About full-funnel marketing on TikTok
A typical marketing funnel includes the following stages: awareness, consideration, intent, purchase, and loyalty. While there is a lot of value placed at the bottom of the funnel, since that is where revenue is generated, you can maximize your return on ad spend (ROAS) from marketing campaigns on TikTok by focusing on each step in the marketing funnel.
Features
Marketing is often thought of as a linear journey with a clear beginning and end, where a person goes from learning about a product to purchasing it and ultimately becoming a loyal customer. When you market on TikTok, people do not always start at the top of the funnel. For some businesses and brands, there is an existing level of demand and willingness to purchase products.Consider a scenario where your e-commerce brand sells bicycles in Europe. Within your target audience on TikTok - people who live in Europe and are interested in cycling - there are going to be people who:
Know about your brand
Have visited your website
Are currently shopping for bicycles, and
Are your existing customers
This is why you can start your marketing on TikTok at whatever stage makes the most sense for your business. If you are unsure about where to start, think about the outcomes you want to achieve, and start there.
Key concepts
Awareness: The audience is aware of their problems and possible solutions, which makes them a prospect for your company. They might not know a lot about your product or service yet, so it may take some persuasion to become aware of your brand and engage with it for the first time. It's important to introduce your product to the market through increased reach and frequency. A good rule of thumb is to assume that individuals who have seen your ad 2-3 times per week over a 4-week period are at a point where they are aware of your brand. We recommend allocation 10-20% of your budget to drive awareness.
Who are they? | How do you measure this? | What do you want them to do next? |
People who are new to your brand. | Measuring awareness may vary depending on different factors. Some ways to measure awareness include: Impressions: The number of times your ads were on screen. Viewability: Metrics to understand the opportunity for an ad to be seen. Reach: The number of unique users who saw your ad at least once. Frequency: The average number of times each person saw your ad. Video play: Including 6-second video views or video views at 50%. Brand lift: An in-feed polling experience that helps brands quantify the impact of an ad campaign using metrics like ad recall and awareness. Brand Safety and Suitability: Whether your ads are seen adjacent to content deemed suitable by industry standards. | You want to get them to engage with one of your marketing channels, such as your site or app. Now that they have been exposed to your brand or content, you want to filter out who is a potential customer. These are the ones who are interested in learning more about how your solutions can solve their problems.
Create custom audiences of users who have engaged with your ad. You can further refine your audience using parameters such as people who watched more than 50% of your video content. Then, try running In-Feed Ads using traffic, conversion, or lead generation objectives. |
Note:
To track Viewability metrics, you will need to partner with a third-party measurement platform, like DoubleVerify, IAS, or MOAT.
To track Brand Safety metrics, you may need to partner with a third-party measurement platform, like IAS, OpenSlate, or Zefr.
Consideration: As your target audience gains awareness, consideration of your product will increase over time. This is where you will engage with prospects to earn their trust and set your brand apart.
Who are they? | How do you measure this? | What do you want them to do next? |
A potential customer who has heard of your brand or engaged with you through any of your marketing channels. | Measuring awareness may vary depending on different factors. Some ways to measure awareness include: The number of people who visited your site over a certain period of time. View Content events for people who have completed events on key pages of your site. Install events for people who have installed your app. Conducting a Brand Lift Study can help you measure Favorability and Attitudinal metrics. | Get them to engage with you in a way that shows their interest in a measurable way.
For example, for an e-commerce business, a simplified buyer journey may look like this: visiting a website, visiting a product page, adding something to their cart, and completing a payment.
You can create custom audiences of people who have visited your site and viewed a product page. Then, you can target your site's visitors with relevant ads and offers. |
Intent: Your target audience has been narrowed down to individuals who plan to buy. They are now aware of your product, have interacted with your brand on TikTok and on your website or app, and now can be considered potential customers.
Who are they? | How do you measure this? | What do you want them to do next? |
A potential customer who has expressed their willingness and interest in purchasing from you through a measurable action, but has not completed a purchase. | If you are running performance campaigns: Try to measure Intent using "Add to Cart" events. This indicates a user who has abandoned their purchase. Measure through TikTok Pixel or Web Events API, or a mobile measurement partner (MMP) for apps.
If you are running branding campaigns: Try to measure Intent by conducting a Brand Lift Study. | Remind them to complete the purchase transaction. Create a custom audience including users who have completed an "Add to Cart" event and exclude users who have completed a Purchase event over a certain time period. Then, run an In-Feed Audtion Ad campaign using the Catalog Sales, Conversions, or App Installs objective that targets these users. |
Purchase: This is the last stage a potential customer goes through before they convert.
Who are they? | How do you measure this? | What do you want them to do next? |
A prospect who has turned into a customer by purchasing your product or offer. | For online sales: Measure using a purchase event such as "Place an Order", which will record purchases who have completed a transaction for your product. You can measure this through the TikTok Pixel or Web Events API, or a mobile measurement partner (MMP) for apps.
For offline sales: Store Visits allow you to tie your TikTok media activity to actual visits to brick-and-mortar business locations.
For all sales: Media Mix Modeling lets you conduct research to accurately measure the effectiveness of your TikTok media spend, using metrics like return on ad spend (ROAS) and Sales Efficiency. | Use these purchasers and increase their loyalty through remarketing or as leverage to target new users who are likely to purchase.
You can create custom audiences of purchasers and then run remarketing ads for related products they may be interested in.
To get new customers, try creating a lookalike audience, which is used to find users who have similar characteristics or patterns to those who have bought from you before. Then, you can run an In-Feed Ad to target lookalike audiences.
Alternatively, you can use Automatic Targeting for our platform to find users that are likely to convert. |
Note: To track Store Visits, you will need to partner with FourSquare, a third-party attribution solution that is only available in the United States and Canada. Please contact your sales representative for more details. Loyalty: Repeat purchases can increase your customer lifetime value (LTV), which allows you to spend more on acquisition costs accelerating growth. Subscription businesses can also utilize this strategy to drive the loyalty and retention of their subscribers.
Who are they? | How do you measure this? | What do you want them to do next? |
Customers who have purchased from you before. | Measure loyalty by looking at your customer purchase data. You can further segment your existing customers: Loyal customers who have high engagement and high average order value. At-risk customers who haven't purchased within a specific timeframe. Churned customers who haven't returned to your shop since their first interaction. | You want to get them to engage with one of your marketing channels, such as your site or app. Now that they have been exposed to your brand or content, you want to filter out who is a potential customer. These are the ones who are interested in learning more about how your solutions can solve their problems.
Create custom audiences of users who have engaged with your ad. You can further refine your audience using parameters such as people who watched more than 50% of your video content. Then, try running In-Feed Ads using the traffic, conversion, or lead generation objectives. |
Every customer experiences your marketing funnel differently. Some prospects jump from stage to stage. It's important for you to understand each stage and focus on optimizing each step in the user journey using the tactics recommended. This will allow you to push your potential customers down the funnel as efficiently as possible when you buy ads on TikTok.