Until those answers materialize, those frictions are nothing more than ifs, buts and maybes to marketers. What isn’t up for debate, though, is how much TikTok continues to dominate people’s attention. And that will always be the big draw for advertisers — irrespective of economic or political tensions.

“Between the first three quarters of 2022 and the final one, we saw ad spending on TikTok rise 20%,” said Ben Allison, head of media operations at VaynerMedia. “It’s still early this year to say for sure, but anecdotally we see this trend of investment in TikTok continue to increase with quarterly comps expected to grow at least for the duration of this year. “

It’s hard to argue with this view. Whether marketers are in a place to spend now or are instead optimistically planning for future campaigns, TikTok is now in consideration alongside always-on media channels, especially for driving awareness of big brand moments

“TikTok makes up about 25% of the social ad budgets,” said Brendan Gahan, chief innovation officer at digital marketing agency Mekanism. “Since 2020 it’s grown pretty steadily. Each year it’s grown around 50% year over year.”

That’s rapid growth for an agency that did its first branded hashtag on TikTok back in 2019. And it looks like that pace is going to continue this year for Mekanism’s advertisers just like it is for many others elsewhere.

“While TikTok accounts for less than 10% of total spend for our marketing firm, it has more than doubled year over year,” said Rob Jewell, chief growth officer at Power marketing agency Power Digital, a tech-enabled growth marketing firm, which works for clients such as Procter & Gamble, Uniqlo and Casper. “We anticipate a similar growth trajectory in 2023 as the channel keeps attracting more advertisers eager to scale their TikTok efforts.”

When this happens advertising tends to get less experimental.

In fact, the moves on display from TikTok advertisers nowadays are starting to resemble a tried and tested playbook.

What works for a lot of them these days seems to be to run TikTok ads in conjunction with influencer marketing. So they use paid ads to essentially boost content they think could, or is, getting traction among users. Estee Lauder said as much last year, as did Pepsi the year before that.

“Advertisers that have tested TikTok generally see success in driving incremental revenue, and are continuing to double down on the platform,” said Jewell. ”Many advertisers are testing TikTok in Q1, with plans to scale exponentially throughout 2023.”

Which is to say TikTok is fast becoming a mainstay on the media plans for many advertisers. Granted, it isn’t as big …read more

Source:: Digiday

Author: Aaron