You want low CPMs (like the early days of Facebook)? You want massive engagement from eager shoppers? Are you looking for a little virality to go with that? Then you need to consider TikTok and Snap ads. I’ve had more clients and other agency friends ask about TikTok and SnapChat ads in the last few weeks than I can ever remember before. Both platforms are still in their infancy from an ads standpoint (with Snap being more established than TikTok). Both still offer tremendous opportunities for first adopters who are willing to learn the platforms.
Today I’m bringing on two experts, Madison Grover VP of Social from Pouch and Anders Piiparinen CEO from Wallaroo Media. They’re giving us a crash course on what we need to know about TikTok and Snap ads.
- Why you should build TikToks and NOT ads
- How creating consistently great content on TikTok can have a compounding or “resurfacing” affect
- How to repurpose TikTok content on other platforms
- Why you can’t repurpose YouTube or IG content on TikTok
- Understanding key TikTok metrics
- The basics of a solid Snap ad
- How to drive conversions from TikTok and Snap
Anders Piiparinen
Madison Grover
Mentioned in this interview:
Episode Transcript:
Brett:
Well, hello, and welcome to another edition of the eCommerce Evolution podcast. I'm your host, Brett Curry, CEO of OMG Commerce. And I am absolutely jazzed, if that's a cool word to say these days, it probably isn't, about the topic of today's podcast. And one of the reasons why is because I actually think my kids would enjoy listening to this podcast, I have some teenage kids and some younger kids. I think my teenagers would dig the topic of today's podcast and you will too. We're talking today about TikTok and Snap, and how to run ads, how to do organic on these platforms. So this is a topic that I hear coming up more and more in different marketing groups and masterminds I'm a part of, and I realized that I don't know much about either platform, and so I decided to bring on the experts in this space.
Brett:
I'm absolutely delighted to welcome to the show, Anders who's the CEO of Wallaroo Media, and Madison who's the VP of social at Pouch, which is a division of Wallaroo Media. So Anders, Madison, welcome to the show. How's it going? And thanks for coming on, guys.
Anders:
Thank you, Brett. Going great. We're excited to be here in the chat. Yeah, TikTok and Snap.
Brett:
Yeah, now let us know where you guys hailing from? You're hailing from the beautiful state of Utah, correct?
Anders:
Yep. I am in Salt Lake Valley, our office is in Provo. So just down the road from Brigham Young University in Utah Valley University. We've got a office right there on Center Street. And then we've got... Though, our team is spread out across the country. We've got some in New York and Chicago, a bit remote, but a lot of our team is here in Utah. And then Madison?
Madison:
Yeah, I am as well. I'm located in Salt Lake City.
Brett:
Awesome. Only been to Salt Lake City one time, beautiful place. Love it. So little jealous of your weather a lot of the year, not in the winter, but the rest of the year, a little jealous.
Anders:
You got to come back.
Brett:
I will, I definitely will. So Anders, I got to know Anders... Several years ago he was working with one of our brands that we've been the agency for, for a number of years, and now Anders is running his own agency. So this topic of TikTok and Snap ads, it's heating up, man, people are asking about it. We're hearing about all kinds of crazy organic growth on TikTok, and the ad platform is really maturing, as well. I guess as kind of the first question, let's start on the ad side of things with you Anders, how should we think about TikTok ads? So what do we need to understand about the platform? And maybe talk strategy just a little bit, and then we're going to pivot, and also look at the organic side of TikTok.
Anders:
Yeah, TikTok is still very early in its infancy from an ad platform. Advertising on the platform has been around for about two years or so with beta advertisers. We came on board about a year and a half ago through their managed platform. They're continually working out kinks, different things on the back end, account setup. Self serve wasn't even set up. So with that, there's a lot of things that they're fixing on their end. And for a lot of advertisers, sometimes it does mean more risk, the platform may not be as stable as, say, Facebook or Google and these have been around a lot longer. So that's something to, I guess, use a little bit of caution with.
Anders:
But it's also an opportunity where a lot of advertisers are not yet, and we know that TikTok as a whole has just blown up, the fastest growing platform right now, especially here in the US. So the eyeballs are there. And there's not nearly as many advertisers, so while Facebook CPMs rose 30% in January, we were spending and seeing CPMs between $2 and $6 during Q1.
Brett:
$2 and $6, that's insane.
Anders:
Yeah. So it's a much cheaper way to get those eyeballs out, or eyeballs on your brand. But there's a lot of testing going on, there's a lot of things that we've got to keep in mind. So with that, using this, it should be incremental to your business, we're not looking and bringing brands on to TikTok to replace Facebook or Google ad spend. We're looking to help it supplement that and to diversify ad spend and strategy to just diversify things. There is this new customer, like you mentioned, this younger Gen Z, and the younger millennials, but I'll also say we've had a few brands that we've worked with, and we see buyers over 45.. So it's really growing quickly there.
Brett:
Yeah, I know, it's going to continue to grow, those older demos, and my wife and I have some friends in their 20s and 30s and stuff and we know a ton of them are on TikTok. I was just hoping that I could be cool again for my teenage kids, because they don't think I'm very cool right now. So that's why I mentioned that. But yeah, I love this idea of incremental growth and supplementing some of your big channels. So you're not saying, "Okay, go slash your Facebook spend by 50% or your Google ad spend by 50%, so you can do TikTok, but add this on." And it is where the attention is right now. And someone like Garyvee talks about a whole lot, attention is oxygen, you have to go where the attention is. And so really, really interesting.
Brett:
What about on the organic side and then we'll kind of talk about content and ads in just a minute. But Madison, I hear stories of people saying, "Hey, we'll post this on TikTok and it'll go viral." In fact, our controller, Patricia, we call her DJ PattyB, she posted something on TikTok with her dog, her dog and her cat got in a fight or something like that, and it went completely viral, it was like half a million views or something like that. She didn't really try and didn't even know what she was doing. I was in the kitchen the other day and she's like, "Did you hear that I went viral?" And I was like, "Are you sick?" I didn't know what she meant about viral, but then she said TikTok. And so pretty crazy what's happening there on the organic side.
Madison:
Yeah, I mean, that's a good way to describe it. Things on TikTok are crazy. And they're hard to expect honestly, even as marketers who do this all the time on TikTok, you don't always expect what's going to go viral. But the exciting thing about TikTok is that there is this huge viral potential that's really, really hard to find on other platforms these days. And there's a lot less brands on TikTok, more and more are jumping on, I'll say, especially with the overlap now with Instagram reels and YouTube shorts. There's a lot of ways to cross promote this type of content these days. So more and more people are jumping on, but it's still somewhat early for brands too, and so there's a huge potential.
Madison:
What I would say in terms of organic content for brands is that if you're going to do it, you have to really be willing to commit to it because you can't take your other strategies and try to apply them to TikTok, you have to really be willing to get into what TikTok is and who the people are that are there. They don't care about brands that just want to be there to promote, they want to see brands who are really understanding TikTok and the trends and becoming a part of that really unique culture.
Brett:
Yeah, so let's unpack content a little bit and I will talk about organic first Madison, then I want to I want to find out about ads too from Anders, but certainly we've got things like Instagram reels and YouTube shorts which are taking off and gaining some popularity. But to have success with TikTok you need to create content for TikTok first, right? You create for the platform because the expectations and the behavior and the mindset of the people that are on the platform is different, right? So what does organic content, what should it look like on TikTok? And maybe what are some ways where it's different from Instagram and/or YouTube shorts? So what are some things to keep in mind there?
Madison:
Yeah, great question. You're completely right, it has to start on TikTok, or else it's not going to be successful. The place that I would suggest with starting is always with sounds, TikTok revolves around the sounds, and if you start there, you're automatically-
Brett:
Talk to a guy who knows very little. I downloaded TikTok after our last conversation. I've gone on a few times, I confess, not very many. So what do you mean by sounds?
Madison:
When I say sounds, it includes music and unique sounds. So there are songs on TikTok, all the popular songs are there, and if you're a business account, you do have limited access to some of those more popular songs, which is when we start to talk about the unique sounds. And these are anything that another TikTok user uploads into the app, we're then able to take that sound that they used on their video and add it to video and add it to our own. So that's where trends sort of pick up are around these sounds, and people will create similar or different videos using that same sound and take it to all different places. So some of the sounds are just music, background sounds, and some of them are really the entire trend that's happening. So if you start there, you're probably 75% more likely to be on trend than if you just create a video from scratch, because you think that it will be funny or clever.
Brett:
Got it. How else is TikTok different from other platforms? Because it seems to me, in my limited exposure here, that with Instagram or something you could just get on and start talking, right? Or YouTube shorts could be you just kind of talking about something. But that's not really what you're doing on TikTok, right? TikTok, it's got a different pace, and it's kind of a different flavor. So how else is it different?
Madison:
Yeah, so one of the biggest ways that it's different is how you're finding the content. It's all coming through your For You page, and you don't necessarily know who it's coming from when it pops up. So you're right in that the pace is really quick, if I watched three seconds of the video on my For You page, if it doesn't grab my attention in some way, you're already skipping it, you don't have that name or profile attached to it like you would with people that you're following on Instagram, because you already know that you want to see their content, this is all random, so you have to grab people really quickly, and you have to create content that has those elements where people will recognize the content as it comes through there For You page, so that they stick around long enough to watch the full video.
Madison:
So that's why influencers are obviously taking off, you see their face and you stick around long enough. As a brand, you have to do the same thing. You have to have types of threads and themes throughout your content that people will pick up on so that they recognize you and care.
Brett:
Awesome. Okay, Anders. Let's talk the ad side of things really quickly. I know YouTube ads really well, thinking about what makes for a good YouTube ad all the time, we're dissecting things and even though I don't run ads on Facebook or Instagram, I got a pretty good idea of what works, sometimes it's just a simple product demo. But those platforms do have, and especially YouTube, have some similarities like TV ads, right? Direct response TV ads, that's a pretty good comparison to YouTube ads. But I know TikTok is different. So what do we need to know about TikTok ads, both in terms of the creatives, but then let's also maybe talk about how they function in a minute too on the way they're sold and stuff?
Anders:
Yeah, definitely. It's very similar to what Madison was talking about, we recommend creating ads specific for TikTok. Snapchat, we'll talk about later, I'm sure. You can take a good Instagram story ad or a good Facebook story ad, throw that on Snapchat, and a lot of time, that's going to work. But we have tested time and time again, and a lot of times it's when a new client comes on, that's all they've got. We'll throw it in there, and it just flops. We've also tested it where we create something specific or work with Madison and her team or the brand and influencers to get something that looks and feels like a TikTok, 9 times out of 10 that's going to outperform the more polished ad.
Anders:
TikTok did this massive campaign last summer, where they said, "Hey, don't make ads, make TikToks." 100 million dollars to small businesses to come and test and do that. And I think a lot of those businesses that came in didn't go and make ads or make TikToks, they made ads. I think we didn't see those perform nearly as well. In terms of functionality, your TikTok ads are actually not connected to your profile, yet, at all. So that's one thing. You don't need to have an organic presence on TikTok to have an ad account, which is a little bit different. Not to say that it would be more beneficial to do both, obviously. But if you're just getting started, you don't have the bandwidth to do organic or don't have the bandwidth to do ads, it's not like you have to do both.
Anders:
The other thing too, why a lot of that Instagram story, we're so used to saying swipe up, swipe up, swipe up. Well, TikTok, everything is swipe left to load the page. If you swipe up, you swipe off of your ad. You swipe off of your piece of content and on to something else that may be more attractive to the user and take them away from your brand or product. So we still see, and I've seen this time and time again, from even just big brands, I don't know if they're working with just a lazy agency or what, but they'll throw in their Instagram content that's running on and say, "Swipe up." You're telling people to go away.
Brett:
Like on YouTube, "Hey, skip this ad, because we have something really important to say."
Anders:
Exactly. So that's something to keep in mind. In terms of time limits and things, well, also, just in terms of content, it's only video, you can't take a static in here, either. So it is a higher barrier to entry than just a static ad for Instagram or a display ad on Google.
Brett:
Gotcha. And how long are these ads typically? Are there really defined limits, or is it more about these are just the limits that are most effective?
Anders:
Yeah. So there is a limit, I believe right now, it's still one minute. TikTok, organically, that's what the limit was, until, I think really recently, they've started to up that and play that to three minutes. So we might see some longer form ads coming. And I'd say it's similar to YouTube or another platform, the ad, we haven't found a sweet spot, in terms of like your length. It is as long as you can keep them engaged, keep them around and pushing the product. We've seen minute long ads crush it, we've seen a 15 second ad crush it. Because the other thing that's nice too, about these smaller, shorter videos, is if it's 10 seconds, TikTok's automatically going to loop it. It's not like Instagram stories where it just goes to the next video and your six second ad, somebody blinked and missed it. TikTok is going to replay it until somebody swipes away from it.
Brett:
Interesting. Talk a little bit about pace and sort of how you structure the creative, right? Because I know, on YouTube as an example, the first five seconds are critical, because that's the time before someone skips. And so we usually want to have a couple elements in the first five seconds, maybe one cut, but something that really grabs them. So we have what we want in the first five seconds. Talk about pace and what you want in that TikTok ad.
Anders:
Yeah. So definitely we almost always recommend product first. Make sure that you're showing your product, it's very easy to get into a TikTok trend, and not show the product until like 15 seconds, or sometimes we'll work with the influencers to create some content, and the first piece of content that we get back from them is them talking about the product, and then they hold it up like 10 seconds later which is definitely not ideal. Now that said, there's one particular example that the product I don't think was shown until like 25 or 30 seconds in, and Madison and her team worked on this with Vessi, brand that we work with, the waterproof shoes.
Brett:
Waterproof shoe, absolutely.
Anders:
And we brand this as an ad back in October of 2020. And it was with this influencer, her name's kallmekris, she's based in Canada, she has blown up, I don't know how many followers she has now, it's like 10s of millions. I think it's like 30 some. But she's got a character, and it's a trend that people follow her with or follow her for. She talks about waterproof shoes, or talks about shoes, but the product itself, and the product demo happened around like the 30 or 35 second mark. However, the interesting thing is..
Brett:
That's the exception though, that's not the rule, she's really engaging, and people loved her otherwise this
Anders:
Exactly. And that crushed it organically, that crushed it, we were able to boost it as a Tiktok, that crushed it. So in terms of that formula, it differs really based on that content. Now, if you're making something internally and you're doing something like an unboxing, there's also ways to... It really is just go on the For You page, start swiping to get ideas, see what trends are currently happening, and think, "How can I take this and turn it into a trend?" There's a big trend, especially around like TikTok made me buy it. So we've created several ads.
Brett:
TikTok made me buy it?
Anders:
Yeah.
Brett:
That's great actually. Yeah.
Anders:
And we'll create several ads around that and use this TikTok voiceover, it's not Siri, but it's got a voice that speaks the words out and there's text on the screen. And TikTok made me buy these shoes or this iPhone case, and you can then do the unboxing there. Whereas on Instagram, you might just start with the unboxing, and that might perform really well. So there's ways to tack on and use that from... use trends as a best practice as well. So I'd say product first, and then focus on trends. It is very difficult to just like... We haven't seen an ad just take off that doesn't follow some sort of trend. I'll just say trend videos outperform 9 times out of 10.
Brett:
Nice. And is that what you do on the organic side as well, Madison, where you're... Obviously, you have to have a deep understanding of the client's product and their market, but you're starting with tend first, and then seeing how you can leverage that trend with a given brand?
Madison:
Yeah, typically, and it depends on how much flexibility we're given too, because trends happen very quickly, and they come and go.
Brett:
And do they fade... Okay, yeah fade quickly.
Madison:
100%. Most of the trends that come through TikTok die within a week. And then there are some standout trends that will stick around for a couple of weeks, really, they're very strong. And then you can still do that trend and use that sound a month later, and it's still relevant because they were big enough that everyone saw them, right?
Brett:
Like TikTok made me buy it, that's maybe one with a little more longevity, at least for now?
Madison:
Yeah, TikTok made me buy it is interesting, because it started a while ago, probably six months ago, and just this week came up on the Discover page, which is where all of your trending hashtags show up, and it was like number three trending hashtag. So some really, evergreen trends like that will come back around every once in a while.
Anders:
One thing I want to call out too, because this really started organically, was a lot of people would do like, "Things you didn't know you need on Amazon, part one." There are pages for this. And then they put a link in their bio and drop an affiliate link, whatever. Well, now Amazon actually promotes all of that content. They're working with influencers directly to push that. So that's another one that... It's been around for a while, it started a while, but still... Yeah, I'd say it's more evergreen now. And that's specific to Amazon, the giant that they are.
Brett:
Yeah, super interesting. I've got so many, so many questions. I'm trying to decide what to ask next. What's our metrics in what we're seeing there? So we'll get into that in a minute. First, I want to talk about content a little bit more. So when you create an organic post, are there any similarities between this and Facebook, where then you're boosting that organic content? Or are the content pieces quite different? And so you've got your organic and your paid? That's the way it typically is on YouTube, right? Typically, YouTube, ads are different, organic is different, but it sounds like there's probably some overlap here. Who wants to take that? I know you
Anders:
Madison, I'll let you take it, that way... Because I think what would be interesting, I think people want to know, like, what is the length of a piece of organic content? Because we do boost some content. But typically, we wait a little bit. So I'll let Madison take it first, and then I can talk towards the paid.
Madison:
Yeah, there is a lot of overlap, because again, what we're talking about with ads that perform really well, it's because it looks like a really strong piece of organic content. So it sort of starts organically, and then we take the things that are really working, and that's where we're putting the money. A strong organic piece of content, I would say, is usually 15 to 30 seconds, try to keep it on the shorter end. But like Anders said, as long as you can keep people's attention. That content, when it's posted, will typically get the most amount of engagement within 48 hours, let's say. If it's going to blow up, it blows up almost immediately. But then it has a lifetime that's indefinite, honestly, it depends on how other things perform. It will keep gaining traction, especially videos that do perform very well for a week, sometimes even two weeks. And then what will happen is if you get another strong piece of content later, TikTok says, "Oh, now look at these new 50,000 people who are interested in that brand's content," they'll pull from old videos and start pushing them back into the feed as well.
Madison:
So the lifetime of a video is really dependent. But typically we like to see that one to two weeks, let that content really live it all out, get all of those views, and then that's when we start to look at, "Okay, what's really performing and where do we want to put money behind this now?"
Brett:
Yeah, it's super interesting. So the shelf life of a given video typically is pretty short. But if you have a good strategy and you're releasing more content that people like, there's kind of a compounding effect, right? This resurfacing effect that really, really makes it attractive to say, "Hey, let's keep putting content out," which I think goes back to your first point, Madison, of you got to commit to this. We're going to do it, commit to it, content.
Madison:
Absolutely. And that's where those themes and... not trends, themes, and storylines come through. So for example, with Vessi, one thing that we did was what we call a pour video, where we just pour random liquids over the shoes. That really grabs people's attention really quickly, it's very interesting.
Brett:
It's like the will it blend videos from so many years ago, right?
Madison:
Exactly.
Brett:
It's attitude wore it out.
Madison:
That's funny, we actually talked about doing a series called will it repel, completely based on that. Will the shoes repel these liquids? So when we do that-
Brett:
Acid
Madison:
... when we had a pour video perform really well, TikTok immediately recognizes the five other pour videos that we've done beforehand, and will show those same types of videos to people. So that's where having those themes and storylines in your content really pays off, too. Because as soon as one hits, if you will, then TikTok will find the rest of it.
Brett:
Yeah, cool. So what are the metrics we're paying attention to? And it's really interesting that you kind of know in the first 24 hours, if this thing isn't going anywhere after 24 hours, it's pretty well dead, right?
Madison:
Yeah.
Brett:
So what are the metrics we're looking at? Is it just strictly views and engagements? Are there other ways we can tell if people... I know on the Facebook side, likes and comment, likes are great, comments are maybe better, shares are even better than that, from what I know, from my Facebook friends. What are those key metrics here?
Madison:
Yeah, I would say views is just absolutely the biggest one, because the way TikTok works, once you start gaining views, it's exponential. They're showing it on more and more and more For You pages. The other thing that you can see within 24 hours of posting your video are the analytics of that specific video and you can see how many of your views are coming from your profile or your followers and the For You page. And if you see more than 50% or more like 80% or 90% coming from the For You page, that video is getting a lot of traction, right?
Brett:
Yep.
Madison:
Shares are also a huge metric.
Brett:
Got it. Are shares pretty common? Is that a big thing, are people mainly just watching from For You and people they follow and stuff like that?
Madison:
Sort of depends. You can have a really successful video that doesn't get a lot of shares. But typically, shares are a really good indicator. They do happen even more than you would think, some videos don't seem like something that people would want to share and they still get a lot of that on TikTok.
Brett:
Nice.
Anders:
I'll chime in real quick too about shares because shares on TikTok are really unique, where Facebook, those shares are more like on the platform, and more and more, I think you've started to see shares happen through Messenger. But when you share something on TikTok, I don't know the stats on this, but I would bet 90% of them go to a text message.
Anders:
I find a funny TikTok that I like, I grab that link and I send it to my family list or my wife or whoever, and they can see it right there in iMessage or in their phone and it opens right up. So you're not DMing it all the time. My wife and I, we've never really DMd a link over there, through TikTok's messaging portal, but we do it through text all the time. And then same thing, if you share it on to Twitter or somewhere else, and a lot of times you can save a video and then you'll go repost those or they'll get reposted on Twitter, it's always cool. TikTok does have that watermark which I'm sure you've seen that ..
Brett:
Totally. Yeah, we've used TikTok influencer clips on YouTube ads, and they've worked really well when combined with other things. So yeah, I do see that that watermark a lot.
Anders:
Yeah, so that's a cool feature too, because it always gives that credit back. And we've seen too, I don't know, necessarily with many other brands that we've worked with, but definitely I've seen content that has crushed it on TikTok, and then all of a sudden it's on Instagram reels and trending on Twitter. A lot of times, it wasn't even the person who posted initially to TikTok that shared to the other platforms.
Brett:
Yeah, so it does seem like TikTok content can be shared elsewhere, and it works. You just can't go the other way. You can't usually create something for Instagram or YouTube and then share it on TikTok, that sharing doesn't work, but it does work from TikTok to other places. So let's talk about the relationship of ads and organic. It sounds like you're often posting organically, seeing if it's got traction, then you're boosting it, potentially. Does putting ad dollars behind content help with organic reach as well? So as an example, on the YouTube side, there's almost no connection, right? In fact, in some cases, if you promote, send ad traffic to something, it will hurt the organic reach, because your watch times drop and all these things and so that hurts organic. What's the relationship here between paid and organic?
Anders:
Yeah, as I mentioned earlier, your paid account and your organic aren't even connected at all. So the only way that they are connected is if you do a boost. And the way that these boosts are done, actually is TikTok, really cool, we've heard of whitelisting on Instagram or YouTube, or like all these ways, and permissions is just an absolute nightmare from an ad agency to get those from influencers. TikTok's got a really nice way, the user just goes and clicks that share button, but then it will allow them to generate a code and anybody can do this, you don't have to have 10,000 followers to do it. You don't have to have a brand profile with 10,000 followers, and then it generates that code, and then you get that on the back end TikTok ad manager where you can put that in, and then boost.
Anders:
Now that said, it's still... I don't believe that this feature is widely available yet to advertisers, we have it on our accounts that we're connected to, and there's a lot of beta features that come out. But that whitelisting may not be available to everybody yet. I know that TikTok's rolling it out. And it might not be available for every country either. And then there are as well, some other objectives, similar to Facebook, where you can boost a post, or say you've got a business, you post on Instagram, and there's that little boost button down there, and you can optimize for traffic to your website or engagement. Tiktok's starting to test and do more. And they do have conversion objective or traffic or brand awareness, and one that's opened up more to, and is still I think more of a beta, is engagement. So we..
Brett:
What exactly have you found to work best... On the YouTube and Facebook side, if you choose views or engagements, that's what you'll get. If you choose conversions, that's what you'll get. But what do you find working on TikTok?
Anders:
Very much the same. It wasn't always the case. Last June, for instance, we ran for a brand. And that was back when the pixel was very rough, tracking was very difficult. You couldn't even post events in your code. You had to do it all through their portal. And so we ran actually traffic a bit last June for one brand in particular, and according to the post purchase survey results at the end of the month for their Shopify store, Tiktok absolutely crushed. And we were definitely bummed, we didn't go and spend some more dollars on traffic. But since then, conversion of the-
Brett:
The numbers in TikTok looked bad, but the numbers in the back end on Shopify looked great?
Anders:
Yeah. Oh, the numbers and TikTok back then, it was like nothing. We saw like five purchases, and I think in that month, I think we spent maybe like six or seven grand, but on the back end, post purchase survey, it was like $45,000 in sales.
Brett:
Whoa,
Anders:
So it was absolutely... It was a big difference. Now that said, we have seen the conversion objective work so much better. Just like Facebook, and like a lot of these other ad platforms, they do recommend that you optimize for an objective that you can get out of learning, and that learning needs 50 conversions a week. So-
Brett:
50 a week, okay.
Anders:
50 a week, just like Facebook for that learning phase. We have tested a lot, add to cart, optimize it for an add to cart, we've optimized for PDP view, we optimize for complete payment or initiate checkout. All the testing that we've done, it's just once you get a complete payment, or a purchase, optimizing for that is just far better. Sometimes it's more expensive and definitely more expensive to get traffic or sometimes an add to cart, but we've seen it's much more qualified.
Brett:
Nice, it sounds like things are getting better there. Although at the time of this recording, we're battling iOS 14.5 and 14.6. And so we're seeing that big impacts on YouTube and Facebook and other places, so that's likely going to create some headwind for any iOS app. But there's actually a big release recently, right, with TikTok attribution where now it's like a seven day click, one day view attribution where before it was not.
Anders:
Yeah, so that was a recent update, and it went to, yeah, seven day click, one day view polls auto advanced matching or advanced matching with phone number and email match and user ID and IP address. So they are able to do that. It's not able to get around, obviously, if they opt out on iOS 14 devices, but we've already seen an improvement on the back end, and in Tiktok metrics, especially, it used to be single session. So if you're selling $150 pair of shoes, in Vessi's case, that's not always an impulse purchase buy.
Brett:
Right, you need to think about that for a little bit, maybe to get approved from your spouse or your significant other, you're maybe not buying on that single session. Yeah.
Anders:
And if you didn't buy on that single session, TikTok wouldn't report it, and it wouldn't get any of that data back that that buy happened. So it's-
Brett:
That made your job tough.
Anders:
Yeah, we didn't have a lot of advertisers that were like... like I said, you've got to be willing to risk... It's a higher risk .. I think-
Brett:
What's interesting, though, is that there's going to be a lot of platforms kind of moving in that direction, potentially, we'll see. There's all kinds of solutions to iOS was 14 that are out there, data modeling, and things like that. But it's very possible, there's a future where we're going to have less visibility into that clear conversion data. And we're going to have to find proxies and ways around that and just be smart marketers, so super interesting.
Brett:
I want to talk about... And getting into Snap first, but TikTok has been so much fun, we may have to do part two at some point, to really dig into Snap. But usually we're running direct response ads, we're running YouTube ads, we have direct calls to action, we're telling people to go do this, or download that, or shop for this, that type of thing. What are you seeing on the Tiktok side? We'll start with you, Madison, are you specifically telling someone to take action? Or is it more kind of fun and light and soft sell?
Madison:
Yeah, on the organic side, we're not doing a lot of hard call to actions. It's more about appearing, again, as a brand who knows how to TikTok, if you will, and people sort of get excited about that. And the other approach is the sort of exposure, everyone's talking about this product. So you can have that sort of like unboxing or UGC style, people just talking about the product without saying, "You need to go get one of these." We do that with influencers too, just talking about I love this product. But really know, especially on the organic account, we don't have any strong call to actions. The only exception is influencers who have specific codes or affiliate links, who will drive those specific ones-
Brett:
Go get my code or mention my name and stuff like that.
Madison:
Yeah, but typically on the organic side, we're just trying to appear cool like every other TikToker on the app really.
Anders:
And Madison, do you see a difference in performance? I know sometimes brands that we work with will have a promo or a big sale, and they want some piece of organic content. Do you see any difference on how that performs verse, yeah, the more fun casual, soft sell?
Madison:
Yeah, typically, a promo is not actually the easiest thing to do on TikTok, it doesn't perform as well as it would. Whereas on other apps, you have a group of following that are so excited when you have a promotion because they already know and love you. On TikTok, again, your content is being shown to a bunch of random strangers who don't even know who you are, and they don't care if you're running a promotion or not. So it is a bit tougher to do a promotion or call to action in that way.
Brett:
Super interesting. What about on the ad side, Anders? Are you asking for action, are there buttons or call to action links? Talk about that a little bit.
Anders:
Yeah. Well, I think the Tiktok user is very savvy, for the most part, they understand how it works, they understand that-
Brett:
They were born online, right? They were born with a cell phone in their hand..
Anders:
..yeah. So they swipe left, they know they're loading the website. But that said, we do, especially when we're creating a piece of content and are doing post production and maybe we will close that video and go to the brand logo and then we'll have a swipe left to shop, kind of call to action, we do some of that. But even that kallmekris video I mentioned earlier, that's one that there was nothing in there that was like, "You need these shoes," or anything. It was a very soft sell, engaging piece of content, and it sold the product in a very, very soft but easy way and it just made sense. That's, I think, what we see the best content that works the best from a performance standpoint, is it's selling the product and it's making it a no brainer for people to buy. And it's probably similar to your YouTube stuff where they just... The video should sell the product, you... You can give them those little jabs, click here or swipe left, but that's typically what we see best.
Brett:
Yeah, and it can be very, very simple. We talk about that a lot on the YouTube side that is just simply a learn more or visit site, it can be very simple if the product demo is powerful, and the hook is powerful, and you're really creating desire, you just need a little nudge at that point and people ...
Anders:
Now, there are, like the call to action button, we can change on the back end, we can change it shop now, watch more, learn more, buy now or get offer. There's a bunch of options, there are-
Brett:
What are you seeing there, are you seeing any trends there? Because on YouTube, for example, buy now doesn't work well on YouTube. But shop now, learn more and visit site honestly works super well. Weird.
Anders:
Yeah, we typically see shop now and order now. Those work best. The other thing too, on that little button there, TikTok's starting to work more with catalogs, and especially for direct response. We're doing a lot of that where we'll upload their catalog in, and then it gives you a little-
Brett:
Not to get too nerdy, but on the catalog side, are you using a feed service like a data feed or data feed watch or something like that, or-
Anders:
Yeah, we use data feed watch. But also, if you are-
Anders:
... it will connect it with Shopify and the Tiktok sales channel app. So you don't even have to worry about any of that. But the way that this call to action works is it will actually show one product and then the name of that product and the price. And then every three seconds it cycles through to a new product while the ads playing. So if your ad's 30 seconds long, it's going to cycle through three products, several times each and that's eye catching to the user saying, "Hey, we're selling things." And we've seen those collection instant experience catalog ads actually perform really well. Higher cost per traffic, but more qualified user for sure.
Brett:
What kind of audience targeting is possible on TikTok? What's available there?
Anders:
Yeah, so again, very limited in compared to Snapchat, Google, Facebook, and these guys who have been around for a long time. But there's a lot that has come out recently, specifically around behavior. So every TikTok profile is connected to some sort of theme, I guess. So are they into video games? Is it a news type video? Is it about animals and pets? And there is behavior targeting on the back end.. That's something we've seen work well, it is-
Brett:
Behavior targeting, it sounds like that's maybe more interest targeting? Or are you targeting other TikTok influencers? Or what do you mean?
Anders:
There's interest based targeting, and I'm not 100% sure how TikTok gets all that data, how much of its in platform versus outside and data partners. But then there's behavior targeting. So I can target people who watched videos in the last seven days, or who shared a video in the last seven days, that was in the baby maternity, kid space.
Brett:
Interesting.
Anders:
And we know it's relevant because it was in the last seven or 15 days that you can do. You can say if somebody liked or watched all the way to the end, or they commented or they shared. And I think overall, because we've done exports and done some of this, I think it's around like 650 behaviors that you can target up to that many.
Brett:
I know, everything is still pretty new. And it's going to vary from advertiser to advertiser. But what types of targeting tend to lead to the best result? Is it behavioral, is it more interest based? What are you usually starting with?
Anders:
Well, we're starting broad, we're saying, "Hey, let the machine do that, go and find that." But you are able to do behavior exports on your data and see, "Okay, when I went broad, who were those behaviors that were performing best? Who didn't perform?" And then we can narrow down and do a little bit of testing there, we can also get ..
Brett:
Then you can double down on whatever the data shows you that, "Hey, this audience was performing well, so maybe you can get more of that."
Anders:
Exactly. For a while we saw these behavior audiences especially performing better than broad. I'll say more recently, we've seen broad work better. Their look alike system too, and email list and phone number upload, that's not available to all advertisers, but I think ..
Brett:
Okay, got to spend a certain amount to get-
Anders:
Yeah, you've got to get whitelisted for it. But I will say that look alikes haven't performed as strong as maybe they do on other platforms. So I think there's still some work that they're doing on there.
Brett:
Interesting. It really seems like Facebook and IG have nailed look alikes. Google's still behind there, honestly, which is crazy because Google is so advanced in so many ways. But what about remarketing, is remarketing possible? Can you upload remarketing lists or target your email list? It sounds like maybe.
Anders:
Yeah, so you can, if you get whitelisted, you can obviously... You can upload phone number match and email. Phone numbers, because TikTok, you can't sign up on the desktop, you have to do it on mobile. And phone number match is actually a higher rate there. So that's important. In terms of visitors to the website, with this new pixel change, this recent pixel change and the seven day click, one day view, they are getting more data and matching more. So we are able to do some on the visitors. But historically, it's only when you can retarget people who came in through an ad.
Anders:
Say your brand gets 100,000 views a month and you start spending 100 bucks a day on TikTok. Well, your 100,000, we're not going to be able to retarget, we're only going to be able to retarget the people who came through your $100 a day in ad spend. It's gotten better, and-
Brett:
It will continue to improve, I'm sure.
Anders:
Yeah.
Brett:
Super interesting. I like that approach where you talk about going broad first and then looking for trends and looking for audiences and doubling down there. And I think that makes sense, because once APMs are low, things may go viral a little quicker, like all of that. On YouTube, we actually do the opposite, where... At least this is our approach, where we like to go very, very focused, because YouTube is so massive, and the CPMS aren't as cheap, relatively speaking. So we want to train the algorithm and then we go broad, but I could totally see the reverse working in this case, which is super interesting.
Brett:
This is awesome. And I think one of the key takeaways I'll underscore here is, it does make sense, just like with other platforms, to think about the platform first, design and build your content for the platform. But the beautiful thing about TikTok is, I believe it's very, very shareable. You can spend some time with Madison's team or Andres team building this great TikToks content, and some of it you're going to be able to repurchase on Snap and reels and even on YouTube, like I said, we're using little snippets of TikTok influencers on YouTube videos now and they're working well. So I think that's a nice benefit.
Brett:
Cool. Anything you would kind of wrap up here, and then we'll spend about 10 minutes talking Snap ads here in a minute. But anything else that we need to know, and I know we could probably talk for hours about TikTok, but any other little nuggets you would share?
Anders:
I think the biggest thing for TikTok ads is just making sure you're set up with some measurement for success. What is success going to be for you? If you rely on in the platform, it's like what we're seeing on Facebook and Google and all these things with iOS 14 and tracking falling, don't come into TikTok an expected a 3X return on the platform. Do a post purchase survey, do something and don't just rely on Google Analytics, either. Because that last click or first click isn't going to match-
Brett:
It'll really under report as well.
Anders:
Yeah, I would definitely say get a post purchase survey going, especially as you're diversifying, to rely a little bit more on people and less on the pixel, especially as the pixel maybe gets less and less accurate.
Brett:
Yes, so interesting. And I think that's going to become more and more important, the post purchase surveys. Any tools or pieces of technology you recommend for that, for the post purchase survey?
Anders:
Yeah, there's two that we use, and recommend every brand that we work with specific to Shopify, these are Shopify apps. The first is Enquire, E-N-Q-U-I-R-E, and then that one, I think they've got a $20 a month plan, that works just great. And then there's another one that's called K-N-O, KnoCommerce. Both those are in the Shopify app store. Kno does have a free plan. And both of them it's just a very simple... At the end of the buy, on Shopify confirmation page, it just says, "Hey, basically one more thing, how'd you hear about us?" And then you can customize that and, "We started on TikTok-
Brett:
Pretty good.
Anders:
... make sure you've got TikTok there.
Brett:
Yeah, great. Awesome. Madison, what about you? What do we need to know, any final nuggets on the organic side of TikTok?
Madison:
Yeah, on the organic side, I would say it's all... Like you were talking about... TikTok content is really working in a lot of other places right now. So it's so worth it to dive in and, like we talked about, it's all about commitment, you have to do a TikTok first, but if you do that, it's really going to pay out. The benefit of doing organic paired with ads and having a really strong organic influencer approach, they're all working together really well. We're taking influencer content, using it on our organic page. We're taking organic content, using it on Instagram reels. And suddenly, before you know it, you have 100 videos, which every brand is dying to have, and it's just really, really beneficial. But like Anders said, there's risk involved, it's different, it's unique. You have to be willing to be flexible and put your hands up and say, "Okay, I don't know, TikTok." And let your marketers do it.
Brett:
Yep. Awesome. Really, really good stuff, guys. That was fascinating. I'm suddenly excited about TikTok. So let's talk Snap a little bit. So Anders, what do we need to know about Snap ads? I know they're a different beast, different animal, what do we need to know about them?
Anders:
Snap ads, obviously, their stock has been just crushing it. And they're continuing to come out with new products and new partnerships. And the commerce.
Brett:
I see Snapchat advertising for their ad platform on YouTube all the time, which is interesting.
Anders:
Oh okay, interesting. I have YouTube Premium so I don't get your ad spread.
Brett:
Thank you, Anders, you're killing me, man. All right, keep going.
Anders:
But Snap ads too, they, earlier this year, I think it was Q1, they did come out and say that Snap ads has more like millennial, like 18 to 40 users, I think, daily active users than even TikTok and some of these others. So the Snapchat user is using the platform daily, it is also a very different user. TikTok, they're on daily, but Snapchat, they're messaging, they're constantly.
Brett:
Yeah, but you TikTok messaging isn't so much happening. Snap messaging. I mean, I know, my son is 19, that's how all his friends communicate is Snap, let me Snap this person. That's it.
Anders:
Yeah. So there's that, there's the back and forth, there's the Discover section, which is kind of got all of these stories, and it's a lot of clickbait articles and your influencer that you follow probably has stories on there that are trending and that you can click into. So it's a unique platform, but people are there. Their ad platform is also very, very good, and it's gotten a lot better just over the last couple years. And I'd say even the last year in general has gotten much stronger.
Brett:
Would a Snap ad be more comparable to an Instagram ad?
Anders:
Definitely. Whether you're chatting or watching a piece of content on Snapchat, or watching the stories on Snapchat, just like Instagram story ads, it will intersperse with their story ads on Snap. There's a way to put in your catalog and do dynamic product ads as well, to show the pair of shoes that you were just looking at on the website, make sure you show it to that user there. There's AR filters as well that are a little bit more pricey to go and build out. But it's a different experience, and that's a chance to get a little bit more in the messaging space. If your son, all he's doing is messaging back and forth, and he's not using the other stuff, he's probably using a filter on some of his chats. So you can run a filter to do that. And whether it's a filter, or an AR lens, you can run sponsored versions of those as well. But it's a strong.
Brett:
Does that work well? Would you suggest a sponsored filter as an example? Or is there just like a standard ..
Anders:
Yeah, those work really well. So when I used to work at Cotopaxi, which is an outdoor gear brand, we had this-
Brett:
Awesome outdoor gear brand, man. Such a cool brand.
Anders:
Thank you. We had this event called Questival, and it was a 24 hour adventure race, and we would host these events and there would be a starting basically where you picked up your packet and everything and then we had a closing ceremony. It was very easy inside Snapchat, I could just go geo-fence the park and I could put a filter on there, because I knew everybody who was coming, especially at that time, they could go through and make sure that people knew they were at Questival, and it was a branded thing. So it's much more on the brand play, I would say, for filters. It's not amazing for selling product.
Brett:
Yeah. So the filter's not going to be a direct response play, but it could be a nice brand play and that certainly has value too.
Anders:
For sure. The AR filters, I will say, are a little bit different because you can actually-
Brett:
This is where you can see the couch in your room or on the wall or maybe apparel, that price, pretty
Anders:
Yeah, I think it was Nike or the sneakers app, it was one like last summer that really came out and did... It was a Michael Jordan, I think... A new Jordan shoe. And you could put that out in your living room and look at it. And then there was actually, "Hey, you can buy this." And that was the first, I think, drop that they did with this feature, Snapchat did, and you could check out really quickly. So they are getting there, they are doing, I think, a lot more to make that more approachable for advertisers. But I think there still needs to be some adoption, for sure.
Brett:
Nice. So then on the pure ad side, are you seeing direct response type ads working? So-
Brett:
Just like you're seeing on Instagram or Facebook, those are working well on Snap too?
Anders:
Yeah, Snapchat, super low barrier to entry, there's like no minimum a day ad spend, you can take what's working well on Instagram stories and throw that in, get the pixel up on the website. If you've got a Shopify store, they've got a Snapchat app, links it within a minute. And you can be off to the races spending $10 a day retargeting people to your website. You most likely have a good amount of users that are on Snapchat.
Brett:
.. on Snapchat.
Anders:
With a lot of our brands, we make sure that, hey, this is a part of the customer journey. We don't recommend take just what's running on Instagram, and put it on Snap. We also like to think-
Anders:
... how can we make a good experience? But that said, those users are there. I think that that's just an important call out, is like, they are there, and if they're there, more people probably are, new customers, and they're targeting, look alikes are really pretty good there, there are interest-based on targeting. They also partner with Datalogics and Oracle... Or maybe Oracle, can't remember. Nielsen data. There's these audiences directly built into the platform, you don't have to work with a third-party partner. You can ..
Brett:
..income targeting, obviously geo targeting, income interests, stuff like that.
Anders:
Yeah. People who shop at Foot Locker in the last 365 days, you can go and do that, or did they go to Bed Bath & Beyond? So it's actual credit card consumer data that you pay the premium CPM inside the platform, but you're not getting invoiced separately. Those audiences, you can... And it's something we're starting to test a lot more with iOS 14, obviously is going after more of this data.
Brett:
Totally makes sense. What about attribution? Is the pixels, the Snap pixel pretty accurate, or what are you finding there?
Anders:
Yeah, I mean, pixels in general, I feel if you've set them up properly and through the channels, they don't lie to you.
Anders:
Yeah, they might show more numbers than if... Snapchat, because there's so many users on there, and also CPMs are dirt cheap on Snapchat. So retargeting wise, you could, on a $10 a day budget... Say you had 500 or 1,500 people to your website, on a $10 a day budget retargeting, you're probably going to show your ad to every one of those people who are on Snapchat.
Brett:
Wow, that's awesome.
Anders:
Really inexpensive. And people also don't get tired of seeing ads in Snap. Frequency can go really high, but ..
Brett:
Really? How do you think?
Anders:
I think it's just the user inside of there. They're in there constantly, they go to the Discover page, they know, because they're in there so many times a day that it's not updating constantly, it is, but not everything's changing, just like when I go to the news website that I read. I don't expect..
Brett:
Big companies time reload in the day. Yeah.
Anders:
But because of that, we also... Again, going back to that incrementality and making sure you have a post purchase survey, Snapchat will take credit, especially on a... So their default is a 28 day swipe, one day view, I think it's transitioning more to that seven day swipe, one day view. But that one day view, like I said, 10 bucks a day or whatever, on a smaller site, will show it to everybody. So Snapchat will take credit in the platform and..
Brett:
..on the attribution, which is okay. That's where you triangulate the data by looking at post purchase survey and then ..
Anders:
But you can also narrow it down to one hour view or three hour view or six hour view. So that's what we do with a lot of our brands is we narrow it down to that one or three hours to say, "Hey, if they bought within that period of time, this is probably a little bit more interesting to attribute and give credit to Snapchat on the retargeting front, as opposed to somebody who saw an ad 23 hours ago."
Brett:
Sure.
Anders:
But the other thing, and Snapchat, finally, I've been bugging them for this information, they've got a lot of details around shopping retail. So many people Snapchat an outfit when they're at Forever 21 or whatever and send it to their girlfriends, "What do you think about it?" There's that, but from direct response, finally, just recently got some data from Snapchat, and it's something like 75% of Snapchatters don't take a last click action when interested in an ad. It's like 25% of them open it in a new browser, or like 25 just remember it and
Brett:
Go search later or something like that, search on Google the next time they.. Yeah.
Anders:
But it will pick that up though still, the attribution. It's really good.
Brett:
Cool. Awesome. Well, guys, I have more questions. But we've gone a little bit over our allotted hour, which was totally worth it. This was a ton of fun. Where can people learn more about you guys? And then like I mention in the beginning, I've got more people asking me like, "Hey, who's the Snap agency recommended? Who's the TikTok agency?" So I'm sending them to Wallaroo, for sure. But where can people connect with you? And then do you guys have any free resources or anything you'd recommend that people check out?
Anders:
Yeah, definitely, wallaroomedia.com, or-
Brett:
Will you spell that real quick, Anders?
Anders:
Yeah, W-A-L-L-A-R-O-O media.com. I'm on Twitter @rpiip, you can always just shoot me a DM or something there. We've got a lot of resources, our blog, we do a bit as well, and we talk a bit about TikTok and Snap and why you should be there and try and keep those up to date with profiles that are doing good examples. But I'd also just say, and from a resource standpoint, TikTok has... Got to business.tiktok.com business.snapchat.com, those resources are so underutilized and they have your best practices. You got to the business.tiktok or ads.tiktok, first message you'll see there is, "Don't make ads, make TikToks."
Brett:
Nice.
Anders:
And the advice you're going to get straight from the source is always my go to.
Brett:
Yeah, cool. Awesome. What about you, Madison? Would you like to connect on socials, or should people just go to wallaroomedia.com?
Madison:
Yeah, I think the best place to go is through Wallaroo. We have a really close connection between our organic and ads and typically work together with a lot of clients. So Wallaroo is a great place to start. And you will happen upon our organic division, Pouch, as well.
Brett:
Pouch, yeah, awesome. Guys, this has been totally amazing, and we'll have to schedule a follow-up here pretty soon, because I know we could go a lot deeper, and there's probably more questions that other people have as well. But really appreciate it guys. Thanks for spending the time.
Anders:
Thank you so much, Brett.
Brett:
Yep, absolutely.
Madison:
Thanks for having us.
Brett:
You bet. And as always, we appreciate you tuning in and giving us an hour of your life each week, or there abouts. And hey, we'd love to hear from you. If you liked this show, share it, share it on TikTok or Snap if you want to. But let other people know about this show, it means a lot to us. I think it will be helpful for them as well. And with that, until next time. Thank you for listening. All right, guys, that was a wrap.
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