Ame Digital

The Objective

Does TikTok work?

Launched in 2018, Ame is the fintech arm of Americanas S.A. and aims to democratize access to financial products and services, simplifying the way people and companies relate to money. The app, a pioneer in cashback programs in the country, allows anyone to make payments via QR Code on their mobile phone and offers several features, such as prepaid and credit card, PIX (Brazilian electronic payment system), loans, insurance and plans, bill payments and mobile recharge. One of the main initiatives of IF – Inovação e Futuro, Americanas S.A.'s innovation engine –, Ame is present in Americanas' stores, in addition to the websites and apps of the brands Americanas, Submarino and Shoptime, as well as in millions of partners.

At TikTok, Ame did not come just for branding. The brand also frequently ran ads to gain more users for its app. But even though people were downloading the app from ads, the brand wanted to understand in more detail the platform's impact on downloads and, more than that, on the conversions made after downloading the app. After all, does TikTok really work?

The Solution

A new way of measuring impact on conversions

The solution for Ame was a new type of beta study on TikTok: Conversion Lift. We invited the brand to be one of the first in the world to test this methodology, which helps to understand if the investments in media on our platform brought incremental results – those that would not have happened without us. In summary, Conversion Lift helps advertisers understand whether the ads here cause users to take the desired action, whether it's app installation, conversion, or purchase.

This type of study works in a similar way to Brand Lift: TikTok's user base is randomly divided into two similar groups – test and control – and only the people in the first group receive ads from the brand. At the end of the review period, the behavior of both is compared to see if the campaign had the effect that the brand wanted – that is, if the test group actually had more conversions registered than the control group, for example. This difference, which we call relative lift, is attributed to TikTok, which was the only differential factor between the two groups.

For Ame, Conversion Lift reviewed in-app purchases from October 12 to November 7. In the meantime, the brand ran a campaign focused on in-app conversions. The ads were optimized from signals identified in the app by AppsFlyer, one of our Mobile Measurement Partners (MMP), which helped Ame finding more people likely to download the app and make a purchase in it.

The Results

TikTok really works, after all

Ame's Conversion Lift showed that TikTok really works. The relative lift recorded in in-app purchases was +10.2% – meaning that the test group, of people who saw Ame's ads in the period, had 10.2% more in-app purchase events than the control group. Without the TikTok campaign, the brand would not have achieved these sales.

And although it was not the focus of AME, the impact on app installations was also huge: +452.1% relative lift. That is, more than 450% difference in the number of app downloads between test group and control group. TikTok works!