TikTok’s latest advertising innovations was recently launched at Advertising Week. These new tools aim to help brands achieve better business outcomes through automated performance advertising, enhanced measurement capabilities, and advanced privacy technologies. TikTok, a platform with over 1 billion users, continues to position itself as a hub for advertisers to connect with their audience and convert discovery into tangible results.
Automated Advertising Solutions
TikTok’s new automated performance advertising tools simplify the ad creation process and improve campaign results. David Kaufman, Global Head of Monetisation Product Solutions and Operations at TikTok, explains: “TikTok is building for the future. We have been listening, learning, and innovating with our advertiser partners to continuously develop solutions that deliver performance.”
One key feature is the Smart+ Performance Automation Solution, which automates targeting, bidding, and creative selection. Smart+ optimizes ad performance by delivering the right ad to the right person at the right time. Advertisers only need to provide assets, budget, and targeting goals, while Smart+ does the rest. This new tool, which includes web campaigns, catalog ads, app campaigns, and lead generation campaigns, has demonstrated strong results.
Advertisers using Smart+ web campaigns reported a 52% improvement in return on ad spend. Roberta Atzori, Senior Performance Marketing Manager at EssilorLuxottica (Ray-Ban), noted: “By utilising Smart+ to automate our performance advertising, we have achieved substantial improvements [in our performance campaigns]… a 50% reduction in cost per acquisition, a 47% increase in conversion rates, and a 42% improvement in ROAS.”
Commerce and Retail Optimisation
TikTok also introduced GMV Max, which automates TikTok Shop campaigns to help merchants grow their gross merchandise value (GMV). This tool simplifies ad operations, cutting setup time in half, and allows sellers to optimise traffic from organic content, paid ads, and affiliate posts. In early testing, merchants saw a 30% increase in GMV.
Nish Samantray, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Arrae, said: “GMV Max allows us to focus on other parts of the funnel that are more important, like creative optimization… [GMV Max] allows our team to focus on just that.”
Additionally, TikTok launched Out of Phone: Retail, which brings TikTok’s digital campaigns into physical retail locations, showcasing TikTok content in stores. This solution helps bridge the gap between online engagement and in-store purchasing decisions.
Enhanced Measurement Capabilities
TikTok’s measurement tools are evolving to provide better insights into the effectiveness of ads. Studies show that 79% of purchases driven by TikTok are not attributed to TikTok, and TikTok conversions are undervalued by 73%.
To address this, TikTok introduced Conversion Lift Studies (CLS), which measures TikTok’s impact beyond the last click and helps advertisers understand the relationship between ad exposure and consumer behavior. Advertisers using CLS have seen a 25% average lift in conversions compared to users not exposed to the ad.
Privacy-Enhancing Technologies
To further support advertisers, TikTok announced integrations with Privacy-Enhancing Technologies (PETs). These technologies help advertisers measure conversion lift while maintaining user privacy, using advanced measures like clean rooms and trusted execution environments. TikTok is partnering with providers like AWS Clean Rooms and Secure Multi-Party Computation to offer these privacy-focused solutions.
Why is this important?
TikTok’s latest announcement is aimed at expanding its eCommerce dominance and by advancing its advertising tools with automation, improved measurement, and privacy enhancements to help brands increase revenue on the platforms.
images courtesy of TikTok