, and size. It’s a great solution for merchants looking to create ads that feature a variety of products.
- Collection Ads:These ads enable people to easily find and browse products in a full-screen mobile experience. Collection ads lead to an Instant Gallery Page where users can explore a curated collection of your products.
- Branded Hashtag Challenge: Hashtag challenges invite audiences—and potential customers—to participate in trends and cultural movements created by your brand.
- Branded Effects: This allows businesses to create fun games, stickers, filters, and special effects that are customizable. Businesses can also get popular influencers involved to help trends and special effects reach more people.
Find out how Feedonomics can help you optimize and list your products on Tiktok.
How can I succeed on TikTok?
TikTok gives brands access to a younger, more engaged audience—almost half of the app’s users are between the ages of 10 and 29, and more than 90% of global users have taken an action after watching a TikTok video. By taking advantage of TikTok’s business features, brands are able to showcase their products and services in a creative way to the app’s audience.
As with most social commerce channels, authenticity on TikTok is important. Audiences want to feel connected to the brands they interact with, on top of enjoying their products. As Forbes put it, “The modern customer is smart, tech savvy, and research-oriented.” This is especially true with TikTok’s young audience.
Young consumers prefer giving their money to brands they trust. In a 2020 global survey, 82% of Gen Z audiences said they prefer brands that are organic and feature real customers in their ads. TikTok allows merchants to organically incorporate their ads into users’ feeds with in-feed ad options, but it’s up to brands to use authentic storytelling and visuals.
Branded hashtags encourage audiences to get involved with a brand’s campaigns instead of just being passive observers. Using influencers is also a smart way to engage audiences and increase brand reach. Guess found this to be true with its #InMyDenim hashtag challenge. Not only did the apparel retailer start a branded hashtag campaign, it also involved influencers to help get the word out—resulting in 10.5 million video views and a nearly 15% engagement rate.
How can Feedonomics help me succeed on TikTok?
Feedonomics helps power your Dynamic Showcase Ads and Collection Ads with better product data. Dynamic Showcase Ads are an effective way to surface information about specific products to potential customers, but if your data isn’t properly optimized, you may miss out on conversions. Our expert feed specialists tailor your data to TikTok’s requirements and best practices, so you can reach more valuable customers.
If you’re a merchant with a large product catalog, or you advertise on multiple channels, it may seem overwhelming to keep all your product feeds optimized and updated across multiple systems. Feedonomics’ automated feed management technology and team of feed specialists streamline these processes for TikTok ads.
Our full-service solution for advertising channels ensures your product data is updated on a regular schedule and your catalog is categorized and optimized according to TikTok’s best practices. We make your multichannel ecommerce strategy more scalable with 24/7 support, proactive feed monitoring, and customized data protection alerts.
Read more about our feed management solution for TikTok to learn how Feedonomics can help you succeed on this fast-growing channel.
With its leading data feed management platform, Feedonomics helps brands, retailers, and agencies optimize and list products on hundreds of shopping destinations around the world. Learn more about our full-service solutions for advertising channels and marketplaces.
