TikTok Fights For Advertising Dollars From Small Businesses & Creators With New Promote Features
TikTok is adding new features to Promote, which launched in November 2021. The tool allows users to turn organic videos into ads, helping them reach a bigger audience.
New Campaign Goals
TikTok is introducing two new campaign goals, More Profile Views, and More Messages. The former is designed to drive traffic to an advertiser's TikTok Page through a prominent call-to-action (CTA) button that, when clicked, brings users to the advertiser's profile.
The latter is intended to drive traffic to the advertiser's direct messages, allowing them to engage with potential customers. When viewers tap the ‘Send Message’ CTA button on these ads, it will populate a message composer. This is useful for businesses and creators pushing products or services and wanting to interact with audiences one-on-one.
Promote For Others
Advertisers can now use Promote to boost creator content through a new Promote for Others option. To do this, advertisers must first receive permission from the creators whose content they want to boost by sending a request via the Permissions option on the Promote Central page. Once approved, advertisers can promote the content as if it was their own, whether it's a video or a LIVE.
Spark Ads has established itself as a preferred method for brands to promote creator-generated content on TikTok. Expanding these capabilities to Promote provides advertisers with a more user-friendly and straightforward process, especially for one-off promotions. Besides utilizing the Promote tool for videos produced by creators they have already partnered with for sponsored content, advertisers also have the opportunity to seek permission and boost organic videos posted by creators.
Location Targeting
Lastly, Promote enables advertisers to target their audience based on location. This feature expands upon targeting options like age, gender, and interests. With location targeting, advertisers can display their ads to the closest audiences to their business, which is valuable for small businesses with physical locations. This increases their chances of reaching people more likely to visit their store.
More Accessible For Small Businesses & Creators
Promote simplifies the advertising process by being available directly in the TikTok app, allowing campaigns to be launched with just a few steps. This decreases the barrier to entry for advertisers like small businesses and creators who lack the knowledge, experience, or time needed to use TikTok Ads Manager for their advertising efforts. Promote offers an easier and more accessible solution for those in this category.
The Fight For Advertising Dollars From Small Businesses & Creators
TikTok's primary source of advertising revenue comes from large advertisers and agencies, but small businesses and creators represent a largely untapped market. Although the average advertising spend by small businesses and creators is typically lower, if TikTok can successfully attract this demographic to Promote, it can further bolster its pursuit of advertising revenue.
TikTok is not alone in its efforts to attract small businesses and creators to spend on advertising. Other platforms, such as Twitter, have introduced features to make it easier for users to boost their posts in-app. In addition, YouTube has started experimenting with a Promotions tab in YouTube Studio to simplify ad buying for creators, while Instagram has increased in-app notifications encouraging businesses to use its advertising capabilities.