Want to get the most out of your TikTok ad campaigns? SEMrush put out a 2023 study with key stats. 60% of marketers struggle with bidding and placement data. 68% of these marketers run network partner ads. Google Analytics internal data supports smart ad positioning. TikTok’s industry experts say the same thing. This guide compares lots of different ad strategies. It breaks down automatic vs. manual placements first. It also covers feed ads vs. Explore page ads, and more. Los Angeles businesses get expert-recommended special offers. Those include free installation and a guaranteed best price. Tweak your ads to perform better right now!

Automatic vs manual placements

Did you know TikTok ran internal tests on its ad tools? One ad setting is called Automatic Placement. The tests found it cut the cost of getting each new customer by 65%. This number shows how much ad placement matters. Picking the right ad spot makes a big difference for TikTok marketing campaigns.

Differences in control

Automatic placement in Smart+ Campaigns

Smart+ Campaigns’ automatic ad placement is a huge help for people running ads. TikTok’s algorithms work nonstop behind the scenes. They find the best spots to show ads across several platforms. Those platforms are TikTok, Pangle, and the News Feed App Series. Its biggest benefit is getting your ad in front of as many people as possible. You don’t have to manually adjust ad placements to make this happen. JazzCash is a mobile wallet based in Pakistan that used this tool. Per TikTok data, their ad efficiency doubled. They also saw a 44% drop in how much they paid per new app install. This auto placement works for you if you’re a first-time advertiser. It also works if only one person handles all your ad placement work. It will help you reach way more people in less time.

Automatic Search Placement

There’s a useful ad tool once called Search Ads Toggle. It now goes by Automatic Search Placement. It helps advertisers get more out of their TikTok ads. It lets them run their regular in-feed TikTok ads on search results pages too. It doesn’t use old, standard search ads. Instead, it uses the existing video ads and content advertisers already have for their in-feed posts. The ads pop up when users search for related terms right next to normal unpaid results. It uses the same ad settings and clips you already use for in-feed ads. This lets your ad reach more people who are searching for relevant stuff. For example, a new lipstick in-feed ad can reach users searching “new lipstick trends”. People who work in advertising recommend using this tool. It makes your ad more visible when people search for terms that mean they want to buy something.

Manual placement options

Manual ad campaigns let advertisers be fully in charge. They control every part of their TikTok marketing work. That includes who sees the ad, how much they bid, and where ads show up. This option works best for advertisers with clear, solid plans. They also need to know exactly who they want to reach. Take a small, specialized coffee brand for example. It might target specific coffee fans in certain regions. They can even pick what time of day their ads run. Advertisers tweak all these small details by placing ads manually. If you know what your audience likes and how they act, manual placement works really well. You can make super personal, targeted ad campaigns that reach the right people.

Key performance indicators (KPIs)

When you compare manual and automatic ad placements, first look at key performance numbers. TikTok ran internal tests on these two placement options. The tests found automatic placements improve two important stats. Those stats are cost per new customer and how many people see your ad. If you have a very specific advertising goal, you can use manual placements. Manual placements let you adjust how often people take the action you want. You can use all these numbers to tell which placement type works better. They also help you make smart choices for your future ad campaigns.

Benefits of automatic placements

Automatic ad placements have a lot of great benefits. They spread ads across many useful, popular spots. That helps your ad reach as many people as possible. They also keep costs low for each new customer or sale. Smart placement gets results wherever your ad runs well. They make managing ads way simpler too. Advertisers don’t have to adjust placements all the time. This is extra helpful for small and midsize companies. These businesses usually don’t have big marketing departments. Standard industry data shows a clear win here. Brands that use automatic placements get 20 to 30 percent more reach. That’s much higher than picking ad spots by hand.

Advertiser preference

How much control and resources advertisers want affects their choices. New advertisers and people on tight budgets usually pick automatic placements. These are easy to use, and you can see results really quickly. Bigger brands with dedicated marketing teams prefer manual placements. These brands already understand their audience really well. The best ad plans use a mix of both types to perform well. You start out running your first ads with automatic placements. Then you look at the data from those ads to see what worked. After that, you use manual placements to fine-tune your setup for better results.

Successful ad campaigns

Let’s look at a really effective ad campaign. Momentary Ink is a skin art brand. They used several strategies to promote their brand. They sent surveys to people right after those people bought their products. They also shared in-feed videos to reach more people. The surveys taught them a useful fact. 60 percent of their customers found the brand on TikTok. This real example shows how smart ad placement works. It helps more people learn about your brand and drives more sales. Here are the key takeaways.

1. TikTok Ads have automatic placement options. These include Smart+ Campaigns and Automatic Search Placement. These options let you reach a really wide audience. They are affordable, so you get great value for your money. They also make managing your ads much simpler.
2. Some advertisers have very specific needs for their work. They can get a lot out of manual placements. That’s because they have full control when using them.
3. It’s important to measure KPIs to check performance. KPIs are simple numbers that show how well something works. You use them to look at two types of placements. One type runs completely automatically. The other is set up by hand. These numbers let you compare how well both types perform.
4. What advertisers like best depends on two main things. The first is how much control they have over their work. The second is how many resources they have available to them.
5. People usually mix facts from data and smart plans to make great ad campaigns. Use our calculator to see how different ad spots affect your TikTok campaign results.

Feed vs explore page performance

Lack of available information

A 2023 SEMrush study says social media video ads have a 23% engagement rate. It’s important to compare ad performance on TikTok’s feed and explore pages. This helps people adjust their ads to work as well as possible. Right now, we don’t have enough data to run this analysis. Lots of older, more established social platforms share that kind of data openly. TikTok does not make this feed vs. explore ad performance data public.

Real – world Impact

Take the example of a fashion brand that ran TikTok ads. They placed ads on both the Explore page and the main Feed. They didn’t have enough data to compare the two ad spots. They couldn’t tell which spot got more engagement and sales. They had a hard time deciding where to spend more of their ad budget. They weren’t sure if they should put more money toward Explore or the Feed. The choice was extra tricky for one simple reason. Most TikTok users casually browse posts from their friends first.

Pro Tip

If you advertise on TikTok, try reaching out to its support team. They can share more details about how your campaigns and feed are performing. That info will help you make smarter choices about where to put your ads. Optimizing ad placement is another popular high-CPC keyword. Lots of brands focus on this to get the most out of their TikTok ads. If you want to boost your AdSense earnings, combine this keyword with two others. The other keywords are “TikTok ads performance” and “explore pages ads.” You should also build your own system to track ad results. This tip is recommended by experts who work in the ad industry. UTM parameters can help you figure out where your TikTok ad traffic comes from. You can use that data to check how well your feed and explore page ads are doing. Those are the key takeaways to keep in mind.

• TikTok doesn’t share details about how its ads perform. It won’t tell you if ads work better on your regular feed or the Explore page.
• It’s really hard to measure where ads are placed accurately. Getting perfectly exact numbers for these spots is rarely easy.
• Reaching out to TikTok Support is super helpful. Setting up your own tracking system works too. Both will help you pick better spots for your ads. You can also use our TikTok Ad Performance Calculator. It will show you how different ad spots affect your whole campaign.

Partner network ads

Did you know 68% of marketers use partner network ads in their ad strategies? That fact comes from a 2023 study by SEMrush. These ads are a great way to reach more people on TikTok. But adjusting and checking how well these ads work is really tough.

Lack of available information for comparison

It’s hard to use partner network ads right now. We don’t have enough data to compare different networks. Advertisers can’t tell which networks work best. They also don’t know how to spend their ad money well. Let’s use a beauty brand as an example. The brand runs partner network ads on TikTok. They see their ad views went up a lot. But they don’t know which partners get people to interact or buy. This confusion can make them waste money on bad partnerships. Here’s a quick tip: Reach out to TikTok Marketing Partners directly. They have deeper data than the regular platform gives you. They can share helpful details you can’t get on your own. Take the brand Cocokind, for example. Dash Social is Cocokind’s badged Content & Community Management Partner. This partnership let Cocokind see how their old videos performed. Working together helps you track partner ad performance way better. Industry experts say you need a good tracking system for these ads. The system should collect as much useful info as possible. You might need to use third-party analytics tools too. These tools work with TikTok’s ad platform smoothly. Google Analytics is one of the best options out there. It adds extra layers of data for you. It also lets you compare how different networks stack up. Those are the key points to remember.

• Getting TikTok partner network ads to work their best has one main hurdle. That hurdle is not having enough information to make comparisons.
• TikTok marketing partners are people who help brands promote stuff on the app. They can be a really great source of useful, helpful information.
• Third-party analytics tools make tracking and comparing data easier. You can use a third-party analytics dashboard for your TikTok ad work. This tool combines and reviews data from all the partner network ads you run on TikTok.

Placement – level bidding

Lack of available information on impact

Did you know many people who run TikTok ads face a common issue? They can’t fully tell how well their placement-level bids work. That’s because there’s not enough clear data available. A 2023 SEMrush study confirms this pattern. It found nearly 60% of ad creators deal with this exact problem. One team tried this bidding strategy for a cosmetics brand. They didn’t fully understand its effects before starting. The brand set aside separate budgets for specific TikTok ad spots. But without the right data, they couldn’t tell what worked. They didn’t know if the bids got more people to take the action the brand wanted. They also couldn’t tell if they just wasted their money. A Google Partner certified in digital marketing can help you out. These experts can explain the risks and benefits of this bidding method. They’ll use common industry benchmarks to give you clear answers. There are also advanced analytics tools you can use. These tools track how well your ad spots perform and make simple reports. Google Analytics recommends linking it to TikTok’s ad platform. That will give you far more insight into how each ad spot is doing. We still don’t have all the data we need for this bidding type. But this checklist will help you get the best results from your placement-level bids.

• If you can, do a little research first. Look up how well any placements you’re interested in did in the past.
• Start with a small budget to test the waters.
• Make sure you check all the bids regularly. Keep track of their results at the same time. Do this consistently the entire time.
• If you need to fill in gaps in info, look for outside sources. These include industry reports or blogs written by experts. Here are the key takeaways.
• Most people don’t fully understand the effects of bidding for specific ad spots. When you bid to get a certain ad placement, you can’t always predict what will happen.
• People who work in marketing need to be careful with their ideas. They test every single one of those ideas on a small scale first.
• You can use outside tools to lower risks and get expert advice. This is a great way to cut risks that come from having too little data. Try our TikTok ad performance calculator. It will help you figure out how to bid for different ad spots.

FAQ

What is placement – level bidding on TikTok?

Advertisers can bid for specific ad spots on TikTok. A 2023 SEMrush study shared a key finding. Almost 60% of marketers can’t tell if these ads work well. They don’t have enough data to figure that out. Bidding for these spots means setting a specific budget first. Our placement-level bidding analyses show one useful thing. Advanced analytics help track how well the ads actually perform.

How to choose between automatic and manual ad placements on TikTok?

Sometimes, automatic placements can boost your reach by up to 30%. New advertisers or people with limited resources usually prefer these. They are quick and really easy to use. Manual placements are a great pick if you know exactly who your target audience is. First, take stock of the resources you have to work with. Next, make sure you clearly understand who your target audience is. Start out using automatic placements first to pick up useful insights. You can find more details on the Automatic placements vs. Manual placements page.

Feed vs Explore: Which is better for TikTok ad placement?

A 2023 SEMrush study looked at social media video ad performance. These ads have an average 23% engagement rate across social sites. No public info exists for how TikTok’s feed and explore pages perform. The regular TikTok feed is made for casual, laid-back scrolling. The explore page lets users find new content they haven’t seen before. Advertisers can reach out to TikTok’s support team for more info. They can also install tracking tools to get their own performance data. We have a really detailed analysis of feed versus explore page performance.

Steps for optimizing partner network ads on TikTok?

Network partner ads can run into issues if you don’t have comparison data. You can reach out to TikTok Marketing Partners directly first, just like Cocokind did for Dash Social. Ask them to send over their detailed analytics. You can also use third-party tools like Google Analytics. Try to track as many different data points as you can. Your final results might vary based on your market and partnerships. You can find all extra details in the [Partner Network Ads] section.