Zach Oldham of Flax Labs breaks down three TikTok ad strategies: nail the creative with a strong 2-4 second hook and on-screen text in the first seven seconds (boosts conversions 42%), ride trending sounds to tap larger audiences, and use user-generated content from creators for as little as $50 per video.
Okay, so this turned out to not be the most ideal setting to film a video in, but here I am. It took me about an hour to actually find this spot. For those of you that don't know me, I'm Zach Oldham. I'm the founder of Flax Labs. We're an e-commerce scaling agency, and today I'm going to be covering 3 tips for running successful TikTok ad campaigns. At Flax Labs, we spend millions of dollars a year on social media ads, and over the last 2 years, TikTok has started eat up more of that budget in terms of percentage. Now, Facebook is still our number one platform. Most of the budget is still spent on Facebook and Meta ads. But as TikTok has grown, more of our clients' budget has started to become focused on the platform. The first key aspect of TikTok ads is mastering good ad creative. Now, this is even more important than Facebook and Instagram. Facebook and Instagram are typically engagement driven platforms, whereas TikTok is a content-driven platform. So your ad creative makes up $0.99 out of your ad dollar when you're advertising on TikTok. The most important thing is to catch the attention of your customer, and that can only be achieved through good creative. With attention spans shorter than ever, you need an excellent hook. The first 2 to 3 to 4 seconds of the video that stands out amongst the sea of content on TikTok. With TikTok, we found the best results with more organic style videos. That means that your videos need to look less like ads and more like organic, authentic user uploaded videos. You are more likely to get a scroll stop or a user to stop and watch your video if it looks more like the other videos on their feed and less like an ad. On one of our meetings with TikTok last week, they revealed to us that if you have text within the first 7 seconds of your video ad, you'll see on average a 42% increase in conversions from your video. Another interesting note from TikTok that we received was videos between 21 and 34 seconds are getting the highest returns on TikTok at the moment. You need high audio quality, which means there's no whispering or choppiness within the video. And like I said earlier, your video needs to look authentic to the platform. You don't need a high-quality video camera. An iPhone or an Android camera will do just fine. Next up, if you want your ads to perform well, you need to be trend hopping. TikTok is a platform that experiences huge waves of popularity for different trends. By creating videos that use a trending sound or action, you gain access to millions and millions of eyeballs that might not have seen your video otherwise. There are plenty of online resources that will help you find trending sounds for your videos. Try to look for sounds that are on an uptrend, which means that they are increasing in popularity, as if you are one of the first people to use a sound like that, it can generate tons and tons of profit for your brand. Last but not least, harnessing the power of user-generated content on TikTok is a surefire way to win on TikTok's platform. When people are on TikTok, they're there to enjoy consuming content and they do not want to be bombarded with ads. That's why using user-generated content is so, so successful. It helps your brand seem authentic and it's incredibly easy to acquire. If you want to learn how to acquire user-generated content for $50 or less, I'll leave a link to my UGC breakdown somewhere on this screen in front of you. There are tons of influencers and creators that specialize in making UGC content for brands in all niches. Finding them is incredibly easy, and you can watch their previous videos to see the style of videos that they make and if it matches your branding. Another great part of using influencers and creators is if you find people that you really like working with, then these usually turn into long-term partnerships and you can have people creating video ads for you for next to nothing on a recurring basis, which is awesome. Hopefully you've learned a few things that will improve the quality of your TikTok ads. Subscribe to me to become a digital marketing superstar. Thanks for your time and good luck with your ads.
