Want to know the biggest industry creative secrets used by top TikTok advertisers? We unravel hidden creative gems to improve your TikTok ad performance and increase revenue and profitability.
Creative excellence is the result of a continuous cycle of experimentation, execution, and iteration. If you had to go all in on one creative format, bet on short-form vertical content.
Mastering TikTok Creative Strategy Methodology:
TikTok Creative Research
- Ad Account Audit & Research
- Understand what has been tested, what worked, what didn’t
- Creative metrics benchmark
- Spend and account structure
- Funnel and offer analysis
- Audience Research
- Identify key emotional motivators
- People buy the problem you solve and how it makes them feel
- Identify pain points, desires, objections
- Observe the language they use – reviews, comments, reddit
- Example:
- Product: Magnesium body lotion that helps improve sleep
- Persona 1: Pregnant woman that struggle to sleep
- Persona 2: Seniors that struggle with restless leg syndrome
- Persona 3: Mom with babies going through sleep deprivation
- Persona 4: Anxious Gen Z & Millennials that doom scroll at night
- Product: Magnesium body lotion that helps improve sleep
- Example:
- Identify key emotional motivators
- Competitor Landscape
- Just because it’s running doesn’t mean it’s working
- Topads aren’t really “top ads”
- Don’t mimic, get inspired, improve upon and innovate add your spin to it
- Understand landscape from a strategic point-of-view
- Observe other verticals
- Trends Research
- Trends live and die fast
- Observe from a higher level point-of-view
- ASMR unboxing, podcast ads, street interviews, skits, started as a trend and now become a way to create content
- Use of sound, camera angles, transitions
TikTok Ideation & Execution
- Best Practice #1: When highlight products, focus on one at a time. Make 1 video for each product.
- Best Practice #2: Clearly convey the value. Viewers want to know the price and value of the product upfront. Be transparent.
- Best Practice #3: Diversify the talent. Split test different ages, genders, sizes, accents – makes a huge difference!
- Best Practice #4: 30 seconds is the sweet spot! Consider short attention spans when crafting your ads, and use that time to showcase function, details, benefits, and other value
- Trends & Opportunities:
- Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for all stages of development and iteration
- AI generated voices and even talent
- Focus on first frame retention
- Sound first approach
- Original sounds supercharge campaign performance
TikTok Creative Analysis & Reporting
- 1 second Retention: Video Play Actions / Impressions > 90%
- Hook Rate: 3 second views / impressions > 30%
- Hold Rate: Through Plays / Impressions > 25%
- Average Watch Time: > 4 seconds
- Waterfall Rate: Video Drop Offs
- CTR, CVR, CPA, ROAS
TikTok Creative Iterations
- Spend does not equal reach
- You can scale your budgets as much as you want but it doesn’t mean you will reach more people – it means you will saturate your core audiences
- Most learnings are on the creative – instead of pausing ads, add new ads into the ad set that has high spend and shows fatigue
- Creating iterations of your winning ads allows you to beat fatigue and squeeze as much profit as you can from an audience that is working
TikTok Creative KPIs and Levers
- Low First-Frame Retention? Test new thumbnail, edit first second
- Low Hook Rate? Try new visual, copy, new sound
- Low Hold? Reorder clips, add new shot after 3s, shorten ad, change editing.
- Low CTR? Add scarcity, exclusivity, urgency, agitate pain point, add social proof, new CTA.
- Low CVR? Check for congruency, make a custom LP.
TikTok has been a popular source of social traffic for search arbitrage marketers and search feed campaigns. Leverage the power of TikTok’s viral traffic to scale your search arbitrage traffic!