I remember entering the wild-wild-west of the TikTok Ads world. When I started gathering creative for testing this new channel I thought: “Hmm, this will be a piece of cake. The ads manager is a direct copy and paste of Facebook ads manager so this should work similarly”.
I thought what made my facebook ads successful, the copy, the design and the targeting, would bring me success on the TikTok platform. I set up my campaigns on TikTok, loaded them up with top performing ads that were winning on Facebook, wrote the most captivating headlines and descriptions, set my budget and hit “Start Campaign”
I returned the next morning hoping to see that my ads were running and already collecting promising data. But nope. The ads had not even started running because my budget was set too low. I raised it to the minimum $50 and waited again.
After the first week of running these ads, I was in denial about the results TikTok ads manager was telling me. What do you mean I had:
- $3 CPCs??
- $60 CPMs??
- 0.27% CTRs??
In perfect Elsa fashion, I quickly started to question why I had decided to become a media buyer. It all felt like a joke. How could these results be this bad? Whyyyyy?!
The moral of this story is a number of things:
- The TikTok user is not like the Facebook user, and this has NOTHING to do with age
- TikTok is not like Facebook, they don’t even have the same algorithm
- TikTok at its core is not even a social media channel, although people like to think and refer to it that way.
The TikTok world is a whole other beast than Facebook. To thrive on TikTok you need a good creative production pipeline, a good understanding of TikTok trends to build hooks that will grab people’s attention and an excellent understanding of the typical TikTok user which has a shorter attention span and whose brain is addicted to the entertainment TikTok provides.
Today I won’t be speaking about the kinds of creatives that do well on TikTok or the kind of copy that moves a TikTok user from a mindless scroller to one that’s ready to purchase (or engage with your website) Today, I’m highlighting ways to successfully crack TikTok users away from the TikTok platform onto their landing pages. I think that aside from good, TikTok worthy creative, you need to lend even more care to the post-click experience a little more. Breaking their attention spans from the endless entertainment scroll is like flying across the finish line in an egg and spoon race. And if that sounds to dramatic to you, all I will say is I’m an avid TikTok fan and I can confirm!
The TikTok post-click experience
What happens after your TikTok audience clicks your ad is what seals the deal. You’re dealing with short attention spans which have likely been scrolling on TikTok for hours. They’ve come across your ad and so far they’ve liked the content in the ad and how the offer has been positioned to them. They’ve made it to your website. You must make the experience count.
First off, your site must be mobile friendly. It’s also gotta load fast. Finally, the fonts and your color scheme must make the text legible. These are the key design considerations you must have.
The next step is to make your winning landing page format, and by ‘winning’ I mean a landing page that already has a high conversion rate and abbreviate it.
Don’t read too much into how I use the word ‘abbreviate’. It means exactly what it’s supposed to mean: simplify and truncate the page to shorter, simpler copy, larger imagery and larger, yet engaging CTA buttons. Landing pages that feature some sort of gamification is how you take your landing page next level. TikTok audiences are coming into your landing page in an entertainment-seeking mind frame, so be sure to deliver that in your landing page.
When it comes to your CTA, make sure there is only one. ONE. Collection pages provide too many options and a TikTok user who may be interested in seeing your products more closely may quickly become overwhelmed when having to consider a purchase by having to make a choice.
If you must present your entire product collection to achieve some order value goal, the only way to do this successfully on traffic coming in from TikTok ads is to ABBREVIATE. Diminish visual distractions like filter/sorting options. Keep products that are well stocked or with decent size availability sorted at the top to make the shopping experience feel tailored person by person.
As you find yourself obsessing over creatives that’ll win on TikTok, also think about the challenges of advertising on TikTok and how crucial it is to create a successful post-click experience. I can’t emphasize enough the importance of understanding the TikTok user and creating a mobile-friendly landing page with engaging content and a simplified design. Featuring gamification and limiting the number of options on the landing page also does wonders in improving conversion rates.
