TikTok Announces New Ad Tools and Performance Insights at Second ‘TikTok World’ Event

Today, TikTok has held its second annual TikTok World event, where it shared a range of ad tips, insights, and previews of new promotional features that will open up new opportunities for marketers in the app.

And given its meteoric growth, many businesses are looking to tap into TikTok to maximize their reach and presence – which they’ll have more opportunities to do with these new and coming ad features.

Here’s a look at all the major announcements from the event:

First off, TikTok’s launching a new ‘Showtimes’ ad unit for movies, which will enable users to select showtimes, and buy tickets at their local cinema, all in-stream.

Which is a fairly simple, logical integration, which will help cinemas target younger audiences, who are increasingly likely to be heading to the movies. But the broader strategy for TikTok is also about encouraging purchase behavior in the app, and getting users more used to spending directly in-stream.

That could then help it expand that behavior to more shopping actions, and with TikTok also building product fulfilment centers in the US, as part of its larger eCommerce push, the more discovery and purchase activity it can encourage in the app, the better.

So while there will be immediate benefit for cinema chains and movie studios, there’s also a secondary push from TikTok to establish new norms around purchase behaviors in the app, which TikTok desperately wants to encourage in order to maximize its revenue potential and creator monetization options.

TikTok’s also announced a new ad objective called ‘Focused View’, which will see advertisers charged based on attention and engagement.

As explained by TikTok:

“Focused View is the next generation of our current Video View campaign objective on TikTok Ads Manager. With Focused View, brands only pay when users have voluntarily watched an ad for at least 6 seconds or when they interacted with the ad within the first 6 seconds (whichever comes first). This means that ads are shown to users who are truly paying attention and voluntarily engaging with the brand.”

I mean, that’s pretty similar to how YouTube charges for ads (only once a viewer has watched for 5 seconds), so in terms of industry norms, it’s not revolutionary. But it could be a valuable consideration on TikTok, where swiping by is a habitual practice, and most ads likely do get passed over very quickly.

TikTok’s also added some new elements to its Lead Gen ads offering, including increased customization for Lead Gen forms, and a carousel display to highlight specific messaging.

TikTok’s also added a new ‘logic setting’, which will enable advertisers to deliver variable questions in their forms, based on a users’ previous responses.

TikTok also announced some updates to its Creator Marketplace platform, which now facilitates connection to over 800,000 qualified creators around the world. 

To further evolve its Creator Marketplace platform, TikTok says that it’s improved its search capabilities, including the integration of more data points from previous brand/creator partnerships to help in your selection process. It’ll also now enable brands to post details of upcoming campaigns, to which creators will then be able to proactively apply to partner up on promotions.

It’s also adding ‘Creator Marketplace Match’, a new recommendation functionality that will be able to automatically generate lists of potential creative partners based on a brand’s brief – ‘in under 10 seconds’.

That could make it easier to find the right influencers for your campaigns – and with 71% of the TikTok community noting that a creator’s authenticity is what motivates them to buy from a brand, it’s worth considering the potential of such in your process.

You can check out Creator Marketplace here

And if you are looking to find the right creative partners, and tools, TikTok’s also published a new, 35-page playbook for its various creative solutions and options:

The guide includes tips and notes on how to find the right creative partners and tools for your process, and even includes a quiz to help guide you on your way:

It could be another way to help optimize your TikTok marketing approach – you can access the Creative Solutions Finder guide here.

TikTok’s also shared a range of research reports and audience insights, including these data and trend notes:

• 73% of TikTok viewers say they feel a deeper connection to the brands they interact with on TikTok
• Brands are remembered 40% more on TikTok than on other platforms
• TikTok is now the fastest-growing channel for discovery with 15% of product discoveries across media channels, emails, and word of mouth

In combination, there’s a heap of data insights and tips to consider, which could help in your TikTok marketing process.

And given TikTok is the app of the moment, where many people are spending hours a day, it may well be worth giving it some thought, and considering how you might be able to use these tools in your holiday marketing push.