Every downturn is good for someone. Take TikTok, for instance.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Even as marketers continue to scrape dollars back wherever they can, whether that be from TV or Facebook, they can\u2019t stop pouring money into the short-form video app. And that\u2019s despite some big question marks over whether those ad dollars could be funding growing tensions between the U.S. and China.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Until those answers materialize, those frictions are nothing more than ifs, buts and maybes to marketers. What isn\u2019t up for debate, though, is how much TikTok continues to dominate people\u2019s attention. And that will always be the big draw for advertisers \u2014 irrespective of economic or political tensions.<\/p>\n
\u201cBetween the first three quarters of 2022 and the final one, we saw ad spending on TikTok rise 20%,\u201d said Ben Allison, head of media operations at VaynerMedia. \u201cIt\u2019s 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. \u201c<\/p>\n
It\u2019s 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<\/a> alongside always-on media channels, especially for driving awareness of big brand moments<\/p>\n \u201cTikTok makes up about 25% of the social ad budgets,\u201d said Brendan Gahan, chief innovation officer at digital marketing agency Mekanism. \u201cSince 2020 it\u2019s grown pretty steadily. Each year it\u2019s grown around 50% year over year.\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s 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\u2019s advertisers just like it is for many others elsewhere.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile TikTok accounts for less than 10% of total spend for our marketing firm, it has more than doubled year over year,\u201d 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. \u201cWe anticipate a similar growth trajectory in 2023 as the channel keeps attracting more advertisers eager to scale their TikTok efforts.\u201d<\/p>\n When this happens advertising tends to get less experimental.\u00a0<\/p>\n In fact, the moves on display from TikTok advertisers nowadays are starting to resemble a tried and tested playbook.\u00a0<\/p>\n 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<\/a> said as much last year, as did Pepsi<\/a> the year before that.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAdvertisers that have tested TikTok generally see success in driving incremental revenue, and are continuing to double down on the platform,\u201d said Jewell. \u201dMany advertisers are testing TikTok in Q1, with plans to scale exponentially throughout 2023.\u201d<\/p>\n Which is to say TikTok is fast becoming a mainstay on the media plans for many advertisers. Granted, it isn\u2019t as big an investment for these advertisers as Facebook or Instagram. But where advertising on those platforms is slowing (and in some cases in actual decline), the complete opposite is happening on TikTok.\u00a0<\/p>\n Why? Because more often than not the money that would\u2019ve gone to those platforms is now going to TikTok. And it\u2019s not hard to see why. Marketers get a sound on, full screen video ad opportunity when they advertise on the app, which effectiveness research shows is most impactful. That\u2019s a world away from advertising on Facebook, Instagram and even Twitter where that sort of efficacy is hard to come by with video ad formats that aren\u2019t as intrinsic to the wider feeds. Put another way: TikTok\u2019s growth is coming at the expense of its more established counterparts.<\/p>\n \u201cOn the whole we continue to see the movement of dollars from traditional channels into online channels so the pie for TikTok to dip into is getting bigger, although this migration of spend is slowing,\u201d said VaynerMedia\u2019s Allison. \u201cWhen it comes to TikTok specifically, though, the increase in budgets there is coming from direct competitors. It\u2019s money that\u2019s becoming available, like Twitter for example, that TikTok has been able to pull into its ads business.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n In many ways, this goes against the grain. Normally, ad dollars tend to retrench into tried and tested areas like Facebook and Instagram where marketers know they will do a job. Relatively new platforms like TikTok aren\u2019t exactly top of mind in these moments.\u00a0<\/p>\n