The Ins and Outs.
In today’s day and age, there are so many platforms to choose from when it comes to delivering your brand’s message. While each engine has its specific advertising niche, TikTok owns a unique section of the market in terms of offerings and audience. Let’s dive into the details of this platform, why to advertise on TikTok, and how it could benefit your business.
What’s TikTok’s Target Demographic (and Does it Align with Yours)?
TikTok has taken the world by storm over the past eight years, pushing short form content and creating intimate audiences for creators and brands alike. While other engines are in the race to catch up with short form content, like Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts, TikTok still dominates the market. Its userbase has grown to a staggering 1 billion active users, and it dominates the market segment for social media in the younger age bracket (>70% of the userbase being in the 18-34 range). Not suprisingly, TikTok has taken advantage of this enormous $$ opportunity and started allowing businesses to advertise in 2020 and began offering personalized advertising in 2022. If you are trying to reach this audience, advertising on TikTok should be part of your digital marketing strategy in 2025.
Source: Statista (July 2024, by age and gender)
If your brand caters to this audience as your target demographic, capturing their attention has never been more attainable than it is with TikTok ads. And for companies catering to an older audience, the market cap it holds in the short form content space is something to look for as higher age brackets turn towards quicker, more tailored content.
Why Advertise on TikTok? The Pros
The roll out of new features and the statistics regarding engagement in the past year are something that has caught the attention of advertisers and brands worldwide. Tiktok’s algorithm seemingly knows exactly what the consumer is looking for at all times. Here are some of the reasons brands that haven’t already explored TikTok ads might consider doing so in 2025:
- The Introduction of TikTok Shop
While brands had to lure customers into going through the process of clicking through links to get to their desired destination, causing churn, TikTok has now streamlined the process of being able to convert interest into sales. As of late 2023, in-app purchases are now enabled to capitalize on user intent.
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- High Engagement and Conversion Rates
The average user on Tiktok spends 95 minutes in the app per day. With the average video being 43 seconds long, this means that users are viewing 133 short form videos in the app per day. This type of user interaction allows brands to make massive jumps in awareness and connection with their audience. Short-form videos in TikTok ads drive quick purchasing decisions, particularly among younger, trend-sensitive users which leads to higher conversions.
- Data Driven Targeting and Creative Ad Formats
The TikTok algorithm is the secret sauce of the short form content space. How are they able to feed you exactly what you want, right when you want it? TikTok ads does this by targeting interests, behaviors, and demographics, based on countless hours of in app experience to reach the right audience more efficiently. This paired with the seamless integration of ads into user generated content makes advertising seem more natural, seeming like native content themself.
The Challenges of Advertising on Tiktok
Of course it can’t all be good, right? It depends, because with the right in-house team or marketing agency assisting, some of these challenges could seem more like speed bumps. But here is what you should consider when considering why to advertise on TikTok.
- The Shelf Life of Content is Short
Every day, there is a new trend on Tiktok. Brands need to keep up in order to stay relevant in an ever-changing content space. In order for ads to succeed, they need to keep up with current trends to maintain their relevance.
- User Generated Ad Content is King
Brands have to keep their advertisements natural and direct in order to capture the attention of TikTok users. While ads show up seamlessly within the app experience, the quick turnover from one video to the next is a part of advertising in a short form content space. This is a contributing factor to prioritizing UGC as part of advertisements.
- Limited Targeting Options Compared to Competitors
When it comes to TikTok ads, it can be challenging for advertisers to target the same audience segments as on Meta due to fewer options. Compared to Facebook having data for its audience’s interests, behaviors, online activities and demographics, TikTok has yet to broaden the available options offered to advertisers. This could be something to monitor as TikTok continues to improve upon their advertising platform
Time to Take the Leap into TikTok Ads
Overall, the pros of integrating TikTok ads into your business outweigh the challenges. And with an effective agency partnership, such as with Simple Search, that helps you stay up to date on trends and produce high quality campaigns that positively impact your business, these ads can take you to the next level. So why wait to advertise on TikTok? Send us a message if you want to level up your socials!