According to Statista, 63% of internet users in the US have a negative attitude when being interrupted by ads. Therefore, TikTok Spark Ads were born to help brands get closer to consumers by allowing them to create ads while keeping the native feel of organic posts.
Let’s take a look at how it works and how to run spark ads on TikTok right in this article! Don’t make ads, make TikTok!
Table of Contents
What are TikTok Spark Ads?
TikTok Spark Ads is an ad format allowing brands to promote available organic content without creating a custom one for advertising. This is a contributing reason for its popularity nowadays. Like TikTok In-feed Ads, Spark Ads appear naturally like any other organic content on For You Page.
By using this type of TikTok ads, brands can authentically develop relationships with the community, therefore driving brand awareness and engagement.
How does Spark Ads work?
There are 2 types of posts to use with Spark Ads:
- Brands’ organic posts
- Content by TikTok creators with their approval
These one-of-a-kind advertisements will be labeled “Sponsored content” and will include a CTA of your choice, account name, caption, and audio. These ads are unique in that they have all of the standard engagement drivers, such as commenting, sharing, and liking.
They also have some distinct functionalities. The main difference between TikTok Spark Ads vs Non-Spark Ads is the level of control and customization that businesses have over their ad campaigns. For example, typically redirect users to the advertiser’s landing page. Spark Ads, on the other hand, work slightly differently. Users will be directed to the TikTok page to follow the account. Furthermore, if the user clicks on the video’s caption or the CTA button, they will be redirected to the advertiser’s preferred landing page.
Why advertisers should use TikTok Spark Ads?
There are many advantages that you should include Spark Ads TikTok in brands’ marketing strategy. Let’s find out with Mega Digital some key functions of Spark Ads that take your TikTok to another level.
Boost with influencer creativity
One of the easiest ways to collaborate with influential content creators is through Spark Ads. Brands can allow influencers to use their creativity and experience to produce captivating content. As a result, the ad produced is equivalent to the organic content, making users much more likely to watch and interact with it.
Promote your best content
If you already have content that is performing well on TikTok, Spark Ads can leverage it and add an extra boost. Spark Ads ensure that your content will reach more people and build stronger connections between users with things in common.
According to TikTok, Spark Ads give better ad performance compared to non-Spark Ads and efficient buying alternatives while weaving organic and paid campaigns together.
Provide detailed metrics
Spark Ads can provide more metrics compared to Non-Spark Ads, such as paid clicks on the CTA button, paid shares, paid followers in 1 day, and paid profile visits. Therefore, brands can measure their TikTok campaigns more specifically and optimize the strategy, which may lead to engagement, new leads, and conversion rate. This is where the culture and consistency of TikTok begin.
Feature innovation elements
Spark Ads support the Duet, Stitch, and Sticker features and the ability for viewers to check the sound in the ad.
What Are TikTok Spark Ad Specs?
When it comes to Spark Ads TikTok, Mega Digital recommends some necessary specifications that advertisers should follow:
- Recommended dimensions: 16:9, 9:16, or 1:1.
- Advised resolution: 540x960px, 640x640px, 960x540px.
- Ad captions can be left blank or include account tagging, emojis, and hashtags.
- Ad display name and text will be based on the selected organic post that cannot be changed during the ad creation process on TikTok Ads Manager.
How Much Do TikTok Spark Ads Cost?
TikTok Ads cost varying amounts, which can be changed due to different campaigns. Typically, advertisers have to pay an average price of $1.00 per click and a CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions) of $6.06.
TikTok also requires a minimum budget of $50 per day at the campaign level and $20 per day at the ad level. Campaign objective, budget & bid amount, audience segmentation, and CTR significantly impact how much your TikTok ads will cost.
>>> Read more: How much do TikTok Ads cost? Is it worth your investment?
How to run Spark Ads on TikTok?
Mega Digital comes up with some initial guidelines and information for brands on how to execute Spark Ads TikTok best.
Method 1: Linking accounts
Step 1: Enable Spark Ads Feature
- Go to the TikTok Ads Dashboard
- Select the advertising objective
- Complete settings in “Campaign” and “Ad Group”
- Enable “Use TikTok Account to deliver Spark Ads”
Step 2: Choose advertising account
Add your owned account to directly use existing posts or create/upload new videos from the “Ad Manager”.
- For using existing videos:
- Access “Ad Details”, select “TikTok Posts”, then choose the post you want to use in Spark Ads.
- After selecting the video, click “Confirm”.
- Complete advertising settings options and click “Submit” to publish Spark Ads.
- For creating/uploading new videos:
- Click on “+ Video” to upload the video
- After uploading, select “Display as an ad” if you want the video not to be suggested, searched, or displayed on your profile page.
- Click Submit when your ad is complete. Now, you’ll have to wait for your ad to be approved.
Method 2: Authorized Accounts or Post
With this method, businesses and content creators need to cooperate. Businesses that want to use authorized posts must have content creators authorize their videos for advertising purposes.
Step 1: Choose videos and Generate authorization Code
- Click on “Me” to go to your TikTok channel, then tap the three-dot icon in the upper right corner.
- Choose “Privacy”
- Turn on the toggle “Ad authorization”
Step 2: Authorize Video
TikTokers select videos for authorization, or businesses contact TikTokers to discuss authorized videos. After selecting the video, content creators need to:
- Access the selected video.
- Click the three-dot icon.
- Choose “Ad settings.”
- Turn on “Ad authorization” and choose “Agree with Advertising Terms of Service”
Step 3: Create a Video Code
If your business collaborates with TikTok Creator Marketplace’s influencer, you can skip the code creation step and synchronize their videos with the TikTok ad manager for use in Spark Ads campaigns.
However, if the business does not work with creators on the TikTok Creator Marketplace. the content creator needs to create a video code to share with the business and specify the duration of the authorization.
- Select “Generate Code” and choose one of the three allowed time frames: 7 days, 30 days, 60 days.
- Click “Authorize”
- Tap “Copy Code” to share the code with the business.
Step 4: Input the Authorized Video Code into TikTok Ads Manager
After copying the video code, the content creator will send it to the business, and you will need to input the code into the TikTok Ads Manage:
- Access “Assets”, then select “Creative”
- Choose “Spark Ads” and click “Apply for Authorization”
- Paste the authorization code into the search bar and click “Search”
- If the displayed video is the selected authorized video, click “Confirm”
Step 5: Run Spark Ads Campaigns
After completing all the steps, the business can convert natural videos to Spark Ads on TikTok by following these steps:
- Create a campaign and set up an ad group.
- In the “Ad level” section, select Spark Ads.
- Choose “Select posts from Library” in Upload.
- Select the video you want to advertise.
- Turn on the toggle “Use TikTok account” for advertising authorization and select the account you want to advertise.
- Click “Submit” when your ad is ready. Now, you will have to wait for your ad to be approved.
Successful cases of brands using Spark Ads
Mango
Objective
The leading Spanish fashion brand – Mango, needed to raise awareness for its new Camille Charrière x Mango capsule collection, so it turned to TikTok for a traffic campaign.
Solutions
Having previously focused on click-optimized traffic campaigns, Mango felt there was still room for other results optimization and instead conducted a traffic campaign optimized for ‘landing page view,’ as TikTok advocated to boost campaign performance. For the campaign, the brand also employed broad targeting, interest targeting, and Spark Ads to reach the TikTok community and drive traffic to the brand’s website.
Result
With Spark Ads, Mango lets us see the clothes in all three-dimensional glory instead of watching models dress up individually. Mango’s results were showstopping, earning exceptional performance for their landing page view campaign when compared to the previous results. The brand witnessed a 533% increase in web sessions while paying 83% less per web session.
The Isle of Paradise
Objective
Isle of Paradise, the beauty brand responsible for the world’s first 100% vegan and cruelty-free color-correcting self-tan, has a strong presence on TikTok.
As the brand’s off-peak season approached, it chose TikTok to create its first sponsored campaign plan, employing a combination of branded and creator-led content to generate demand and improve sales for its best-selling Glow Drops product at Sephora.
Solutions
Isle of Paradise also approached a number of TikTokers who had previously made wonderful organic testimonials for Glow Drops and worked with them to repurpose their material for the campaign.
The brand then used TikTok Ads Manager to launch Spark Ads that featured both original creator content and user-generated content.
Result
Following TikTok’s creative best practices, leaning into authentic creator content, and collaborating with TikTok Ads Manager to amplify the campaign, Isle of Paradise significantly improved ROI during its off-season by directly driving sales with the traffic target. Among the results were a 500% ROI, 45 million video views, a 1.1% click-through rate, and a 68% increase in revenue each week compared to the previous nine weeks.
Notes when running Spark Ads
Spark Ads on TikTok is an invaluable advertising tool because it can boost interactions and reach TikTok users without causing annoyance. However, to fully leverage all the benefits that Spark Ads offer, businesses need to take note of the following:
- Creative and appropriate caption selection that aligns with the content of the video and the advertising purpose. Since you cannot edit the video caption once it has been converted to an authorized video format for advertising
- The video used in the campaign will still be distributed naturally. Therefore, businesses need to create engaging content, an appealing presentation style, and utilize trending music to ensure that the video yields high results throughout the campaign.
- Consider the authorized time carefully, as video authorization codes can only be deleted when the campaign ends or is canceled.
Tips and Tricks to optimize Spark Ads
Certainly, businesses do not want their campaigns to encounter obstacles or issues such as videos being deleted due to policy violations, videos being muted, or videos receiving a lot of negative comments resulting in poor advertising results. Therefore, you should immediately refer to some useful tips provided by Mega Digital to optimize your Spark Ads.
Tip 1: Define the campaign’s objectives
You need to identify goals to devise appropriate strategies to achieve them. Additionally, when the campaign ends, you should compare the results with the objectives to assess the effectiveness of Spark Ads advertising. Based on this, you can implement measures to improve future campaigns.
Tip 2: Develop a specific plan
After identifying the campaign objectives, you should build a plan for the Spark Ads advertising program, including these factors:
- Target audience
- Advertising budget
- Advertising formats
Tip 3: Evaluate the effectiveness of various videos
To deploy Spark Ads on TikTok, you can select videos from your TikTok channel or use videos from KOC/KOL. So how do you choose suitable videos that yield results? Evaluate videos based on the following indicators:
- The created video content must ensure the requirements:
- Video duration
- Language
- Hashtags
- Use of music in the TikTok Commercial Sounds library
- Views: Select videos with high natural views to ensure good popularity.
- Interactions: Including the number of likes, comments, and shares. A higher interaction rate indicates that the video attracts audience attention.
- Conversion rate: Indicates the video’s ability to convert audiences into customers. Evaluate and measure this indicator to select videos that yield the highest conversion rate and focus on optimizing your campaign.
Final Word
TikTok Spark Ads have just transformed the way brands can advertise for the better. Remember that your Spark Ads will be much more effective when you partner with content creators who can churn out great UGC. Hopefully, this post has provided you with a broad understanding of how Spark Ads function and how they may benefit brands.
If your campaign hasn’t yielded a satisfactory result, get in touch with Mega Digital – a TikTok agency to become the fastest-growing brand on TikTok.
