Image Ads: A growing way to tell stories on TikTok

For marketers on TikTok, Image Ads are a cheat code in the new era of marketing, where quantity and variety are key. Compared to videos, they require less time and fewer resources to produce, making them ideal for making quick-turn content, or scaling an advertiser's TikTok presence in a way that's not disruptive to their business.

That's why we're rolling out new creative solutions that enable our advertising partners to get even more creative with their Image Ads. Whether an advertiser wants to remix their existing assets or tell a TikTok-first story, we've built tools that help brands tell stories with Image Ads, while still speaking the creative language of TikTok.

In this article, we explore the basics behind Image Ads, including:

• The rise of photos on TikTok

• How Image Ads help increase volume and variety

• The two types of Image Ads placements

• NEW creative solutions for Image Ads

• And Image Ads creative best practices

The rise of photos on TikTok

TikTok is known primarily as a video-sharing platform. But since we launched Photo Mode (for users) and Image Ads (for brands) in 2022, photos have grown in popularity on the platform. Whether it's a meme, a product roundup, or a vacation dump, advertisers and creators alike are using the format to express their creativity; the Photo Mode publish rate increased five-fold between June 2023 and July 2024 alone.¹

Video is still a crucial aspect of a healthy TikTok strategy; advertisers see 19% more conversions in campaigns that combine video and images.² Learning how to make Image Ads that resonate on TikTok will help marketers achieve these strong results and add to a successful TikTok strategy in a way that doesn't take a ton of time or resources to complete.

Volume + variety, and how Image Ads help brands increase both

TikTok users crave diverse content, and having a variety of content can increase brand KPIs on the platform. According to research, variety drives a 23% lift in content engagement and 25% lift in the amount of time viewers spend watching content.³

The first step toward variety is volume, since more content means more opportunities to share different messages. But marketers don't have endless bandwidth to make net-new videos from scratch day after day, given the time and budget it takes to film a video from scratch.

Images, then, provide another avenue through which brands can achieve make more content, improving their chances of seeing the great results that come when they demonstrate variety on TikTok.

Types of Image Ads placements

Right now, there are two types of ad placements advertisers can leverage with Image Ads:

• Standard Carousel: A dynamic, in-feed option that lets advertisers post multiple images in a rich, interactive experience.

• Video Shopping Ads Carousel: Transform catalog images into carousels, seamlessly integrating product visuals into a campaign.

To activate with one of these placements, advertisers can:

• Leverage existing photo assets: Existing photo assets can be used on TikTok, if they're authentic and genuine. Adjusting the content to feel more native to TikTok (for example, by adding music) can improve the performance of existing assets.

• Create TikTok-first content: Brands can also make new image assets that are designed to speak the creative language of TikTok, using storytelling formats and trends that underscore organic photo-based content.

NEW creative solutions for Image Ads

We're starting to roll out solutions that help advertisers make creative, TikTok-fit or TikTok-first Image Ads. Those tools are:

• Video + image carousels: This new feature allows clients to select video and image assets at the same time during ad creation flow in the TikTok Ads Manager.

• One-click optimization: A simple, fast optimization tool that helps advertisers update and adapt existing image assets to make them more fit for TikTok.

• Carousel generator: A tool that lets brands can create brand-new, TikTok-fit images based on just a few inputs, like URLs, historical videos, product photos, and more.

• Editing tools: Features that allow brands to make more in-depth changes to their images, such as adding filters, text, stickers, and other creative elements, to either repurposed images or net-new creative.

One-click optimization, carousel generator, and editing tools are integrations of TikTok Symphony, our suite of Generative AI solutions. With these Symphony tools, advertisers can blend AI efficiency and human creativity to create content that breaks through.

Get started today

Dive into the world of TikTok Image Ads today and start captivating your audience with visually stunning ads. Plus, with our asset migration tool, importing existing visuals from other libraries is a breeze.

Sources

1. TikTok Internal Data, Global, June 2023-June 2024

2. TikTok Internal Data, June 2024

3. TikTok Marketing Science North America Value in Variety Study [US,CA] 2023, conducted by Alter Agents