How much does TikTok spend on advertising

The numbers show that TikTok has proven itself as a must-have destination for digital ads. 

TikTok ad spending in context

While TikTok ad spending is certainly on the rise, it still hasn’t reached the level of the giants that are Facebook and Instagram.

According to eMarketer, Instagram is at the top of the pack for US ad revenue for 2022, at $29.79 billion, with Facebook close behind, at $25.75 billion. YouTube is next, at just over $8 billion, followed by TikTok.

Twitter, Snapchat, and Pinterest all sit below TikTok in terms of revenue, at $3.01 billion, $2.72 billion, and $2.29 billion, respectively. In fact, TikTok is expected to take in more than Twitter and Snapchat combined for 2022.

TikTok is currently the third-largest social media app in both the US and the world, and reached one billion active users worldwide in 2021. While Facebook and Instagram still lead digital ad spending, rising costs and uncertainty amid changing privacy policies certainly makes TikTok an attractive alternative for testing out new strategies.

Users are increasingly spending more time on TikTok than on other platforms. Adult users spend an average of almost 46 minutes on TikTok each day, on par with YouTube, compared to 30 minutes each on Facebook and Instagram.

TikTok marketing is a new frontier, but if you can crack the code, it’s a potential gateway to a captive young audience that’s eager to shop.

Ready to create your business? Start your free 3-day trial of Shopify—no credit card required.

What you need to know about advertising on TikTok 

One of the reasons TikTok is such an attractive platform for brands is the demographics of its users. TikTok has 386.6 million users aged 18 to 24, making up 43.7% of the platform’s users worldwide. The next biggest group is 25- to 34-year-old millennials, who make up 31.9% of the user base. They also skew female, at 57% of the total.

Plus, TikTok users largely don’t mind ads—they even like them. According to DISQO research, two out of three TikTok users chose a positive word to describe ads on the platform, such as “fun and engaging,” “trendsetting,” and “inspiring.”

Combine all that with the fact that one in four users globally have purchased or researched a product after seeing it advertised on TikTok, and you have a recipe for reaching a particularly coveted group of potential customers. 

However, getting their attention takes some work. On TikTok specifically, authenticity is key. Users, especially younger ones, want to watch ads that blend seamlessly into the existing culture on the app, including popular audio clips, viral jokes and memes, and familiar faces. That’s why many brands choose to work with influencers or play into existing trends on the app.

If you’re looking to start advertising on TikTok, it’s best to spend time on the app to develop an organic approach. You can also read our guides below to find out everything you need to know about advertising on TikTok.

 📚Resources:

• How to Create a TikTok Marketing Strategy in 2022
• A Step-By-Step Guide to Advertising on TikTok
• 15 TikTok Statistics Marketers Need To Know
• 8 Ideas to Get Your Small Business Started on TikTok

Join 446,005 entrepreneurs who already have a head start.

Get free online marketing tips and resources delivered directly to your inbox.

No charge. Unsubscribe anytime.

TikTok was relatively slow off the block in implementing a  formal advertising program. For this reason, brands had to find alternative ways to advertise on TikTok. This is one of the reasons that influencer marketing has thrived on the platform.

TikTok started experimenting with advertising in late 2018, although it didn't take off until well into the following year. There was much discussion in the early days about the high cost of TikTok ads. It can cost brands $50,000 to $100,000 to take over a popular TikTok channel, for instance, and the cost of a hashtag challenge has a flat fee of $150,000 for six days, with firms spending additional dollars on promoting the challenge.

However, now that TikTok has introduced short native video ads, things are now much more affordable for brands wishing to advertise on TikTok.

How Much do TikTok Ads Cost?:

• TikTok Now has a Formal Ads Program? Will it Cost You a Fortune?
• Is TikTok Advertising Suitable for Your Business?
• TikTok Advertising Can be Expensive Compared to Facebook and Instagram
• Types of TikTok Advertising and Marketing
• Frequently Asked Questions

TikTok Now has a Formal Ads Program? Will it Cost You a Fortune?

It has taken a while for TikTok to enter the ads market, but they have now set up their formal ads program. It has been slow, gradual progress, however. At least this has meant that you don't have intense competition to gain the coveted spots on TikTok – unlike on Facebook and Instagram, where winning the best advertising positioning can get ruthless and cutthroat. 

Is TikTok Advertising Suitable for Your Business?

TikTok is rapidly growing in popularity as a short-video sharing app. In fact, there have been months when TikTok was the most downloaded non-gaming app in both the Apple and Android (Google Play) app stores. It shouldn't be a surprise that many brands want to be part of the action. They already have active accounts on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn as well as a YouTube channel. 

However, any TikTok advertising (or even running a company TikTok account) will depend very much on the demographics of your intended customer base. 

The developers of TikTok (and its forerunner, Musical.ly) chose to create an app targeting Under 18s. Alright, many TikTok fans have stayed with the app as they have aged, but it is clear that the bulk of users are young. Even now, 41% of TikTok’s users are aged between 16 and 24. Indeed, 66% of TikTok’s users are under 30.

TikTok also has a strong female skew. This probably doesn't surprise many, as it tends to reflect the typical difference between the genders when it comes to content types. TikTok made its name as a form of virtual karaoke, a pastime that more females enjoy than males. 

So, if your business targets young women, then you should seriously consider advertising on TikTok, as well as setting up your own TikTok presence. If you sell products more suited to Baby Boomers or Generation X, then you will probably perform better on the platforms where they spend their time.

TikTok Advertising Can be Expensive Compared to Facebook and Instagram

Obviously, some of TikTok's best-known advertisers, such as Nike and Disney, have deep pockets when it comes to advertising. They are highly unlikely to quibble about cost unless there is a vast difference.  It can seem more expensive than the more familiar Facebook / Instagram advertising, however.

Ads on TikTok are still new. This means that TikTok can afford to charge a premium rate for them, knowing that advertisers aren’t going to abandon TikTok to compete with their competitors for prime Facebook/Instagram advertising space.

TikTok ads start at $10 per CPM (cost per 1000 views). Also, they require you to spend a minimum of $500 on a campaign. So you aren’t going to use formal TikTok ads for a cheap and cheerful viral marketing campaign.

Types of TikTok Advertising and Marketing

Working with Influencers

Until relatively recently, if you were a firm wanting to market on TikTok, you only really had one viable option – to partner with a TikTok influencer and work with them to promote your brand. And in many ways, this hasn't changed. If you can build up harmonious relationships with well-performed and popular TikTok users, whose follower demographics match your target audience, then this is still probably the most cost-efficient way to spread your message.

If you can collaborate with an influencer to promote your products to a massive network of interested followers, you have the chance to gain a good return on your investment. This does, of course, assume that you sell a product that makes for interesting, enticing videos, that will spark an influencer's followers to take notice of your brand.

Promoting Your Own TikTok Channel

If you have a young social media marketing team, and your brand targets the correct demographics for TikTok, you could consider setting up a TikTok channel for your company. This is no different from a firm that sets up Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter accounts or shares videos on a company YouTube channel.

But remember that people don’t come to TikTok to learn about your brand and its products. They generally go there for entertainment or to share their creative endeavors. The last thing they want to watch is the ads for your products.

So if you are going to set up a TikTok channel, you have to give value to your followers. You want to share videos that interest them, perhaps make them sufficiently curious to take a closer look at what your brand offers.

Of course, some products and services have a much easier time than others gaining traction on TikTok. Fim studios can easily set up and share sort video clips of the latest blockbusters. Likewise, it is a natural fit for music companies to share music clips.

Sharing TikTok Content on Other Social Platforms

Just because something originated on TikTok doesn’t mean that it has to stay there. You will find numerous channels on YouTube where people share TikTok highlights videos, for example.

You could even promote relevant TikTok content (either your own or those created by influencers with whom you have made arrangements) via your Instagram Stories and Snapchat Snaps. Just avoid spending too much time sharing TikTok promotions on social sites with markedly different demographics to TikTok.

TikTok Challenges

TikTok’s name has become synonymous with challenges. Probably the best-known one was Jimmy Fallon's #Tumbleweed Challenge. He challenged people to make a video and share it on TikTok, of somebody rolling around on the ground like a tumbleweed, with Western-style music playing in the

background. The challenge was a tremendous success, with Tikok fans uploading 8,000 videos, and resulting in over 9 million views in seven days.

While a successful brand-focused challenge would bring maximum publicity, it would also be harder to get cynical TikTok followers to follow the lead.

TikTok’s Paid Advertising Program

TikTok has finally followed Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn, and set up its official paid advertising program.

While the other forms of TikTok marketing are relatively unofficial, you might prefer the structure of TikTok's official paid advertising program. It is relatively early days for this, so the platform lacks some of the finesse of the Facebook and YouTube versions in particular. But you may be able to make up for this because it is less likely that your competition will be flooding TikTok with higher ad bids than yours.

TikTok offers three main types of ad:

1. In-feed native ads
2. Brand takeover ads
3. Hashtag challenges

As you would expect, TikTok in-feed native ads are generally short videos, although you can opt for static images if you prefer. You can even use custom filters to enhance the look of your work.

Experienced marketers who have used native TikTok ads suggest on Quora that you should budget at least $1,000 for even a simple campaign. One marketer goes as far as to suggest that you should be prepared to pay $50,000 to $100,000 to run ads on the platform.

TikTok Native Ads

The in-feed native ads operate in a similar way to those on Facebook and Google. This means that you have to bid for spots for your ads to serve them to targeted YouTube users. We referred to CPM (technically cost per mille, meaning the cost per 1000 views) above. Some people choose the related metric, CPV (cost per view). However, in some cases, you may prefer to bid CPC (cost per click).

Brand Takeover Ads

With a brand takeover ad, your ad will play as soon as a targeted TikTok user opens their app. Interested users will click on the ad, and you will redirect them to a page on your website. As TikTo ensures that no users see more than one brand takeover ad per day, there are only limited opportunities for these, and the amount you pay will reflect this scarcity. If you do manage to use a brand takeover ad, make sure that the landing page is of high enough quality to warrant the cost. There is little point redirecting people to your webpage if they are going to move away instantly.

Hashtag Challenges

I've talked about the popularity of informal challenges above. You can go one step further and formalize this into an official hashtag challenge.

As with all challenges, the significant benefit of this is the amount of user-generated content you can generate. All this engagement can only be positive for a company. And while you have to pay for the hashtag challenge ads that begin this process, the hashtag challenge posts made by participants are effectively free publicity.

However, the overall cost of a hashtag challenge is still too high for small businesses or those that prefer a more viral approach to their marketing. There is a $150,000 flat fee for the first six days of a challenge, with a likely additional cost of $100,000 to $200,000 to promote the challenge.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are TikTok ads worth it?

The TikTok ads platform makes it worth it to create accessible and great campaigns. Many brands - especially smaller businesses - are not sure that advertising on TikTok is worth it, especially given the time it takes. However, it is easy to set up campaigns, create authentic video content, and keep track of your analytics and data.

Can you get paid for ads on TikTok?

You can get paid an average of $0.01 to $0.02 for every sponsored view on TikTok, according to a report in Business Insider. That means if your video gets 100,000 views on TikTok, you can get paid $1,000 dollars for your ads in sponsorships. Once you build a following on TikTok, you can pitch yourself to brands to offer your services.

How much do TikTokers get paid?

If you have a strong following on TikTok, it’s easy to get paid. TikTokers with large followings (hundres of thousands, or millions of followers) can get paid anywhere from $200 to $5,000 each month. The amount will depend on the size of their following. If you do not have more than 100,000 followers, you will not get paid much money.

Who owns TikTok?

ByteDance owns TikTok. In 2020, TikTok struck a partnership deal with Oracle and Walmart. That deal allowed U.S. businesses to buy a stake in the app and provide secure technology. ByteDance still owns 80% of the business, a source told CNBC.

Which country banned TikTok?

TikTok has been banned in several countries around the world. In 2020, the Indian government banned TikTok following a border clash with China. The country also banned 233 other Chinese apps. In addition, Pakistan has banned TikTok. The U.S. and Indonesia attempted to ban TikTok but failed.

Over 30.000 marketing professionals rely on us for their news. Shouldn’t you?

Subscribe to the world’s #1 influencer marketing newsletter, delivered bi-weekly on a Thursday.

How much does it cost to promote on TikTok?

Does TikTok promote advertising?