Whether you are just beginning your TikTok journey or looking at ways to optimize your next campaign, here are five useful tactics businesses can utilize on the TikTok For Business’ Self-serve advertising platform to tap into the creativity of the TikTok community - opening doors to a new, content-hungry audience whilst maintaining the desired ROI from their efforts.

Enhance engagement with ‘ad placements’

On TikTok, SMBs can use the self-serve advertising tools to organize their ads using three levels: campaigns, ad groups, and individual ads. Once a campaign’s objectives have been defined, users will be able to create their ad groups and then have the option to choose their ad group’s ad placements. To get the best results, users can let TikTok’s algorithm choose placements automatically. Alternatively, businesses have the option to conduct their own A/B tests on their ad placements by creating ad groups with different placements and increasing their spend on those placements that are delivering the best results and ROI for their business based on their goals.

Targeting made simple

Once ad placements have been selected, users can configure the audience targeting. TikTok allows SMBs to target audiences by general demographics, interests, and devices. However, to increase engagement, it is recommended to keep age and gender targeting with no limit and let the TikTok algorithm do the job of optimizing the ads for them, unless they are targeting a niche audience.

Keep creative fresh and be agile

TikTok has a suite of creative tools that enable every business to embrace the creativity and authenticity of the TikTok community. Everyone has the opportunity to tell their story in their own unique way, and resources such as TikTok AdStudio on the self-serve platform help SMBs represent the most authentic version of their brand to their target audience. When a campaign is live, always remember to refresh creatives at least once a week and three to five creatives are recommended per ad group.

Remember, the TikTok community is best engaged via a full screen, sound-on experience; and therefore, immersive, short-form 10 to 20 seconds videos deliver better results and give businesses a platform to participate and engage with a community known for its creativity, ingenuity, and joy. However, it’s important that SMBs are agile with their campaigns - keep a close eye on its performance and make adjustments as needed to ensure maximum impact.

Maximize campaign performance with smarter scheduling and optimized budgets

For ad groups that are delivering good ROI, best practice for SMBs is to make sure to set a higher budget so they can capitalize on the performance of these ads. The overall ad group budget should be at least 20 times the bid to ensure sufficient learning, giving businesses the opportunity to adapt budget and campaign assets as needed. Additionally, it is best to set a campaign budget as 'no limit' because ad groups will compete with each other if the budget is not sufficient. If there is enough budget, no competition will occur between ad groups.

When it comes to scheduling, use ‘all day mode’ for dayparting, and select 'run continuously' to make sure ads are delivered evenly throughout the day, and all the potential audiences have a chance to see them.

Higher bids lead to more exposure

The higher the bid, the more likely an ad will be seen by the target audience over a competitor’s ads. Raising the bid, at least for the ad groups that bring out good ROI, by 20%-30% is recommended and businesses should avoid adjusting the bid and budget for more than twice per day as this will affect audience reach and conversion.