6 steps to get your TikTok campaigns ready for the holiday break

Q4 brings us a swirl of sales and holidays, granting us limitless opportunities to connect with consumers. And then, right before the holidays, the whole industry grinds to a halt with the belief that consumers are staying away from their devices and looking to save money.

This period, otherwise known as Q5, encompasses the days right after Christmas and into the first weeks of January. But this time of year is actually ripe for consumer engagement and purchase intent is high – particularly among the TikTok community. In fact, 77% of TikTok users plan to spend the same amount or more time shopping in Q5 compared to a typical week [1].

With the holiday break just around the corner, we've compiled an easy-to-follow automation checklist to help you get your campaigns ready to go when you log off.

Holiday-proof your TikTok campaigns

Campaign level

1. Review your budget settings. Check that you have sufficient budget left on your account to run your campaigns throughout the holiday period. Ensure your current daily budget is also sufficient. This will allow you to tap into those consumers who are actively spending, particularly while other brands are slowing or even stopping their campaign activity.

2. Implement campaign recommendations via the recommendations section under the 'Tools' tab. Adjust settings to maximise performance. When leveraging this data-driven tool, you'll be able see the expected performance uplift based on current campaign performance

3. Take campaign automation to the next level with Smart Performance Campaign (available for App Promotion and Web Conversion objectives). This end-to-end automation tool leverages machine-learning to optimise for best performance and marketing goals. You'll only need to input your campaign budget, delivery country and creative assets to launch. TikTok's machine-learning tools will take care of everything else.

Automation tip:

• Implement Campaign Budget Optimisation to improve budget distribution according to performance for campaigns with multiple ad groups.

Ad Group

4. If launching a manual campaign, opt for Broad Targeting by only implementing location and age targeting to avoid restricting your potential reach during the time you are away. This will help to give TikTok's recommendation system the opportunity to look for new users for longer and extend the ad group lifetime.

Automation tips:

• For ad groups where you want to implement more refined targeting, enable Smart Targeting for Audience, Interests & Behavior to ensure TikTok's recommendation system keeps exploring relevant audiences and bringing you customers.

• Implement Maximum Delivery optimisation to get the best results within your budget during your absence.

• Set up Automated Rules to adjust ad group budget depending on performance.

Ads

5. Upload creative in advance to ensure everything is approved and ready to go when you launch. Plan to have around three creative assets per ad group every two weeks.

6. Leave enough time for creative review by submitting campaign creative assets at least five working days in advance. Make sure all creative passes ad review, which usually takes around 24 hours.

Automation tip:

• Test Smart Creative to extend your ad groups' lifetime with the help of fatigue detection and auto-refreshed strategies. This tool allows advertisers to quickly generate multiple combinations of creatives while driving performance.

With this checklist of tips and tools, you'll be able to get the most out of your campaigns during the holiday period, so you can sit back, relax and leave the rest to the platform. And don't forget to check out our Performance Best Practices to stay on top of your game all year round. Happy holidays!