As a social media expert and TikTok e-commerce expert with years of hands-on experience driving results on the platform, I get asked this question a lot. TikTok has exploded in popularity over the last few years, and more and more marketers like yourself want to leverage it to connect with modern audiences.
But before you can do that effectively, you need to understand the nuanced targeting options available. The good news is TikTok provides a robust array of targeting methods to help you hone in on your ideal customers.
In this comprehensive guide, I’ll “What targeting options are available for ads tiktok?” as part of an effective TikTok marketing strategy.
Contents
What targeting options are available for TikTok ads?
TikTok lets you target ads in all sorts of clever ways. You can go granular with age, gender, location, and language targeting. Lookalike audiences find new users similar to your customers. Hashtag challenges and in-feed videos get your ads front and center.
Remarketing hits users who’ve already shown interest. The combinations are nearly endless, so have fun testing different approaches!
Precision Targeting with Demographics
Demographic targeting should be central to any TikTok ad campaign. By zeroing in on gender, age, location, interests, and more, you can engage very specific user segments that align with your brand.
As a TikTok marketing expert, demographic targeting is one of my go-to approaches.
Dialing in Age and Gender
Unlike some social platforms dominated by one age group or gender, TikTok has broad appeal across demographics. Around 41% of users are between 16 and 24, with the rest representing all ages.
TikTok also has a nearly equal male/female split in most countries. This diversity presents an opportunity to finely tune your ads by age and gender. For example, if you’re promoting makeup or skincare products, target women 18-35. Selling sports merch? Target men 16-24. You get the idea.
Having this level of control over age and gender gives you an edge in connecting with your best customers. I’ve used this strategy successfully for many e-commerce brands as a TikTok expert.
Location, Location, Location
Geo-targeting is another powerful demographic filter for TikTok ads. You can target by country, region, city, even right down to radius targeting around a specific latitude/longitude. I’ve helped brands geo-target campaigns within a few miles of their brick-and-mortar stores.
Location targeting works hand-in-hand with language targeting. You can combine geographic and language targeting to reach English speakers in the U.S. or Spanish speakers in Mexico City.
For example. As a TikTok e-commerce expert, having this hyperlocal control opens up opportunities.
Diving Into More Demographics
Beyond the basics, TikTok lets you target education level, relationship status, parental status, household income, and more. I like using household income targeting for higher-priced products and services to zone in on users in higher income brackets.
You can even combine multiple demographics for maximum precision. For instance, target women ages 20-25 with college degrees living in urban areas. The combinations are nearly endless.
Interest and Behavior Targeting
Demographic targeting forms the foundation, but interest and behavior targeting takes it to the next level. By understanding users’ interests and habits on TikTok, you can serve ads that align with their needs and preferences. This results in higher engagement and conversions.
Interest Targeting
Every user on TikTok has interest categories attached to their profile based on the content they engage with. You can leverage these interests to deliver highly relevant ads.
For example, if you’re promoting a new first-person shooter game, target users interested in gaming. Selling a makeup line? Target beauty and fashion enthusiasts.
TikTok’s interest categories are incredibly granular, with over 2500 options. This makes interest targeting super powerful for ad relevance. As a TikTok marketing expert, it’s one of my go-to targeting strategies.
Remarketing
Remarketing ads target people who have already engaged with your brand in some way. For example, you can show TikTok ads to people who’ve visited your website, used your mobile app, viewed your ads, etc.
Remarketing helps keep your brand top of mind. I’ve used it effectively for e-commerce clients to re-engage shoppers who left items in their carts and bring them back to complete their purchases.
Behavior Targeting
You can also target users based on their behaviors directly in the TikTok app. What types of videos do they view, share, like, or comment on? What effects or sounds do they use in their own videos? All of this signals what they’re interested in.
You can then build audiences of people exhibiting those behaviors to target. As a TikTok expert and e-commerce specialist, I’ve found granular behavior targeting to be hugely valuable.
For example, if you’re selling sports equipment, target users who engage heavily with sports-related content. User behavior doesn’t lie!
Placing Your Ads Strategically
Now let’s talk ad placement. Where your ads appear in the app matters just as much as who they’re targeting. TikTok gives you granular control over placement.
Sponsored Hashtag Challenges
Hashtag challenges are a big part of community-building on TikTok. You can sponsor your own branded hashtag challenge to tap into this highly engaging content format. Users who participate in your challenge by posting videos are inherently interested in your brand.
As a TikTok e-commerce expert, I’ve spearheaded some extremely successful sponsored hashtag challenges. When combined with interest targeting, they can generate explosive results.
In-Feed Video Ads
In-feed video ads appear between videos in a user’s main TikTok feed. They look and feel organic while still promoting yourbrand-feed ads are eye-catching and benefit from the immersive viewing experience of TikTok.
I typically recommend my clients use a combination of in-feed video ads and hashtag challenges as a TikTok marketing expert.
Brand Takeovers
Brand takeovers let you display an engaging full-screen ad when users first launch the TikTok app. It’s prominent real estate that users can’t miss. I’ve helped brands drive major awareness with takeovers timed around new product launches.
But they can be pricey, so I suggest A/B testing takeovers against cheaper in-feed ads to gauge ROI as a TikTok expert.
Tailoring Ads with First-Party Data
The targeting options we’ve covered so far rely on TikTok’s data. But you can take it further by using your own first-party data like customer lists.
Custom Audiences
If you have a list of emails or other customer data, you can create a custom audience to target ads to known users. For e-commerce brands, this is a no-brainer way to keep your best customers engaged.
Lookalike Audiences
Once you’ve built a custom audience, TikTok allows you to create lookalike audiences. These target new users who share common attributes with your existing customers.
As a TikTok e-commerce expert, I’ve amplified the reach for clients through tightly focused lookalike audiences. It’s an easy way to find more of your ideal users.
Partner Audiences
For even greater scale, you can tap into third-party data providers through TikTok’s partners. Partners provide pre-built audience segments for targeting based on their own data.
This opens the door to target website visitors, app users, purchasers, and more from partners like Acxiom, Dstillery, and TransUnion. As a TikTok marketing expert, I view partner audiences as a potential secret weapon.
Testing and Optimizing for Results
Those are the main targeting options available today on TikTok. But executing a successful ad strategy takes more than just setting up targeting. You need to continuously test and optimize each campaign.
As a TikTok expert and e-commerce specialist, I always start by A/B testing different types of targeting and creative. See what resonates best with your goals based on performance data.
Then optimize towards the best performers.
Tweak your audiences, bidding strategy, creative, and more to incrementally improve over time. You can even use automatic bidding powered by TikTok’s optimization algorithms. Proper ongoing optimization and testing is crucial for driving real ROI from TikTok ads as part of an integrated strategy.
Relying on any one targeting approach usually won’t cut it. You need a dynamic, nimble approach to realize TikTok’s full potential.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I target by location on TikTok?
You can target ads geographically at the country, region, city, or postal code level. TikTok also offers radius targeting based on specific latitude and longitude coordinates.
Can I target existing customers with TikTok ads?
Yes, you can create custom audiences from your own customer data like emails and target ads specifically to those users.
Does TikTok allow interest targeting for ads?
Absolutely. TikTok has over 2500 interest targeting categories you can select to deliver ads relevant to users’ passions.
Can I target TikTok users by their in-app behaviors?
Yes, you can build audiences based on users’ behaviors in TikTok like videos viewed, liked, shared, effects used, and more.
How granular is age targeting for TikTok ads?
Very. You can target specific 1 or 2 year age ranges if desired, like only 18-20 year olds.
Can I target TikTok ads by gender?
Yes, you can target exclusively male or female users, or split your ad delivery between both genders.
Conclusion:
Hopefully this article on “What targeting options are available for TikTok ads?” gives you a good sense of how to approach targeting on TikTok. The platform offers an expansive array of options: from demographics and interests to placements and remarketing.
But precision targeting is only part of the equation. Creative, bidding, and optimization also play huge roles in success. Mastering targeting involves learning what combinations resonate for your unique brand and audience.
As a social media expert and TikTok e-commerce expert, my advice is to dive in and test TikTok ads for yourself. Start small, track results, and expand on what works. Take advantage of the tools TikTok provides, while customizing based on the data and insights specific to your business.
It takes work to build an effective TikTok strategy. But the engagement and revenue potential of strategically harnessing this platform is immense.
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