In 30 seconds:
- TopView ads are the full-screen, eye-catching answer to TikTok advertising. But what exactly are they?
- TopView ads alone might not generate the best ROAS. We explain why.
- We’ve listed the 3 steps you need to take to get the best ROI on your ad campaigns.
Thinking about using TikTok TopView Ads? You need to read this article. With tighter marketing budgets and ambitious TikTok KPIs to hit, social media marketers need a water-tight approach to get the most from their TikTok ads cost.
TikTok has over 1 billion monthly active users, and its paid ads reach 17.9% of all internet users. Brands are fast cottoning on to the social media channel’s efficacy. This year saw a 700% increase in the number of marketers who consider TikTok marketing effective for reaching their business goals. Why is it growing in popularity? Because TikTok ads work.
Return on Advertising Spend (ROAS) on TikTok is 3.5 times higher than all other media. This may be because users of the app view ads on TikTok differently. 72% of users perceive ads on TikTok as inspiring, and 92% of users globally have taken action after watching a TikTok.
To put it simply, TikTok advertising is a goldmine of opportunity. But just like every goldmine, you need to know which seam to follow. Brands need to be approaching TikTok TopView ads in a way that maximises ROAS. How can you do that? Let’s dig in.
What is a TopView TikTok ad?
TikTok introduced “TikTok for business” on 25th June 2020, and along with it, their marque product – TikTok TopView Ads. Since then, they have created various advertising solutions and types of TikTok ads, including in-feed ads (or in-feed video), branded hashtag challenges, brand takeover ads, spark ads and branded effects.
You can learn more about these through our article: TikTok Ad Formats: Everything You Need To Know.
So what are TikTok TopView Ads? They are full-screen experiences that appear 3-5 seconds after a user opens the app and can last for up to 60 seconds in length. Here are the TikTok TopView Ad specs:
- Resolution: must be ≥540*960px, ≥640*640px, or ≥960*540px.
- Aspect Ratio: 9:16, 1:1, or 16:9
- Files allowed: .mp4, .mov, .mpeg, .3gp, or .avi
- Sizes allowed: ≤500 MB
- Bitrate: ≥516 kbps
What are the benefits of TikTok TopView ads?
1. It’s eye-catching
Getting the attention of viewers can be a challenge when they are consuming so much content. But 71% of users say TopView Ads grab their attention. TopView ads give you a front-and-centre placement to showcase your TikTok video in all its glory.
Relying on this solely, though, would be a mistake. Just because it’s visually impactful doesn’t mean viewers will stay hooked. You’ll need to find other ways to keep them gripped and drive conversions (more on later).
2. It’s immediate
No one wants to put out a TikTok video that gets completely forgotten about. But with so many TikTok videos out there, it’s possible to get lost in the noise. Video ads that are lower in the feed can sometimes be missed if a user has been scrolling through a ton of content on their For You Page (FYP). But because TopView ads show up immediately upon opening the app, you’ll have fresh eyes for your campaign. This gives you a better chance of catching user’s attention (if you have the right content to go with it).
3. It’s engaging
Social media marketers know that a high engagement rate means your audience is paying close attention to you. Excitingly, TopView Ads rank at #1 on TikTok’s engagement index. They are a highly engaging ad format and, therefore, can be very effective for brands looking to boost audience engagement.
Once you’ve captured user attention, though, it’s important that your wider digital marketing strategy can translate this visibility into wider campaign objectives. Video views alone won’t boost your business: consider how you’ll drive traffic to your e-commerce site, drive installs or track sales to maximise this opportunity.
The trouble with TikTok TopView ads:
Using this ad type can benefit your marketing strategy, but it comes at a high cost, literally. TikTok TopView ads are expensive.
How much are TopView ads on TikTok? For 7.4 million impressions, advertisers must fork out $65,000 per day. So, it’s a big investment that marketers need to plan for accordingly. To generate the best ROI possible, marketers should look at a multifaceted approach to their advertising strategy.
We know it can be difficult to test out TikTok marketing tactics. Luckily we’ve been there, done it and understand exactly how to generate the best results for a TikTok TopView campaign. And we’re here to spill the beans.
How to get the best ROI for your TopView campaign
Running a TopView Ad campaign can be a huge factor of success in TikTok marketing. But setting up this kind of ad without understanding more about your audience first is not the most budget-efficient way to market on TikTok. The sweet spot lies between TikTok ads and targeted influencer marketing. Let’s break down the process.
Step 1: Get creative with influencers first
Before embarking on your TikTok ad campaign, brands should consider implementing an influencer marketing campaign. Why? Because influencers are great creative marketers – and they’re naturals at making native content that users love.
- 92% of social media consumers trust influencer recommendations more than brand advertisements, so to nurture deeper consumer relationships, brands should be looking at influencer marketing.
- Influencer videos are engaging. They’re naturals at posting videos that encapsulate what users actively want to see on their social media platform. It’s how they got thousands of people to become followers!
- An influencer campaign can help you learn more about your target audience – and the right creative to win them over. Partnering with the right influencer will give you access to an engaged audience who will likely be interested in your products or offering. And since the creator has built their community by creating TikTok video content their followers like, they’ll be well placed to market your brand with the right message.
An influencer who can give a genuine account of their relationship with your product or service, who can create videos in an engaging manner, will be well suited to craft TikTok marketing content that impacts their audience.
Step 2: Assess multiple results
Paid digital encourages a mindset of test-and-learn through granular optimization. This thinking is perfect when you get into TikTok ads manager, but nailing the video creative is harder at that latter stage.
Influencer marketing, however, offers brands the chance to test different creative routes, to identify which delivers the best results for the campaign – all while simultaneously reaching influencer audiences.
The trick is to partner with multiple, well-chosen and innovative influencers who are closely aligned with your brand offering. Communicate the objectives of your campaign, and give them freedom to create TikTok videos in their own style. This will give you a number of creative options. Assess the engagement rate of these; those with the highest will give you a great insight into learnings you can apply or amplify in a TopView ad.
Step 3: Creating a TopView Ad
The combination of influencers and paid ad campaigns is powerful. Collaborating with TikTok creators can increase ad recall by 27%, and ads created for TikTok with creator partnership achieved 65% higher 2-second view rates.
In short, you’re more likely to get your viewer’s attention if you combine influencer marketing within your advertising strategies. That goes for TikTok TopView Ads too.
How do you set up a TikTok TopView Ad?
Setting up a TikTok ad – whether that’s TikTok in-feed ads, TopView ads or other ad types, is relatively easy. First, you have to create a business account. You’ll then need to describe your business and set up your payment type. After this, you can choose between two ad manager modes for your ads account: simplified and custom.
Here’s the difference between these two modes:
- Simplified mode takes a simple and straightforward approach to ad creation, letting Tiktok’s algorithm do the heavy lifting.
- Custom mode gives advertisers full control over their ads with advanced customization options, such as A/B testing, audience targeting based on video and creator interactions, and ad combinations.
Choosing a mode isn’t permanent, you can always switch to another mode.
In both modes, you build your ad in levels. First, you’ll outline your campaign, then define your ad group, and finally create your individual ads. Then hit review and submit. The review process usually takes 24 hours.
Making a great TopView Ad
Now you have your influencer campaign in place; you can boost it through a TopView Ad. But what can you do to make it stand out? Here are some tips:
1. Don’t make it look like an ad
The best ads on TikTok are the ones that blend in with its native content. Gen Z and Millennials, who make up the majority of users on the app, are especially ad-averse. So, if you can make your adverts look like a continuation of the content they like, they’ll naturally be more engaged. Utilising influencers in your advert strategy means you’re already halfway there. Ads with these partnerships will inherently look less like ads.
The key thing to remember is that users are on TikTok because they like TikTok. So don’t distract from the experience: add to it.
2. Know how your audience wants to experience your brand
What does your audience come to your brand on TikTok for? Keeping this question at the forefront of your mind will help you to create TikTok ad campaigns that go further than forgettable sales messages.
Entertaining content is very popular on TikTok, with 31% of TikTok users including “lifting my spirits” as one of the top three reasons for returning to the TikTok platform again and again. In our research project, we found that, when asked what they most like about the brands they follow on TikTok? 34% of Gen Z stated that it was funny content, while 31% reported that ‘they entertain me’. The most popular choice for the best way for brands to engage with you on TikTok was by ‘making me laugh.’ So this is a great place to start.
You need to work out what content makes your audience tick and use this to build your hook. Only then will you reel users further in.
3. Go beyond the CTA button
If you create ad content for TikTok and partner with creators, you’ll see a 93% higher ER. That’s not a figure to be sniffed at – but TikTok marketers can go further.
Consider the deeper actions you want your audience to take. Your Call to Action can and should be included in your TikTok video – but to truly make users want to get involved, you need to understand and appeal to what’s compelling about your campaign. What’s in it for them?
64% of young consumers want brands to connect with them, so you need to reply to comments and engage with reactions to show that you’re responding to your audience and providing them extra value.
Brands on TikTok should also consider user-generated content (UGC) campaigns. This is a great way to help create a sense of brand community, give your brand fans’ voices a platform, and help users perform actions they enjoy. Influencers and UGC complement each other well as they mimic organic interactions on the app and increase brand credibility. Brands that create an effective influencer campaign, encourage user-generated content and then boost this with a paid TikTok TopView ad will skyrocket their ROI.
Want to know how influencers and UGC campaigns can boost your organic growth? Take a look at our article on UGC Creators: What Are They and How Can Brands Use Them?
Maximising your TikTok TopView ad ROI: an integrated ad example
Sportswear brand Ellesse tasked us with promoting their Autumn/Winter collections in a world first – a shoppable real-life concert with Swedish singer Zara Larsson, live-streamed on TikTok. We used a diverse mix of TikTok influencers to create high-quality content that would feature with the singer on stage, which featured in a TopView ad.
We used our in-house data and insights tool, Bytesights, and our Fashion & Beauty Account Executive Michaella White’s expertise to create an ideal roster of TikTok influencers for the campaign. We created choreography with parts of the song left for freestyle moves. The influencers then created their dance videos with an original TikTok branded effect that enhanced their aesthetic.
Once we had this influencer content, we combined the best parts of the influencers’ videos to create an engaging TikTok TopView ad. To encourage UGC we added a CTA asking TikTokers to join the hashtag challenge competition #BeBold, by trying out the dance routine and branded effect for themselves – with a chance to the competition winner feature alongside the influencers on stage at the concert.
The result? A total of 1.8M+ influencer views, overdelivering our guaranteed influencer views (800K) by more than double, 31K+ likes across all videos and 4.2 billion views on the hashtag challenge.
It goes to show that an integrated TopView campaign that utilises influencer content and motivates users to get involved themselves can have far more impact – and ROAS.
You can read the full case study here.
Don’t forget organic growth
You’ve now seen the steps to maximising your ROI on TopView Ads – but it’s worth noting that this process can help enhance all of your campaigns on TikTok. Paid ads are a brilliant way of boosting your marketing efforts, but remember they aren’t the only answer to growing on the platform.
TikTok is a place for individual expression. 3 of 4 people said that they can express themselves openly on the app, so tap into this when planning out your marketing strategy and encourage UGC. 83% of users have posted a video on TikTok, so there is a plethora of people just waiting for brands to inspire them. Influencer marketing, UGC and carefully planned branded content can help you build a flourishing, dedicated community that comes back to you again and again.
If you’re looking to ace your next ad campaign but not sure what’s right for you, get in touch. We have dedicated teams to help you build advertising strategies and marketing campaigns that work on TikTok and beyond.
Searching for more bright ideas to boost brand awareness or win over your target demographic on TikTok ads? Look no further:
