TikTok Ads: How To Get Leads & Clients in 2024

With rising ad costs on other advertising platforms such as Facebook & Instagram, it’s no surprise that many business owners are flocking to TikTok ads instead!

Is TikTok ads any good for business owners?

The short answer is… Surprisingly yes!

In our test with clients, we’ve found that 90% of clients get better results when split testing similar ads on both TikTok ads and Facebook ads.

In fact, we find running TikTok ads actually gets 3-5x better results!

This means:

• More leads
• Lower cost per lead
• Better cost to acquire a new customer

And yes, this is true even if you’re targeting older or wealthier people (they are on TikTok too!)

Ready to start running TikTok ads in your business?

In this article, you’ll learn:

• How to run TikTok ads for your business (step-by-step tutorial)
• How to target both b2c and b2b business owners on TikTok ads
• Key stats and important info on running successful TikTok ads

Let’s get started!

Why use TikTok ads?

Here are the top reasons business owners are using TikTok ads:

• Lower ad costs: TikTok ads are less saturated with advertisers than other social media platforms such as Facebook & Instagram. This means TikTok ads allow you to reach your potential clients at a much lower cost compared to other channels.
• Powerful Algorithm: One reason TikTok is so popular is its algorithm, which is designed to show relevant TikTok content to the right users. In my experience, TikTok’s algorithm has been as good as (if not better) than Facebook’s advertising algorithm.
• Easy to use: If you’re familiar with Facebook ads, you’ll be at home with TikTok ads. The TikTok ads manager looks almost identical to Facebook’s ads manager. It’s easy to use, and support is easy to access if you ever get stuck.
• Less advertising restrictions: One reason many business owners are flocking to TikTok ads is because of Facebook’s strict restrictions on advertisers. If you speak to most advertisers on Facebook, they’ll tell you how notorious Facebook is for banning or restricting ad accounts for no good reason. On TikTok ads, at least right now, you’re much less likely to run into problems with running ads or getting ads rejected.

TikTok ad demographic & statistics

Here are some useful TikTok stats for 2023:

TikTok Active users stats:

• TikTok has over 120 million active users in the USA
• TikTok was the most downloaded app in 2022 (more than Instagram & Facebook!)
• TikTok has over 1 billion active users
• TikTok has an average of 650,000 users joining each day
• Users spend (on average) just over 1.5 hours each day on TikTok

Age demographics:

• TikTok has over 50 million active users over the age of 35+ in the USA
• TikTok has over 24 million active users over the age of 45+ in the USA
• TikTok has over 9 million active users over the age of 55+ in the USA

Income and business demographics:

• TikTok allows you to advertise to people based on their household income
• TikTok has over 3,500,000 users who are listed as “business owners” in the USA
• TikTok ads allow you to target B2B business owners based on industry
• TikTok ads allow you to target different job titles
• TikTok ads allow you to target people based on buyer behavior

Best TikTok Ad Examples

The best place to find inspiration and ideas for successful TikTok ads is to look at the TikTok ads library in the TikTok ads creative center.

You can access the TikTok ad library from your TikTok business account (click here to open a TikTok business account).

Here you can use the search filters to find TikTok ad examples.

Some search filters include:

• Location
• Industry
• Objective
• Likes
• How long have ads been running

And you can even enter keywords into the search box to find TikTok ad examples in any industry.

The best TikTok ads are those that have been running for longer than 30 days. The longer ads are active, the more likely the ad converts well.

Tip: You can hire people on Fiverr to record TikTok video ads for you if you don’t feel comfortable being on camera. In my experience, hiring a video spokesperson for TikTok ads can still convert well and in some cases even better than doing it yourself!

If you need help with creating successful TikTok ads, I recommend you watch my free Masterclass training here. This covers the strategy you need to use to get high-quality leads, appointments and clients each month in your business (using both paid advertising and free/organic strategies).

Recommended TikTok Ad Specs

Before running TikTok ads, it’s important to know what specs your TikTok ads need to be. For best results on TikTok, please make sure your ads meet these specifications:

• Video format (no images allowed)
• Less than 60 seconds of video for best results
• Vertical video format
• Video aspect ratio is: 9:16, 1:1, or 16:9

The video aspect ratio in pixels we typically use is 1080px x 1920px. This ensures you have a high quality (HD) video ad.

The same ads you run on TikTok can also work on Instagram reels and stories.

Best TikTok Ads Editing Tool

There are a lot of video editing tools you can use for TikTok ads, including:

• TikTok Ads video editor (recommended)
• Camtasia
• Descript
• Invideo
• iMovie

And more!

The easiest and cheapest option is just to use the default TikTok video editing tool, which you can access by creating a FREE TikTok business account here.

After you upload a TikTok ad you can edit it, add captions, trim the video, add music, add special effects and more. The TikTok video editor tool is free and easy to use.

If you need more advanced video editing, then you can either do it yourself using video editing tools such as Camtasia (which is what I use) or hire video editors on Fiverr.

How to run ads on TikTok (tutorial)

Here’s a step-by-step tutorial on how to advertise on TikTok:

Step 1: Create a TikTok Business account

To start running ads on TikTok, you need to create a business account in TikTok’s Business Center.

Click here to create your FREE TikTok Business Account.

You will then be asked to create a TikTok Business account by entering your email address and password, as seen here:

Tips:

• You do NOT need a TikTok app account to use TikTok for business
• You can either sign up with your existing TikTok account, personal or work email
• If you choose the USA as your business location, you cannot advertise in the UK. Likewise, if you choose the UK, you cannot advertise to people in the USA. TikTok said they will change this in the future, though, so you can soon advertise to people in any location.

Step 2: Create an advertiser account

In your TikTok business account, go to “Assets” > “Advertiser Accounts” > “Add Advertiser Account”.

Your TikTok advertiser account is where you’ll go to:

• Create and manage TikTok ads
• Create and manage TikTok pixel
• Manage TikTok ad comments
• Manage TikTok videos and other assets

Tip: If you’re managing TikTok ads for clients, then ask them to create a TikTok advertiser account and then share access with you

Once you’ve created your TikTok ads manager, click on the “ads manager” button to access it:

Step 3: Choose the right TikTok campaign objective

For a lead generation campaign, I would recommend using the TikTok “Lead Generation” objective with the “Website Conversions” setting turned on.

With the TikTok lead generation conversion objective, you have two options to generate leads:

• Generate TikTok leads via online form fills: This will get form-fills through TikTok ads without them needing to navigate to an external site. Expect to get a lot more leads with this objective, but the quality won’t be as high compared to leads generated via your website asles funnel because the friction to fill in the form is much lower.
• Get TikTok leads via your website: This option sends people to a landing page with an opt-in form on your booked appointment funnel. It uses the TikTok pixel to track conversions. Expect to get fewer conversions but much higher quality leads with this option. If your goal is to get more QUALITY leads over quantity, then go with this option.

Since I prefer better quality leads over quantity, I’ll typically use the “Website Conversion” objective when advertising on TikTok. So, in this TikTok tutorial, I’ll be using the “Website Conversions” objective.

Watch my free Masterclass training for a deeper dive into how to generate leads on TikTok.

Step 4: Turn campaign budget optimization on

Campaign budget optimization allows TikTok to use your budget on the ad sets that are most likely to convert. I highly recommend you turn this on to lower your cost per lead and get better results, as seen in the following example:

For your daily budget, $50/day to $100/day would be a good amount to start testing with.

Step 5: Choose your TikTok pixel

After choosing your TikTok campaign goal, click on “Website” and select your pixel. If you’re familiar with Facebook ads, then the TikTok pixel works in practically the same way.

Tip: If you don’t yet have your TikTok pixel created, you can create one by going to “Assets” > “Events” in your TikTok ads manager, as seen here:

Step 6: Choose your targeting options

Here you can select whether you want to point TikTok in the right direction (custom targeting) or just let TikTok’s algorithm work out which audience is best for you (automatic targeting).

In some cases, I’ve found automatic targeting works better. In others, I’ve found “Custom Targeting” works better. So you’ll need to split-test both to see which option works best for you.

In the beginning, I recommend starting with “Custom Targeting” and then split test it with “Automatic targeting” after your TikTok pixel has gathered more data.

Step 7: Choose placements

Here you can select which TikTok owned assets you’d like to appear on. I normally just select TikTok for this option.

Step 8: Choose your target audience

Choose the demographics of your potential clients. TikTok allows you to target potential clients based on:

• Age
• Location
• Income level

When selecting interests, you can choose almost everything imaginable including interests such as:

• Business industries
• Buyer behavior
• Business owners
• Hashtag interactions
• And more

The best thing to do is to type in relevant interests related to your business and see what comes up!

How do I target business owers on TikTok Ads?

Yes, believe it or not, you can use TikTok to generate B2B leads, appointments and clients. And usually, you can do this at a much lower cost compared to Facebook Ads or LinkedIn ads.

Here are the best ways to target business owners on TikTok ads:

• Choose the ‘business owners’ or ‘small business owners’ interest in your TikTok ads manager
• Target ‘business services’, ‘professional services’ or other specific service related interests in your TikTok ads manager
• You can target specific business industries on TikTok. For example, if you’re an accountant looking for leads that work exclusively with marketing agencies, you can select “marketing and advertising” as an industry.
• Target people based on the ‘business-to-business’ (B2B) interest on TikTok ads
• Target people who read specific business online publications such as Inc, Entrepreneur magazine, Forbes, etc. You can also search for online publications specific to your target audience’s niche.
• Ensure that your ad specifically calls out the type of business owner you want to target in the first 10 seconds.

This helps TikTok’s algorithm show your ad to more like-minded business owners interested in your content.

See also this video on how to target business owners on TikTok ads:

Step 9: Upload your TikTok video ad

Here you can upload your TikTik video ad. Here are a few rules about TikTok video ads:

• TikTok ad size dimensions in pixels must be 1080px by 1920px (or any other vertical dimension)
• TikTok ads video length must be under 60 seconds

If you don’t feel comfortable being on camera, you can pay people on Fiverr to record a video for you.

Here is a list of the best video spokespeople I’d recommend.

Here’s an example of a TikTok video ad for one of my clients, which was recorded using someone from Fiverr:

Here are a few more examples of top-rated Fiverr actors who can record a TikTok selfie-style video for you (some of these I’ve hired myself and they’ve been great!)

Step 10: Select your landing page website URL

Finally, the last step is to select your landing page website URL. This should be a lead magnet where people enter their name & email to learn more about how you can help them. I recommend using a video sales letter as a lead magnet because it converts best, in my experience.

It’s also recommended you host your sales funnel on funnel-building software. Click here to see my list of the best all-in-one funnel builders.

FAQs for Advertising on TikTok