by This article will help you if you want to learn how you can use TikTok Ads to sign up lots of new Subscribers to your Subscription Box.
I recently wrote an article explaining why every Subscription Box owner should be testing TikTok Ads. I firmly believe there is a massive opportunity on this platform for the vast majority of Subscription Box Businesses in this group.
If you put the time into testing and learning this platform its highly likely you will find yourself with an acquisition channel which can be used to drive massive volume to your business.
If you want to learn why I think TIKTOK ads will be very powerful for Subscription Boxes I suggest reading the article I wrote a couple of weeks back. (If you search this group you will find it)
After I wrote this article I had a number of Subscription Box owners reaching out to me asking how do you run ads on TikTok. So I have decided to put together this article / guide in the hope of helping everybody in this group.
We have been running ads on TikTok for the last few months and the platform is changing all the time. The information I am about to share here is lessons we have learned from running lots of tests.
Subscription Box Advertising Tips For TikTok Ads.
- Offer
The basic principles of advertising on TikTok are nearly identical to Facebook. That means unless you have a very enticing offer it can be difficult to get movement with TikTok Ads. Over the last few years I have spent a lot of time talking about offers and discussing how important they are. (if you want to learn more about offers search this group or checkout my blog)
I would nearly go as far as saying the offer is more important on TikTok than it is with Facebook. This is because the TikTok algorithm isn’t as powerful as Facebook yet. That means you need to make the buying decision really easy for the consumer and one of the ways you can achieve that is with a very appealing offer.
Some offers which I have seen work well would be a deep discount or a very appealing free gift. The bottom line is you need to do the research and figure out what your target market want and then try and give it to them. The offer needs to be so exciting once your ideal customer sees it they are ready to sign up on the spot.
2. Targeting
This is very important and you will need to do some testing to discover the best audiences to target. It doesn’t matter if you have the best ads in the world if you get the targeting wrong, nobody will buy your product as they are all the wrong people.
When advertising on TikTok the targeting options are broken down into 3 sections.
- What Kind Of Videos Are they Interested In
- What Kind Of Videos Have They Interacted With (And what actions they have taken with those videos E.G Watched to end, Liked, Commented, ETC.)
- What Kind Of Creators Have They Interacted With (and what actions have they taken with those videos)
Depending on your niche it might be a lot more obvious what options to select here. Currently there isn’t near as many options as Facebook. So you may have to get creative here with the options that you pick.
If you have a mass market product like a Beauty Subscription it will probably be easier to get started.
If not don’t panic, it will just require a bit more testing to figure out the ideal audience. As always, testing is essential and if you’re not willing to do this you won’t succeed on this platform.
From running our own tests I have come to the conclusion that number one listed above is the most important. Once you get that correct it seems to make a big difference to the performance of your ads.
TikTok has lookalike audiences, but it is unlikely you will be able to use these at the start. You will need to build these up over time before you can use them successfully.
My advice is to try and go as wide as possible with the targeting and see if you can get that to work. If you can get some sort of broad targeting working it is going to be much easier to scale your account when you want to spend more money.
3. Structuring Your Campaign.
The same principles are going to apply here as Facebook. That means 9 Times out of 10 you are going to select the conversion objective. This is the best way to buy the traffic, which is most likely to convert. The big difference compared to Facebook though is the conversion objective you are going to pick.
We have found Add to carts to be the most effective. My theory behind this is TikTok is single session attribution. (That means unless somebody purchases from your ad straight away the conversion won’t be counted)
This means that even though you may be getting a lot of conversions from TikTok the ads manager won’t show it. I think this really affects the complete payment objective as the ads manager thinks the performance is terrible and it either cuts back the spend or it messes with the algorithm.
When you go for the add to cart objective it is different because a lot more people tend to add things to the cart on the first session. This feeds the ads manager with more data and helps the algorithm to optimise.
My advice would be to run add to cart for a week or so and if you are getting movement you can then try the complete payment option once your campaign has some data. I would imagine in time the complete payment option will be the option to pick at the start but it will just take TikTok some time to sort out their attribution model first.
When I am setting up a new campaign I normally go with the ABO option. That seems to perform better on this platform.
Then I will make a list of the audiences I would like to test. If I have 5 different audiences I need to test there will be 5 different ad groups which each of them targeting a different audience.
Then I ensure I have 3 – 4 ads within each ad group. This is really important because it gives the algorithm plenty of variations so it can figure out what is actually going to work.
When it comes to selecting the budget. I would recommend a minimum of $20-$25 per day per ad group. This will give the algorithm a chance to get enough data so it can optimise.
4. Creating Ads that convert
The TikTok slogan is don’t make ads, make TikToks and this is very true. The ads that perform the best on the platform are the ones that appear native. You have to remember TikToks take up the entire screen on a mobile device and you should use that to your advantage. Your videos should tell short, compelling stories and not come across like a typical ad.
Your videos don’t need to be 100% polished, but they do need to come across as real. That is why user generated content works so well. Usually box opening videos if done correctly can really be effective.
The same principles apply to box opening videos on TikTok as they do on Facebook. You need to create genuine excitement in them and the box needs to look very appealing.
Other things that work well with TIKTOK ads are researching trends and then seeing if you can apply them to your niche and to your ads.
We are still testing TikTok ads ourselves, but we think the potential is massive for the majority of Subscription Boxes. This is going to be a platform that you will be able to use to drive massive volume.
I hope you found this article helpful. If you have any questions about TikTok ads or subscription boxes in general please let me know. Have a great day.
