Marwan El-Rukby

The objective

Fueling travel content discovery and growth

As a travel creator, Marwan (@marwanelrukby) sets out to grow his audience and increase visibility for his travel content. He uses TikTok Promote to amplify his personal videos, with the goal of gaining followers, driving views, and attracting attention from hotel brands looking to partner with creators in the travel space.

While browsing TikTok, Marwan came across a video highlighting Promote, TikTok’s in-app advertising tool. Seeing an opportunity to accelerate his growth, he decided to test Promote as a way to expand his reach and turn his travel content into measurable audience growth.

The solution

Unlocking early momentum with TikTok Promote

To accelerate growth on his account, Marwan used TikTok Promote with two core objectives: More Followers and More Video Views. Drawing on years of experience across multiple advertising platforms, he quickly identified Promote as a standout tool. According to his results, TikTok Promote delivered the lowest CPM, the optimal targeted audience matching, and the highest overall returns compared to other paid media solutions he had tested. The ability to promote content directly within the mobile app made the experience seamless, allowing him to move quickly from creative intuition to measurable results. As a result, Marwan rated his overall satisfaction with TikTok Promote a 10 out of 10, citing its efficiency, effectiveness, and mobile-friendly design.

Marwan adopted a data-driven approach to using Promote, positioning it as a catalyst for early momentum. His strategy focused on identifying videos with strong creative signals, high engagement rates, solid watch time, and positive audience feedback — then immediately launching a Promote campaign. Through ongoing testing, Marwan found this approach consistently helped videos break through during the critical early window of distribution. By combining creative intuition with light paid amplification, he was able to grow his account faster, increase discoverability for his travel content, and position himself more prominently in front of brands seeking travel creators. 

What’s more, Marwan reported using TikTok Promote on roughly half of his videos, particularly those covering recent travel events or topics where specific targeting, such as cross-region or interest-based travel audiences is most effective. To accelerate follower growth and strengthen brand perception, Marwan employed a geo-targeting strategy, focusing on audiences in the key countries he visits.

The results

Driving rapid follower growth

By carefully selecting videos with strong engagement potential and boosting them to targeted regions, he was able to rapidly grow his account. This approach helped him gain 100,575+ followers in less than six months, demonstrating how strategic use of Promote can drive both audience growth and global reach for travel content.

In total, Marwan generated 1,881,314+ video views using TikTok Promote, validating his hypothesis that strategic, early promotion could meaningfully influence long-term performance.

Promote ultimately became a reliable growth lever for turning high-potential videos into sustained audience expansion.