Grow Rapidly with TikTok Smart Performance Campaigns: How It Works

Are you tired of experimenting endlessly with your TikTok ads without seeing any results? Do you feel like your marketing efforts are lost in the vast sea of content on the platform? Well, fear not, because TikTok smart performance campaigns are here to change everything.

Thanks to machine learning, these campaigns are designed to deliver your ads to the most relevant and engaged audiences. It results in higher click-through rates, more conversions, and ultimately, more success for your brand. So, sit back, relax, and let’s dive into the world of TikTok Smart Performance Campaigns. We also touch on how you can give your TikTok campaigns the oomph they need to boost results.

“Unlike other campaign types, which require you to manually select your target audience and bid for ad placements, TikTok smart performance campaigns do all the heavy lifting for you. You just set your campaign objective and let TikTok’s algorithm do the rest. According to TikTok themselves, 80% of Smart Performance Campaigns outperform manual campaigns. Those numbers are hard to ignore.”

What are TikTok Smart Performance Campaigns?

If you’re a marketer who’s ever tried navigating the murky waters of TikTok advertising, you know it can be overwhelming. There are so many ways to design your campaign. It’s impossible to know exactly what type of configuration will deliver the best results without a marketing crystal ball. Testing is usually the go-to strategy. However, it takes time, eats into your budget, and inevitably you’ll end up wasting some of your ad spend.

What if there was a way to make this process smarter and less time-consuming and resource intensive? One of the best things about TikTok (from a marketer’s perspective) is that the TikTok team is constantly looking for ways to make life easier (and more profitable) for brands. Their answer to this particular problem is TikTok Smart Performance Campaigns.

Taking advantage of the power of machine learning and artificial intelligence, these campaigns use advanced algorithms to deliver your message to the most relevant and engaged audiences. In other words, they’re like a matchmaking service for your ads and your target audience.

The SPC Difference

So, what’s the advantage of using TikTok Smart Performance Campaigns over other campaign types? Great question! Unlike other campaign types, which require you to manually select your target audience and bid for ad placements, TikTok smart performance campaigns do all the heavy lifting for you. You just set your campaign objective and let TikTok’s algorithm do the rest. According to TikTok themselves, 80% of Smart Performance Campaigns outperform manual campaigns. Those numbers are hard to ignore.

And the best part? TikTok Smart Performance Campaigns are super flexible. They work across a wide range of campaign objectives. This extends from brand awareness to app instals to website conversions. So no matter your marketing objectives, you can use smart performance campaigns to achieve them. TikTok Smart Performance Campaigns are like the Swiss Army Knife of TikTok advertising. They’re versatile and efficient, and they get the job done.

The Disadvantage of Smart Performance Campaigns

Although Smart Performance Campaigns sound like the perfect solution for running campaigns. Our performance marketing experts at House of Marketers have found manual campaigns more effective when the correct ad groups are chosen. Smart performance campaigns tend to start off really well, but their effectiveness don’t seem to last as long as the most effective manually-constructed ad groups.

How Smart Campaigns Can Boost Performance

What makes smart performance campaigns better than regular old manual ads? Here are three key reasons why you may like this new type of ad campaign below.

Laser-Sharp Ad Targeting

Machine learning and AI are on the tip of everyone’s tongues right now, and for good reason. With recent advances in AI, algorithms have become increasingly adept at predicting precisely who is more likely to convert and what exactly will get them to take action. This means better performance and cheaper costs. Human marketers can rarely compete with this kind of machine-guided precision.

More Efficient Budgeting

Budget is everything when it comes to marketing, and this means that you need to optimise every cent/penny spent. Smart Performance Campaigns have a built-in budget optimization feature. This allows marketers to allocate budget more efficiently across different ad sets.It ensures that their ads are placed in front of the most relevant audiences. This helps improve ROI without sacrificing reach or performance. Yes, this is already available for Campaign Budget Optimization (CBO) campaigns, but with SPC, every ad automation tool available is rolled into one powerful solution.

Faster and Less Resource-Intensive

Smart Performance Campaigns take all the manual labour out of ad optimization, saving you time and resources. Your marketing team won’t be spending hours debating the best approach and manually optimising campaigns each week. TikTok’s smart automation takes care of that for you by adjusting bids, budget allocation and targeting, and even creative in real-time.

How to Get Started Using TikTok Smart Performance Campaigns

So, you’ve decided to take the plunge and give TikTok Smart Performance Campaigns a try. But how do you get started? Let’s break it down.

1. Create Your Ad and Choose Your Campaign Objective

You need four things to launch your smart performance campaign: marketing objective, budget, country, and creative assets. Start by selecting your campaign objective. Do you want to generate awareness around a new product launch or increase website visits? Whatever it is, ensure you clearly define it so your smart performance campaign is optimised to deliver the best results.

Next, decide on a budget. This will determine how many people your ad reaches and how long it runs. Then, choose the countries you want to target. You can select as many countries as you like, so experiment and find out which ones work best for you. Finally, create your ad creative assets. These are the pieces of text, audio and video content that will actually be shown to people. With these four ingredients, you can let the algorithm get to work.

2. Let the Magic of Machine Learning Do Its Thing

Once you’ve created your ad and chosen your campaign objective, sit back and let TikTok’s algorithm work its magic. The algorithm will analyse your ad and target the most relevant and engaged audiences. This is to ensure that your ad is seen by the people most likely to take action.

How exactly does this work? Well, that’s a bit of a technical question, but suffice it to say that the algorithm looks at things like user behaviour and interests when selecting audience segments. It’s like having an expert marketer constantly optimising your campaigns in the background. Bidding, targeting, and creative optimization are all automated. This enables the platform to craft the “perfect” campaign with the power of AI.

3. Check Your Audience Performance and Ad Performance Tabs

But how do you know if your ad is actually performing well? Easy peasy. Just check the audience performance and ad performance tabs in your campaign dashboard. These tabs will give you all the juicy details on who’s seeing your ad and how they’re interacting with it. For example, you can see which audiences are driving the most conversions. If you need to make manual adjustments to your campaign at any point, you can do that too.

4. Use the Search Feature for Keywords and Negative Keywords

Want to make your targeting even more precise? You can use TikTok’s new search feature for keywords and negative keywords. This nifty tool allows you to specify which keywords you want to target (or avoid) in your ad campaign. So, if you’re a home decor brand trying to sell your products to people who are into #minimalistdesign, you can use this feature to ensure that your ad is only shown to people who’ve expressed an interest in that particular keyword.

Or, let’s say you’re a health food brand trying to promote your new line of plant-based protein bars. You can use the negative keyword feature to exclude users who’ve shown an interest in keywords like #paleo or #carnivore. By doing so, you can avoid showing your ads to users following diets that don’t align with your product offerings. This can help you save money on your ad spend. How so? By ensuring your ads are only being shown to the users most likely to engage with your ad and make a purchase.

“The results were impressive. PRYA’s ads reached millions of users, resulting in a 150% increase in website traffic and a 10% increase in sales. When compared to their non-SPC control campaign, they also saw a 10% lower CPA for SPCs with Website conversion. It just goes to show how powerful SPC can be when used correctly.”

Brands That Are Successfully Harnessing SPC

Looking for proof that TikTok’s Smart Performance Campaigns actually work? Here are real-life examples of brands that used SPC to boost their advertising efforts and saw some seriously impressive results.

PRYA

Prya, a UK-based jewellery brand, wanted to drive more traffic to their website and increase their total online sales. They decided to give TikTok’s Smart Performance Campaigns a try. The brand hopped on the “Get Ready with Me” trend and let the algorithm automate the rest.

The results were impressive. Prya’s ads reached millions of users, resulting in a 150% increase in website traffic and a 10% increase in sales. When compared to their non-SPC control campaign, they also saw a 10% lower CPA for SPCs with Website conversion. It just goes to show how powerful SPC can be when used correctly.

@pryaofficial 🤷‍♀️🫣 waterproof jewellery only x #jewellery #waterproof #holiday #fyp ♬ New Home by Austin Farwell – GetByBus

Bolt

Bolt, the ride-sharing app and early adopter of Smart Performance Campaigns took part in early testing to see how it performed in boosting the acquisition of new riders in South Africa. They wanted to maximise results while keeping their ad spend low. As such, they tested SPC against a control campaign.

After a 14-day A/B test campaign, they saw a 27% decrease in CPA and a 40% increase in purchase actions. Pleased with these results, they rolled out their Smart Performance Campaigns across the UK, Spain, Sweden, Romania, and Portugal. They haven’t looked back since.

@bolt Well, the driver who received 6903 five-star ratings in 365 days, would disagree😎⭐️ #bolt #boltwrapup2022  #endofyear ♬ thank u so much – &lt3

Partner with a TikTok Marketing Agency for Your TikTok Smart Performance Campaigns

Our TikTok marketing agency knows exactly how to harness the power of TikTok’s Smart Performance Campaigns, and manually-setup campaigns. Both are needed to optimise your performance marketing budget. We’ll get your brand on the fast track to growth. With our data-driven approach and deep understanding of the platform, we’ll help you leverage this powerful new ad type to increase your ROI and bring in sales. So, what are you waiting for? Get in touch and let’s get started on your SPC campaign today.