With more than 500 million active users worldwide, TikTok presents an enormous opportunity to advertisers. Not only has TikTok surpassed Twitter and Snapchat in popularity but it’s also less saturated with ads than its older counterparts. The visual app—which allows users to edit and share 15-second videos with built-in filters, effects, and music—has truly shaken up the marketing world with its unprecedented virality.

Create a TikTok Ads Account

To create your first ad campaign, visit the TikTok Ads home page and click on the Create an Ad button.

Because TikTok Ads is still in beta, the process of setting up ads isn’t entirely online yet. When you click the button, a form pops up requesting details to set up your account. After you submit this information, a representative will get in touch with you to set up your TikTok Ads account.

Create a TikTok Ad Campaign

In the TikTok Ads dashboard, click the Campaign tab at the top of the page and then click the Create button.

Next, choose a campaign objective, which is the primary goal of your ad. You can choose from three options: Traffic, Conversions, and App Install.

To set your budget at the campaign level, select either the Daily Budget or Total Budget option under Settings. Note that both the daily budget and total budget must be at least $500.

Set Your TikTok Ad Placements, Details, and Targeting

The next step is to create an ad group for your campaign and choose your placements and targeting.

There’s an option for automatic placements, where TikTok determines where your ad would perform best and places it there.

Once you’ve selected your preferred placements, follow the prompts to enter all of the details necessary to start running your ad, including any relevant URLs, display names, images, and categories. You can also select up to 20 keywords to describe your website.

The Targeting section lets you define the target audience for your ads. Set parameters for location, age, gender, languages, interests, devices, and more to attract the right audience for your ads.

Control Your TikTok Ad Spend, Duration, and Goals

Now you’re ready to choose a budget, schedule, and goal for your TikTok ads.

Set a Budget and Schedule

In the Budget & Schedule section, set the budget for the ad group. You can choose either a daily budget (the amount you’re willing to spend each day) or a total budget (the total amount you’re willing to spend for the duration of the schedule). Note that there’s a $50 minimum for the daily budget and total budget at the ad group level.

Also, choose the scheduled duration for your ads. Dayparting allows you to select specific times of the day or week on which to run your ad.

Design Your Ad Using TikTok’s Video Creation Kit

When it comes to designing the creative assets for your ad, the process is fairly straightforward. TikTok ads can be horizontal, vertical, or square videos and images. The best thing about the ads platform is a tool called the Video Creation Kit, which provides video and image templates you customize using your existing images. It also comes with 300+ options for free background music.

TikTok currently allows the following ad types: brand takeovers, in-feed ads, and hashtag challenges.

Now that you have the steps to creating and running your own TikTok ads. Do you think the platform is another social media outlet you are going to use? 

Also, who here is on TikTok?