The TikTok full-funnel gold mine your agency can't afford to ignore

Breaking the brand vs. performance paradox

If today’s marketing landscape had a soundtrack, it wouldn’t be a catchy jingle but the clang of bulldozers dismantling the silos that once defined the industry. For too long, marketers were forced to choose between brand and performance, creating fragmented teams, disjointed campaigns, and missed opportunities.

Now, that outdated structure is being torn down as the media ecosystem transforms. E-commerce giants become content powerhouses, social platforms evolve into commerce engines, and every scroll, swipe, and search is a potential moment of conversion.

Consumers don’t separate brand from performance—they respond to impactful marketing. They expect simple, personalized experiences across platforms, from first scroll to final purchase.

Delivering this experience is complex. Marketers must scale output, push creative boundaries, optimize with automation, prove ROI, and activate first-party data while balancing brand equity and performance goals. Many brands struggle to connect the dots, making partnership essential.

With the right partner and platform, brands can build holistic, full-funnel journeys that drive sustainable growth.

This report from TikTok and January Digital explains why full-funnel marketing is critical, how to blend brand and performance strategies—what we call “brandformance”—and which tools and tactics deliver measurable results. Together, we share insights to help you rethink the funnel, break down silos, and embrace a new era of storytelling.

The full-funnel opportunity

Consumers don’t experience awareness, consideration, and conversion as separate, sequential stages — it’s a fluid, intricate journey, and TikTok is built to reflect that reality. Interest-based targeting, branded content, creators, native ad experiences, and TikTok Shop all work together to drive discovery and conversion in a single, cohesive experience.

With full-funnel optimization tools, advanced attribution solutions, and a frictionless user experience, TikTok often delivers greater incrementality than traditional channels.

Nick Drabicky, SVP and GM, Client Services

January Digital

Success story

Steve Madden, in partnership with January Digital, built a TikTok strategy that showcased the power of a full-funnel approach.

By combining creator-led content to drive discovery with Search Ads to capture and convert intent, the brand influenced consumers across the journey—from awareness to action.

This integration kept Steve Madden top-of-mind with fashion lovers while driving measurable outcomes, proving TikTok’s ability to deliver both brand equity and performance.

Goal: Stand out in a crowded fashion market by building brand equity, driving discovery, and converting high-intent shoppers.

Solution: Launched always-on TikTok Search Ads with branded and non-branded keywords, product category targeting, and creator-led content aligned to user intent.

Results:

This is a TikTok case study and is solely for informational purposes. Past performance does not guarantee or predict future performance. All claims related to the brand’s products, including, without limitation, the effectiveness, sales, or quality of such products, are brand-reported and not endorsed or verified by TikTok.

Building a full-funnel strategy

To realize the full value of full-funnel marketing, brands and agencies need to reorient around three foundational principles:

1️⃣ Get familiar with audiences’ behavior — on and off platform

Audiences aren’t passive—they actively discover and decide in tandem, challenging linear funnel assumptions. TikTok blends entertainment, discovery, and commerce to help brands show up authentically, capture attention, engage, and convert.

2️⃣ Build with creative intent

Engaging audiences requires high-volume, varied content, from creator-led storytelling to product demos and direct-response hooks. TikTok’s ecosystem provides media, targeting, and creative solutions to reach high-intent audiences and deliver performance at every stage of the funnel.

3️⃣ Tie full-funnel performance to proof

As investment increases, so does the need to validate impact, with 93% of CMOs stating that positioning marketing as a growth driver is a challenge.¹

To meet this demand, TikTok has expanded its measurement tools, like Incrementality Testing and Audience Holdouts, helping January Digital prove lifts in ROAS and CPA. Running brand and conversion campaigns together has driven stronger engagement, more efficient conversions, and better outcomes than when run separately—making a stronger case for long-term investment.

While media planning still sets distinct brand and performance goals, TikTok enables them to work together in one ecosystem—planned, activated, and measured as a whole—unlocking its full-funnel power.

Full-funnel marketing isn’t just a buzzword on TikTok. It’s how consumers actually experience brands. Discovery, engagement and conversion happen in the same scroll, which means agencies that embrace a holistic strategy can drive both brand equity and business outcomes in one seamless journey.

Tara Pettus, Head of Agency

TikTok

Full-funnel solutions: The TikTok toolkit

Targeting solutions

TikTok offers targeting solutions to find high-intent audiences at every step of the journey, covering broad reach at the top of the funnel and increasingly precise activation further down.

At January Digital, we combine interest-based targeting, behavioral signals, lookalikes, retargeting, and first-party data tools.

TikTok Search plays a key role in our mid-funnel strategy, capturing users actively expressing interest and bridging brand storytelling with conversion when paired with strong creative and CTAs.

Ad formats

TikTok’s ad ecosystem is designed to drive results at every stage:

High-impact formats like TopView (shown at app open) and TikTok Pulse (ads placed next to top-performing, brand-safe content) deliver immediate visibility and cultural relevance.

Spark Ads expand contextual reach. Branded Mission and Branded Effects, created with TikTok creators, offer interactive layers that deepen engagement and boost recall.

To maintain momentum, In-Feed Video Ads optimized for views or traffic, TikTok Search, and creator-driven content reinforce brands’ products and services and drive active consideration.

Performance formats like Conversion In-Feed Ads, Video Shopping Ads, Lead Generation Ads, and Catalog Ads excel when paired with brand-building efforts. Running both in parallel drives stronger outcomes and supports conversion goals like add-to-cart and purchase.

Solutions

Creative 🎨

Authentic, culturally-fluent creative is key to success on TikTok. We use a mix of branded and creator-led content for greater engagement. Tools like TikTok One help brands create bespoke content that feels organic to the platform.

A modular creative approach allows for real-time testing and refinement. With TikTok One, TikTok One Content Suite, TikTok Symphony, and other automation tools, we can quickly identify top-performing formats and optimize them based on audience signals.

Great TikTok creative isn't about big budgets; it’s about being intentional, relevant, and connecting with your audience. On this platform, creativity drives performance.

Automation 🤖

As creative demand accelerates, TikTok’s automation tools help streamline execution and improve efficiency.

• Smart+ uses AI to test and optimize creative and targeting in real time, automatically scaling what works and pausing what doesn't.

• GMV Max leverages real-time inventory, user behavior, and all available creative assets to generate TikTok Shop Ads, activate and optimize for brands’ TikTok Shop's total channel ROI.

• TikTok One Content Suite turns TikTok UGC into high-performing ads at scale, powered by AI to drive smarter creator content selection and activation.

• TikTok Symphony helps marketers quickly produce and iterate on assets with generative AI and insights into trends.

• TikTok One gives creators and brands a unified platform to discover projects, manage partnerships, and scale high-performing content with ease.

Measurement 📊

To fully capture impact, TikTok’s moved toward more holistic frameworks.

• Post-Purchase Surveys provide directional insight into platform influence — especially useful for teams early in their measurement journey. They highlight intent that often goes unseen in traditional models.

• Incrementality Testing, such as conversion lift studies, helps isolate TikTok’s impact by comparing outcomes between exposed and control groups. These tests reveal real, attributable behavioral shifts, not the conversions that would’ve resulted from generic activity.

• Media Mix Modeling adds another layer of clarity. For advertisers using multiple channels, it quantifies TikTok’s role within the full media plan, connecting investment to business results. We also rely on split testing and attribution analytics in TikTok Ads Manager to continuously refine brands’ strategies and enhance their impact — on and off platform.

The right measurement approach unlocks TikTok’s full potential, providing deeper ROI insights, visibility, and control for scalable growth.

Conclusion

The future of marketing doesn’t live in the binary of brand or performance. It lives in the fluid, fast and full-funnel world consumers already inhabit.

January Digital and TikTok believe that the agencies who thrive will be those that embrace this new paradigm: who break down silos, activate across the journey, and measure what really matters.

The full-funnel opportunity is not just a theory. It’s a proven path forward — uniquely on TikTok.

January Digital is a full-funnel digital marketing agency and consultancy specializing in retail, luxury, and beauty. As a TikTok Marketing Partner, TikTok Shop Partner, and member of TikTok's Agency Advantage Program (AAP), they’re recognized by TikTok for their expertise in media strategy, data-driven optimization, and TikTok-native creative.

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About the authors

Tara Pettus’ career in advertising began at the age of 16. She started her advertising career as a marketing intern for the CEO of Avon, Andrea Jung. Prior to working as TikTok’s Head of Agency, she was with Meta for five years as its Director of Disruptors and Venture Capital. She also previously served as Head of Global Media Partnerships, Marketing and Advertising for Apple.

Fun fact: Tara was also Lindsay Lohan’s fencing double in “The Parent Trap.”

Nick Drabicky, SVP & GM of client services for January Digital, leads the marketing agency division delivering excellence for industry disruptors and heritage brands such as, Kendra Scott, Steve Madden, and Sakara. Prior to January Digital, Nick led international strategy for PMG for some of the world's largest brands, including Burberry, Hilton, British Airways, Disney, and Microsoft. He also led the international strategy for Apple’s Beats by Dr. Dre at PMG, driving awareness and sales through a full mix of digital channels aligned with above-the-line strategies from the brand’s offline agencies.

Fun fact: Nick has lived internationally and traveled to over 17 countries, which means he has a well-stamped passport!