Video Shopping Ads on TikTok

Advertisers dealing with marketing in social media have leveraged the campaigns based on the product feeds in the Meta ecosystem as a highly efficient form of direct sales.

However, it’s not only Meta that offers such a product. One of the latest and most up-and-coming platforms that has proved to be spectacularly successful is TikTok. TkTok’s Video Shopping Ads especially deserve attention among a variety of advertising opportunities.

Video Shopping Ads are the ads that bring together enormous video impact and purchasing options. By placing their products in short videos, brands can appeal to their target audience and encourage them to buy directly in the app. The key differentiator for the VSA campaigns is that they can redirect users to the product page or online store directly from the video. This, in turn, makes the purchasing process more seamless and instant, and it increases the likelihood of conversion.

How do I start?

To launch a VSA campaign you need to meet the following technical requirements:

1. Embed on your website TikTok pixel/Events together with ViewContent, AddToCart, and Complete Payment events

2. Create and upload your product feed to the Business Center

3. All tracked events (ViewContent, AddToCart, CompletePayment) should share the content_ID parameter, and their product matching level in the catalog should be at least 50%

4. Create product display templates

The very setup of the campaign is actually no different from the campaigns on other platforms or campaigns with different objectives on TikTok. At the ’campaign’ stage, you need to select the catalog sales objective. Next, at the ad group level, you should choose the catalog you plan to use, pixel, conversion event, targeting, optimization and attribution. At the ad level, choose the product set, the ad format (lately, it’s been possible to display only products as a carousel ad, with no need of uploading an additional video), the parameters that we want to showcase at the product (price, description, brand), as well as the remaining, standard ad elements such as copy, cta, url., etc.

And… voilà! Your campaign is good to go :)

Is this format worth testing?

Video Shopping Ads leverage the potential of personalization to reach the relevant audience. Thanks to the TikTok algorithms that analyze user preferences and behaviors, the ads are displayed to those users who are most keen on the advertised products. Once users click the ad, they are redirected to the product page or online store where they can make their purchase in a fast and convenient way. It is certainly an opportunity to complement your advertising efforts and reach a slightly different user group. Do VSAs stand the chance of being as successful as other platforms? It depends to a great extent on the product, the creative used, and the user. You won’t know unless you test them :) Test & learn!