By now, almost everyone knows that TikTok is the place-to-be if you want to be hip and trending. Besides that, TikTok is also positioned to be the go-to platform if you’re particular about boosting your business’ organic results. With massive numbers, a wide reach, and with fame to spare, TikTok has all the major elements to be an advertising powerhouse, but can it actually do well? Since TikTok ads are easy to skip, can it even drive offline sales even with all its exposure and brand awareness?
These are questions that TikTok aimed to address via a recent set of studies, in partnership with Nielsen, which utilize marketing mix modeling analysis to determine just how viable TikTok would be in driving offline sales, which could prove highly useful for your TikTok approach planning.
TikTok IRL
Nielsen analyzed 16 brands from across North America, Europe, and Southeast Asia, focusing on the optimal approach to drive offline sales. First, the data finds that TikTok ads drive ROI for CPG brands, and exhibit stronger ‘sales efficiency’ (length of time it takes for in-store return from your campaign/s).
“The US, for example, saw a 14% higher paid media ROAS versus all digital media measured in the models and 2X the offline sales efficiency, while the numbers for Europe and Southeast Asia were even higher.”
Nielsen’s study also went over content types that worked best for driving audience response, finding that in-feed video was the most efficient ad type. It’s not surprising when you consider TikTok’s vast limitations when it comes to ads, but the data also shows that advertisers can boost their in-app ad placements to improve results.
In short, brands can opt to run more campaigns, working hard to further push their TikTok branding, while maintaining the same levels of effectiveness. It helps maximize your efforts to push for higher brand awareness, while also allowing you to tap into the platform’s popularity.
Lastly, Nielsen made use of its in-store Sales life methodology to gauge the capacity of TikTok ads to generate in-store sales for CPG brands:
“Among the 16 commissioned studies, 14 generated significant sales lift. The average ROAS for these studies was 2X the NCS median campaign performance benchmark.”
The Wrap
With TikTok’s sky-high popularity, these results are not overly surprising. If anything at all, what these studies do is show the effectiveness of TikTok for brands who can catch ongoing content trends and behaviors, which would then reflect on their products. So, to conclude, TikTok does boost offline sales, but you have to get it right. Getting it right takes time and effort and most importantly of all, it’ll need a deep understanding of the app’s key trends and culture, which is only something that you learn through exploration and immersion.
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