Marketing Briefing: Meta continues to scoop up Black Friday and Cyber Monday ad budgets but TikTok tests are happening

By Kristina Monllos

While Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales have been ongoing for some brands, the true BFCM madness commences this week and marketers and agency execs say that ad spending continues to focus on Meta platforms Facebook and Instagram. However, they are also testing out running BFCM ads on TikTok as well this year.

“Meta will continue to be the biggest channel we’re spending on for DTC brands,” said Zach Stuck, founder of performance marketing shop Homestead Studio. “We’ve found some success for driving results on TikTok, but nowhere near the scale that we can achieve with Meta.”

Marketers and agency execs say they are seeing between 70-85% of BFCM ad budgets going to Facebook and roughly 5-10% of budgets going to TikTok this year with the rest of the budget dedicated to Google and YouTube. That being said, spending on TikTok is still focused on brand awareness over performance marketing for many as TikTok hasn’t proven performance marketing dollars to work as well on the platform just yet, according to agency execs.

“More and more advertisers are testing performance on TikTok, but it’s not mainstream,” noted one agency exec who requested anonymity, adding that advertisers are bullish on TikTok overall. “Still, most clients are heavily prioritizing Meta for their Q4 performance-based campaigns. Meta is very flexible, it’s a lower lift from a creative side as clients are more accustomed to its offerings — and still the player to beat in the social landscape.”

Even so, marketers and agency execs say the rise of TikTok has advertisers and brand execs looking to capitalize on the platform’s popularity this season however they can. “The holiday selling season is heating up on TikTok as our brand partners are aiming to capitalize on the ‘TikTok Made Me Buy it’ phenomenon,” said Glenn Ginsburg, president of influencer marketing shop QYOU Media. “‘TikTok Made me Buy It’ is content that showcases compelling products driving impulse purchases or purchase consideration across a range of products and services.”

Ginsburg added: “We’ve found that influencer content positioned as ads out-performs traditional creative across key metrics including view-thru, engagement and click-thru. Via running ads, we can also test a variety of creator content and targeting options and optimize to best performers.”

Aside from a small portion of the ad budget dedicated to TikTok this year, there’s more of a focus on performance now as the early sales windows didn’t necessarily deliver what marketers were hoping despite more creative being focused on getting people to shop early.

“So far, traction for Black Friday/Cyber Monday has not been as booming as expected – partly because many consumers are anxious and want to get the best deals,” said Amy Lanzi, chief operating officer, Publicis Commerce. “People are sitting on things – hoping prices will drop – and looking for great deals that inspire purchase.”

Lanzi continued: “Given hesitancy from consumers, a lot of creative has been geared toward accessing Black Friday early. This makes sense as in previous years a …read more

Source:: Digiday