Types Of TikTok Ads Explained

If your travel destination has been neglecting TikTok, you are missing out on tremendous opportunities for social media advertising. TikTok is one of the fastest-growing and most-used platforms in the world, with over 1 billion monthly users. That’s a lot of eyes just waiting to see your destination’s best assets on their For You Page (FYP)!

Do you want to take the leap and start putting some energy into TikTok ads but don’t know where to start? We’ve got you covered. At TwoSix Digital, we develop comprehensive TikTok activation schedules and work with your organization to promote content pieces for success on the platform. We focus on building a solid following by raising awareness to a targeted group of potential travelers by running TikTok ads.

The 3 Types of TikTok Ads

There are three different types of situations where ad campaigns can currently be applied:

Organizations without an account – Dark Post Ads
Organizations with an account – Promoted Video Ads
Organizations utilizing influencers – Permission-Based Influencer Ads

Keep reading to find out the differences between these TikTok ad types.

Dark Post TikTok Ads

What we call “Dark Post Ads” are useful for organizations that do not have an active account on TikTok. The Dark post ads are essentially sponsored posts; however, they do not appear on the advertisers’ timelines or feeds. Dark post ads will appear on the timelines of users to whom the ad is targeted– based on geography and interest-based attributes. Since this type of ad isn’t geared towards the advertisers’ followers, it isn’t necessary to have a TikTok account primarily used for expanded reach, (it is important to add, a destination with an account on TikTok can also use Dark post ads, while you need an account to use Spark ads). This makes dark post ads an excellent tool for destinations intending to increase awareness, build website traffic and develop lead generation options by collecting e-mails or phone numbers within the app.

Spark TikTok Ads

Next, we can dive into Spark Ads, where a predetermined budget boosts an organic TikTok video to promote it to a targeted audience. Both promoted videos and influencer ads on TikTok fall under “Spark Ads.” This ad type has two unique objectives. The first is to increase the organization’s follower base or to gain additional profile views. The videos for these ads must use “original sounds” or music from TikTok’s Commercial Music Library (with a TikTok business account) to be eligible for paid promotion. These ads can be promoted videos from an organic TikTok on your organization’s timeline. It could then be pushed out to a larger targeted audience with different objectives like traffic (extended reach), follower growth, video/profile views, engagement, etc. When spark ads are promoted for the objective of video views or website traffic, you can add links to the ad, whereas follower/profile visit objectives will not allow you to add links.

Permission-Based Influencer TikTok Ads

The exact same process used to create Spark Ads on your own account can be applied to anyone else’s account. Essentially, you can put money behind anyone’s post. Of course, you will need to ask permission and be granted authorization. These permission-based influencer ads will appear in user’s timelines from the influencer’s account rather than on the organization’s profile feed.

If your organization is ready to take advantage of TikTok’s rapidly growing audience and jump on board with TikTok ads, contact TwoSix Digital and get started today!