TikTok: A Primer for Brands

Boasting more than 500 Million active users, TikTok is a mobile video-sharing app that stepped on the scene in 2018. Users can create and post short, looping videos set to music or sound bites – often with humor as the focal point. Like the other social platforms, TikTok features a personalized discover page, a home feed, user profiles and a built-in suite of video editing tools. Because TikTok posts have a max length of 60 seconds, the end result is typically a quirky, highly concentrated form of entertainment that’s equal parts confusing and captivating.

To understand TikTok, you have to look at it in the context of its forerunners, Musical.ly and Vine. Vine, the viral short-form video-sharing app launched in 2013, can be thought of as the originator of snack-sized viral video content. Vine put the wheels in motion for short videos to take off as a standard video format where creators could leverage the vertical orientation native to smartphones.

In 2014, Muscial.ly launched as a follow-up to the success of Vine, which Twitter acquired in 2016. Users could create short videos with the added layer of lip-syncing. This approach, coupled with low production requirements, made it easy for just anyone to create engaging content. Fast forward to 2017, when Chinese tech giant ByteDance saw an opportunity in Musical.ly’s content model. ByteDance acquired Muscial.ly in 2017 and in 2018 rolled out to the international market with the name TikTok. By October 2018, TikTok was the most downloaded app in the U.S. and reached a record 1.5 Billion downloads globally at the end of 2019.

TikTok trends move fast. Blink and you might miss them. The platform doesn’t have the visual aesthetic of a curated Instagram grid – nor is it the place for serious issues. TikTok has managed to create a distinctive social experience that values spontaneity, humor, and relatability above all else. It’s turned social media into pure social entertainment.

Here’s how users are getting the most out of the app:

Video Editing - TikTok has provided an entire generation of users with a crash course in video editing. The platform’s easy-to-use tools add a unique creative impact that doesn’t require the learning curve of an advanced video editing platform. Creators can choose from dozens of overlays, transition effects, filters, playback speeds, text options, and sounds. It gives just about anyone the ability to create an engaging video with just a few taps.

Playing with sound - The platform’s editing tools and advanced filters enable creativity by default, but a unique edge is an ability to add a sound from a massive library of both licensed music and user-created recordings. After a video is posted, any user can rip the audio, re-create the parody, and throw it back into the TikTok ecosystem until the joke is dead. Similar to the way hashtags work to discover content, users can search for a song or sound to see the original content and all other videos it appears in. Sound on the platform inspires music video spoofs, funny lip-dubs, dance routines, and more.

Hashtag challenges - Viral trends start in the hashtags on TikTok. Hashtag challenges encourage users to attempt and share their own unique takes on challenges posed by different creators or brands – like Guess’s #InMyDenim challenge or Jimmy Fallon’s #tumbleweedchallenge. Challenge have proven to be an engaging way for users to easily create appealing content, while brands can use it as an opportunity to build awareness with consumers.

React Videos - Users on TikTok have taken the concept of a reaction to a hilarious new level. With the ‘React’ feature, users can record their own reactions (with audio and video) to an existing TikTok video. The reaction video can appear side-by-side with the original.

Cringe-worthy content - Like a train wreck you can’t look away from, cringe videos feature awkward performances aimed at getting a laugh. It’s a format made famous on YouTube, and TikTok-ers are playing it on their own terms with injections of youth commentary and social satire.

TikTok Users - Gen Z runs the show. Younger audiences (ages 13-22) make up the majority share of TikTok users. As of September 2019, 42% of internet users in the U.S. aged 13-16 are on TikTok according to eMarketer. Among the ages 17-21, the percentage falls to 32%.

Older generations (Boomer, Gen X, Millennial) have used social as a mode of staying up-to-date with friends, exploring interests in groups, and communicating through messaging. Gen Z, on the other hand, is carving out its own value in social as an unbridled medium for entertainment, confessionals – and, well, dark humor. It’s part of the reason why brands have to think differently about their content approach on a platform that embraces weird, ephemeral, off-the-cuff entertainment.

TikTok For Brands – Now that TikTok has taken off in the U.S. and looks likely to continue growing – brands are itching to get their messages seen. Before jumping into the memetic platform, businesses need to ask whether or not they should be joining in the first place. For brands setting out to reach younger audiences with fun, challenging or unusual content, TikTok might be the place. But it’s worth it to note that image-based ads and Instagram style product endorsements won’t cut it on TikTok. Here are some ways brands are dipping into TikTok.

Advertising – TikTok’s advertising business is still in its infancy. The platform introduced a self-serve ad offering in beta last year, garnering enthusiasm from the brands who were first to test it out. The platform is still in beta testing and lacks some of the more robust targeting options and programmatic features that enable advertisers to automatically buy and measure ads.

For now, advertising on TikTok is only offered on a CPM basis (cost per thousand impressions). To get started, advertisers will need to create a TikTok ad account, after which a representative will grant access to the beta self-serve ad platform. Once in, the process for creating an ad is similar to other social platforms. Advertisers can define the campaign objective and select targeting rules based on age, gender, location, interests, etc. There is also an option to define the ad placement (TikTok, its affiliated apps – or both), as well as an option for automated placement (in beta).

Creative formats include: In-feed native video ads, Brand takeovers (a full-screen ad that appears when a user first opens the app), Hashtag challenges, Branded filters, Topview Ads (similar to brand takeovers but uses in-feed content), Influencer brand partnership.

Social Commerce - In November, TikTok began testing shoppable video posts, making it possible for creators to place social commerce links in their posts. Users can then complete a purchase without leaving the app. For now, the option is still in beta with no current word on when it will roll out more broadly.

Sponsored hashtag challenges - Despite TikTok’s lack of a solid ad offering, brands are still finding ways to make their products known by leveraging the community at large (and we all know the TikTok community loves a good challenge). Sponsored hashtag challenges give brands the ability to create a video effect and pose a prompt to the community, which users can then play into with their own spin.

Perhaps the most valuable facet of TikTok is its audience. They’re young, sure but they want a digital experience that’s authentic, homegrown and downright entertaining. It’s part of the reason why reactions and challenges have taken off at warp speed. Instead of standing by and watching social play out from a distance, TikTok users are diving in head-first to leave their mark in near real-time.

Podcast Advertising

Podcasts have been around for over a decade, but it’s only within the last few years that the format has begun to capture the attention of the general public. Shows like Serial and This American Life have garnered over 50,000 reviews on Apple Podcasts. The industry’s surge in popularity hasn’t escaped the attention of advertisers looking to capitalize on the format’s momentum, either. Last year, domestic podcast ad revenue grew by 53% to an all-time high of $479 Million and is expected to exceed $1 Billion in 2021. Earlier this year, Spotify invested $400 Million to acquire smaller podcast networks and tools to help bolster its position as a leading audio platform. With the rapid influx of revenue and investment, brands are assessing the viability of podcast advertising as a vehicle for their messaging. Here are some crucial factors and pointers to get the most out of your podcast ad campaigns.

Benefits of Podcast Advertising – Podcasts reach 62 Million Americans weekly making it a receptive channel for advertising campaigns. Host-read ads have been the primary delivery vehicle for podcast ads, though increasingly, programmatic options have become more widely available. For host-read ads, the hosts play a pivotal role in the delivery and efficacy of your ads. Hosts can turn your product pitch into native advertising, which may decrease the odds of listeners skipping over it. Loyal listeners are also more likely to trust a host’s endorsement because it’s coming from someone, they’re already familiar with.

Host-read ads are baked directly into podcast episodes, meaning that listeners who dive into a podcast’s archive may hear your ad long after it originally aired. This may increase your brand’s exposure without increasing your ad spend but this can also be a drawback.

Drawbacks of Podcast Advertising – You’ll want to keep offer timeframes in mind when planning host-read ads. Listeners don’t want to find out your offer already expired when they tune into older episodes. Presently, the podcast advertising industry lacks some of the data, transparency, and tools that digital advertisers are accustomed to. Audience information, such as demographics, may not be readily available, although research firms such as Nielsen are now offering such data sourced through listener surveys.

Without detailed, reliable audience information, targeting capabilities may also be limited, which can result in inefficiencies and make it more difficult to scale your podcast ad campaigns. This may change over time as networks begin to introduce more advertising features. Spotify, for example, enabled targeting by genre earlier this year. Prospective advertisers should also be aware of the challenges to attribution and tracking conversions. Direct response ads combined with a dedicated landing page and “how did you hear about us” fields during the registration or checkout process are common tactics, but they may not account for listeners who convert later or after encountering your brand multiple times.

Types of Podcast Ads – Ads are usually placed at the beginning, middle and end of a podcast. These slots are referred to as pre-roll, mid-roll and post-roll, with pre-roll and post-roll ads, are typically ranging from 15-30 seconds and mid-roll ads running as long as a minute. For lengthier podcast episodes, there may be more than one mid-roll ad slot. Regardless of the position within the episode, podcast ads are either read by the host during recording or pre-recorded and dynamically inserted when the episode is downloaded. Last year, 51.2% of podcast ads were delivered by a host.

Host-read Ads – With careful planning and coordination, this the format has the potential to tap into the audience’s trust in the show’s host, which may allow your ad to be conveyed more as a testimonial than marketing collateral. In this way, it’s akin to Influencer marketing. Host-read ads become part of the episode content, which means the ads will continue to serve as long as the episodes are available.

Dynamically inserted Ads – In this, we have more targeting capabilities which work great for advertisers that have time-sensitive requirements or need to reach a certain GEO area. One potential, but considerable, the trade-off for these targeting and scaling abilities is that your ads may be less engaging to listeners due to the lack of host involvement and cohesion with the rest of the episode’s content, which may hinder your objectives.

Cost structures – Ad spots are commonly priced according to one of the following models:

·      Cost per Mile (CPM) – This is the most common pricing model and refers to the cost per one thousand downloads. Streams are also included as downloads, but a thousand downloads may not equate to a thousand listens as an episode may be requested but not played (as is the case with automatically downloaded episodes that a listener may overlook or not be interested in).

·     Cost per Acquisition (CPA) – There may not be an upfront cost associated with this model. Instead, the cost is determined by the number of leads or conversions that a podcast sends to your business.

·   Negotiation – This method can be a mix of the other two or something different altogether. It’s up to the advertiser and the podcast to come up with a deal they can both agree on.

The length of the ad and its position within the episode will also have an impact on the overall cost. In addition, Audience demographics, its history of engagement, the genre of the show, overall advertiser demand for the inventory and a show or host’s popularity as factors that can influence pricing.

Measuring success – The technology and platforms that facilitate attribution and conversion tracking of podcast ad campaigns have yet to reach the maturity of search and social advertising, but they are evolving as companies like Spotify pour in investments and advertiser demand rises. Tracking and measurement are challenging for several reasons. For one, listeners can access podcasts across a number of competing apps and services. Conversions happen off-podcast, which makes attribution a challenge — it’s why the ads so often include custom URLs tailored to each podcast. Yet, despite the challenges, gauging success is possible.

1.   Direct Response - Many podcast ads use a direct response mechanism to point listeners to their websites. Traffic to the landing page is one way to gauge a campaign’s reach and trial sign-ups are one way to measure ROI.

2.     Social media engagement - For initiatives in which conversions may not necessarily be the goal, such as brand awareness campaigns, social mentions, shares and hashtag activity are ways to quantify your campaign’s reach. A giveaway component can also be added to social or direct response campaigns to further entice listeners to engage with your brand.

3.     Website and social traffic - Monitoring your website traffic and social media metrics can also give you a sense of how your podcast ads are performing, so long as you’re accounting for other variables such as seasonal trends or concurrent campaigns that you might be running.

4.     “How did you hear about us?” - To help you attribute conversions over the long term, consider adding a “how did you hear about us?” field or a drop-down menu to your registration or checkout process.

5.     Studies and surveys - The tactics mentioned above assume that a brand’s online presence is one of the main way’s consumers convert or interact with it. If that doesn’t describe your business model, some podcast ad networks offer off-site methods of estimating your campaign’s reach.

6.     Third-party tools - Some measurement platforms and ad networks offer pixel-based attribution that may provide more information on a potential customer’s journey. With regards to podcast advertising, pixel-based an attribution usually involves correlating a pixel fired upon ad insertion with pixels on an advertiser’s website in order to match listeners with on-site activities such as conversions. Third-party tools may also enable you to view reports on your audience and ad performance. Some providers also offer retargeting capabilities that may help expand your ad campaign.

DIY or partner with an ad network? – It will cost less to run your own podcast ad campaign, but there are a number of other factors that should influence your design.

1.     DIY – In addition to the cost savings, you’ll have the freedom to choose which podcast you’d like to partner with and compare prices. You may also be able to negotiate your terms, communicate directly with the podcast’s host and build rapport with the people who are actually delivering your messaging. If it’s your first time running a podcast ad campaign, your in-house team will also get the opportunity to gain experience that may save your brand money or increase the efficiency of future podcast ad campaigns. There are, however, risks associated with doing it in-house: Dedicating some of your own team members to a podcast ad campaign may leave you short-staffed. Inexperienced advertisers may make mistakes that affect their campaign results. And, individual podcasts may not offer as many options in the way of audience data, targeting or measuring ROI.

2.     Podcast ad networks - The expertise, resources, technology and access to ad inventory that ad networks bring to the table may be worth the additional cost, especially for brands that prioritize having more data, targeting capabilities and scaling options. Having these capabilities at your disposal may increase your campaign’s efficacy and transparency but work with an ad network is likely to cost more and you may be limited to advertising on the shows within the network.

Get most of your Podcast Ads – From selecting a podcast to partner with to optimizing your campaign, there’s a lot a consider. Here are a few pointers to guide your podcast ad initiatives.

1.     Ask about Listener Data – Many podcasts survey their listeners to get a feel for what kind of content and advertisements their audiences may be interested. Some ad networks, such as NPR, even make their audience demographics readily available for prospective advertising partners. Don’t just assume that your audience is interested in particular podcast based on genre or anecdotal evidence, inquire about audience surveys and data and compare it to existing personas that your marketing team has already built out.

2.     Make sure the podcast’s host and listeners are part of your target audience - Successful podcasts are in tune with their listeners and giving the host firsthand experience with your offerings and as much information as possible can help them craft their pitch in a way that resonates with their subscribers.

3.     Get in line early - If you’re looking to get the widest reach by advertising on top podcasts, you’ll want to get in touch and express interest as early as possible. Many of them will have sold their entire ad inventory before the season even begins.

4.     Craft a clear message - Make sure your audio ad points out the clear advantages of using your product or service and gives a clear call-to-action that the audience will remember. Thirty to sixty seconds isn’t a lot of time and without the aid of visuals, making your ad informative while keeping it concise and distinct can help you making a lasting impression on listeners.

5.     Give it time - Many podcast apps allow listeners to subscribe and automatically download new episodes, which means that your ad may not immediately get heard. Listeners may also need to hear your ad or the host endorse your brand several times before they visit your site or make a purchase. Running your ad on the same podcast a number of times and keeping an eye on your KPIs for a few months after all the ads have aired may provide a fuller picture of your campaign’s results.

6.     Test your ads - After you’ve gathered enough data from your first campaign, you can begin to experiment to improve your ads. Tweaking just one variable at a time will yield better data for comparison. You can test out different placements (such as pre-roll instead of mid-roll or vice versa), different lengths, having a different host read your ad, changing the script, allowing the host to improvise without a script, advertising with the same script but on a different podcast or switch between host-read ads and dynamically inserted ones. Dynamically inserted ads also lend themselves to A/B testing. You can play the same ad in the same position on different podcasts to see which audience is more responsive.

7.     Mix and match - Running a longer mid-roll ad at the outset of a campaign can be a great way to introduce your brand to the podcast’s audience. After loyal listeners gain some familiarity, you may be able to save money and get more from your investment by switching over to shorter pre- or post-roll ads that are scripted to keep your brand relevant and continue the momentum you’ve built earlier in the campaign.

Podcasts are still a relatively novel approach to reaching an audience and technology and best practices and technology solutions are still developing. Marketing teams that are able to keep the above guidance in mind, tailor their messaging to the format and aren’t afraid to experiment stand to extend their reach to audiences that are ready to listen.