TikTok is pushing the envelope on search advertising. Here’s what you need to know about the social media platform’s initiative to boost search ads.
Modern social media advertising will look a lot brighter as one of the social media giants is investing more in its search ads portfolio.
TikTok launched its “Search Ads” campaign on September 24, 2024. This campaign gives advertisers the ability to target ads based on what users are actively searching for.
Specifically, it lets brands target users through keyword-based search ads. TikTok Search Ads Campaign allows the use of both video and image carousel assets. Advertisers can mix these formats within a single ad group. The system automatically chooses the creative that best matches a user’s search terms. This selection is based on the brand’s target keyword list.
The goal is to turn those searches into ad dollars by matching ads with user intent. While ads have already appeared in TikTok’s search results in the past, brands will now have more control over their placement.
As of right now, the feature is only available in the U.S. with a rollout and expansion to other countries to follow in the near future. This comes as TikTok is awaiting its fate in the US regarding the government’s proposed ban of the app in the country.
The move also comes after TikTok’s research found that adding search ads alongside in-feed ads has led to a 20% increase in conversions. According to TikTok’s Global Head of Monetization, David Kaufman, even users who don’t initially interact with an in-feed ad often engage after seeing the related search ad.
A better search advertising on TikTok
In turn, the platform’s search behaviors offer new opportunities for advertisers that enable them to connect with motivated users much more effectively. TikTok execs have been pitching their search ads as a tool to boost product discovery and research, not as a direct sales driver.
However, they are also pushing the narrative that these ads can deliver performance metrics and have even hinted that marketers should consider reallocating budgets from other performance channels.
Until now, TikTok has had a different way of doing search ads. Marketers couldn’t select specific keywords like they would on other platforms. Instead, TikTok’s algorithms did the heavy lifting. They matched ads to searches using a mix of relevance, user behavior, and other secret data TikTok has.
With the new campaign tool, marketers have greater control over how their ads appear in search results. Specifically, it gives brands more refined targeting tools and lets\ them highlight their content within search results, putting them in front of high-intent audiences.
In addition, they can target both traffic and web conversions, enabling them to fine-tune their TikTok advertising campaigns for both audience reach and campaign performance. Users will also have a more seamless, natural TikTok ads experience when they click on the search icon on their “For You” page and see ads integrated naturally within the search results.
The Search Ads Campaign builds on the success of TikTok’s Search Ads Toggle feature from last October. It extends existing in-feed ads to TikTok search results as ‘sponsored’ content. This provides an additional ad placement without relying on traditional keyword-based targeting.
The Campaign also offers advertisers advanced targeting and optimization tools. This gives greater control over how ads are displayed on the search results page.
Time will tell how this new format will fare compared to other tech giants like Google and Amazon’s search advertising tools which are far more established in the search ads space.
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