We understand the difficulties you are facing in setting up your advertising campaign. To help you choose the perfect type of advertising for your campaign, we have researched and compiled information about TikTok advertising. Accordingly, to ensure that you target the right audience and achieve your advertising goals, Optimal Agency has divided most of the most popular TikTok ads into two types based on their purpose.
TikTok advertising E-commerce solution types
TikTok Commerce is an advertising solution on TikTok that allows businesses to increase direct sales on the platform or convert users to landing pages and websites to make purchases. Online companies should use e-commerce advertising solutions, including the following forms:
TikTok Shopping Ads
TikTok Shopping Ads is a new advertising solution that helps sellers on TikTok Shop to promote their products through different product displays.
It’s a three-in-one solution with new formats to adopt and combine. The three types of ads are:
- Video Shopping Ads: Video Shopping Ads are a type of TikTok ad that allows users to view and purchase products directly from videos. This type of ad combines features from existing TikTok ads – collection ads and dynamic display ads.
- Catalog Listing Ads: Catalog Listing Ads allow advertisers to promote product catalogs on a large scale on TikTok. Instead of creating video content, the listing ads will take product images from the retailer’s catalog and promote them in purchasable locations. Users discover ads through brand content on the For You page.
- Live Shopping Ads: Live Shopping Ads are specially designed to promote live shopping events. This ad helps redirect users from the For You page to a live shopping event. TikTok says this ad can increase traffic to live shopping events by putting it in front of ready-to-buy users.
These new advertising solutions are designed to simplify the buying experience for users and help sellers maximize their sales.
Collection Ads
TikTok Collection Ads are a type of advertisement that allows users to browse products in a full-screen mobile experience. When users click on Collection Ads, they will be taken to an Instant Gallery Page where they can browse a curated collection of your products. According to a survey conducted by TikTok, people were 1.8 times more likely to engage with TikTok Collections Ads compared to ads on other platforms.
Collection Ads can help you:
- Drive product discovery on mobile
- Publish ads featuring relevant products
- Create an immersive experience
This ad type personalizes the products displayed to each audience and gives users a seamless shopping experience from product discovery to checkout.
Dynamic showcase ads
TikTok Dynamic Showcase Ads (DSAs) are personalized video advertisements that can help you optimize ad delivery at the product level, improve prospecting and retargeting, and save time managing campaigns. According to the TikTok Marketing Science Global Shopping Ad Products Study, 51% of weekly TikTok users believe Dynamic Showcase Ads have unique shopping features. These ads are created in real-time using an ad template that pulls product information from an updated product catalog, whether in TikTok Shop or other e-commerce platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, etc.
Dynamic Showcase Ads are the most suitable solution if your brand wants to attract new consumers or retarget existing customers by presenting your product. TikTok will make personalized recommendations from your product catalog to help you achieve the objective. However, this ad type is only available as one of the six whitelisting features of the TikTok Agency account.
Deeplink Ads
Deeplink TikTok is an ad type that uses embedded links to send users straight to the in-app location, mostly seen with product pages in e-commerce stores. This method saves customers a lot of time while providing them with a seamless shopping experience, reducing bounce rates and maximizing ad performances.
For sellers on e-commerce sites that want to attract TikTok users, the Deeplink ad is the perfect solution because it can:
- Shorten the buying journey of users with e-commerce sites.
- Improve customer engagement and retention rates.
- Boost your marketing, target the right customers, and upsell, which would improve ROI.
TikTok Lead Generation Ads
TikTok Lead Generation Ads serve as an advertising objective that enables you to nurture potential customers, interact with leads, and gather lead information on the TikTok platform, as well as collect valuable lead data for your website.
When users engage with these lead ads on TikTok and tap the CTA button, they are presented with two options:
- Instant Form within TikTok: Users can access an Instant Form within TikTok, where they can gather more information about your business, provide their contact details, and express their interest in your product or service.
- Redirect to Your Own Website: Alternatively, users can be redirected to your own website, where they can submit their contact information directly to you.
TikTok’s Branding solutions ad types
Branding solutions ads mainly focus on increasing brand awareness and enhancing user engagement. This type of TikTok ad is most suitable for brands that want to boost reach and increase traffic for the landing page, website, app download page, etc.
In-Feed Ads
TikTok In-Feed Ads is one of the very first TikTok ad types – enable brands to achieve full-funnel marketing goals naturally. In-Feed Ads appear within the For You feed and are intended to capture customers’ undivided attention in a full-screen and sound-on background. The impact of TikTok in-feed ads has been demonstrated, with them being regarded as 23% more memorable than TV commercials.
This ad type can also be promoted with brands’ organic content called Spark Ads. With Spark Ads, brands can boost performance even further by amplifying their own organic videos or the content of popular creators.
In-Feed provides some spark benefits, such as:
- Have the lowest ad cost
- Look like organic content
- Easily set up and manage within TikTok Ads Manager
- Obtain multiple advertising objective types (reach, video views, followers, etc.)
- Increase brand exposure to users
TopView Ads
As the first video users see when they open the app, TopView is TikTok’s billboard. By capturing users’ attention and allowing space for creative storytelling, TopView boosts brand awareness and triggers interactions throughout the community.
TikTok TopView ads utilize TikTok’s ad placement to put your brand in the spotlight and provide a unique viewing experience with no competing content. With 71% of users agreeing that TopView is one of the most practical ways to grab attention, it is also more effective than other ads, with 67% higher sales effectiveness for the CPG industry.
However, TopView is a kind of Reservation Ad, which means you need to work with TikTok Agency such as Optimal Marketing Agency.
Branded Hashtag Challenge Ads
Branded Hashtag Challenge transforms how brands interact with their audiences. It enables brands to create trends by encouraging users to join challenges.
Branded Hashtag Challenge occurs when a brand sponsors a hashtag and creates a challenge to push users’ actions, such as following the hashtag, making a video, inspiring people to complete the challenges, etc. It enables brands to
- Ignite massive engagement
- Spark organic visibility
- Generate full-funnel impact
Branded Hashtag Challenge uses user-generated content (UGC) to promote products so they are close and authentic. Therefore, users will not feel like they are watching an advertising campaign, which will make it easier to increase reach. However, this ad format is only suitable for growing brand awareness and can not drive conversion. Also, it belongs to Reservation Ads, contrary to Auction Ads, in which advertisers need to book ad placement on TikTok.
Branded Effect Ads
TikTok Branded Effect uses brands’ stickers, filters, and effects to highlight products, campaigns, and brand names. Users can create their own content with brand effects in the filter list of TikTok videos. Videos made with Branded Effect display naturally on the For You Page, providing any brands with the opportunity to be discovered. With Branded Effect Ads, you can:
- Empower users to co-create with your brand
- Allow users to engage with your product
- Increase word-of-mouth
Because this ad creates an enjoyable and creative environment with AR effects, the brand can incentivize high-quality organic content creation and make an impact beyond your existing fanbase. Along with Branded Hashtag Challenge, Branded Effect is also included in Reservation ads.
Reach and Frequency Ads
Reach & Frequency is an ad buying type on TikTok that offers “Transparent Media Planning and Predictable Delivery of branding campaigns”, allowing advertisers to control the number of audiences and times that ads appear to.
You can take advantage of the following R&F advantages, including
- More control: Transparent media planning and frequency control.
- Predictable delivery: Guaranteed delivery as early as 255 days ahead.
- Unique R&F features Leverage features such as interactive added-on and multi-creative delivery strategies to convey your brand message in TikTok style.
- Navigation ability: Use R&F to bundle with and drive traffic to Branded Hashtag Challenge, Brand Effect campaign, TikTok Profile page, and TikTok Shop Product Detail Page.
- Smarter campaigns: Generate audience from R&F and apply to lower funnel campaign.
Top Feed Ads
Top Feed TikTok appears as the first TikTok In-Feed ad at every app open. It can be understood as an advanced option of Reach and Frequency, which distribute in a premium placement on TikTok.
With Reach & Frequency buying, Top Feed delivers greater targeting, and its memorable ad placement increases the impact. Additionally, you can use Interactive Add-Ons or other multi-creative delivery methods to improve your Top Feed campaign.
Top Feed TikTok has several benefits over other feed placements that might help you:
- Make a memorable and long-lasting impact.
- Acquire additional levels of campaign control.
With the purpose of increasing brand awareness, Top Feed ads help you capture users’ attention by placing your ad content at the top of your feed.
However, the primary ad accounts don’t have Reach & Frequency option. To access these ad types, you will need to contact TikTok Partners for an Agency ad account.
TikTok offers a diverse range of ad formats that businesses can use to achieve their advertising goals. From In-Feed Ads to Branded Effects, each ad type is designed to cater to different objectives and engage users uniquely. By using these ad types, businesses can increase brand awareness, drive traffic to a website, promote a new product or service, or increase sales directly on the platform. I hope this article has helped you understand the most common TikTok ad types and how they can be used to achieve your advertising goals.