Three easy ways to make successful TikTok ads with Canva

With over 1 billion monthly active users, TikTok⁠(opens in a new tab or window) is a great tool for businesses to reach their awareness, engagement and acquisition goals. On TikTok, brands can create unskippable video ads that are visually captivating and persuasive.

In this article, we’ll show you three types of advertisements you can create for TikTok and show you how to easily create them in Canva.

Creating ads for TikTok in Canva makes the process easier than ever. By utilizing TikTok’s vast user base and Canva’s intuitive design tools, businesses can easily create stunning and engaging advertisements for their brand. Canva provides various free designer-made templates⁠(opens in a new tab or window) and design tools that simplify the creative process, allowing even novice marketers to make effective ads with ease.

But first, let’s talk about why you should be making ads for TikTok.

If your brand is new or lesser known than your competitors, TikTok could be a key part of your marketing strategy to help people discover your brand.

And, if your brand is well established, TikTok can be a great way to tap into new audiences. What’s great about TikTok is you can get all the insights you need to assess your campaigns success in the Ads Manager Tool⁠(opens in a new tab or window), located in your dashboard.

To better understand the power of TikTok as a marketing tool, we’ll dive deeper into specific performance markers to ensure you’re reaching the right people at the right time and channeling more fulfilled goals like greater brand awareness, more website visits and higher sales.

It’s important to pay attention to the right metrics when tracking your ads. Generally speaking, there are three key statistics you should be measuring:

• Reach, which is the total number of people who were shown your ad.
• Impressions, how many times your ad was seen without the viewer having to interact with it.
• And, CPM, the cost per 1,000 impressions that your ad receives. Understanding these key statistics will help you tailor better campaigns.

Now here are the three types of ads you should be focusing on, and how Canva and TikTok can help you reach your marketing milestones.

Awareness ads are used to introduce your brand, products and services to potential customers. Creating successful brand awareness ads doesn’t have to be complicated, as long as you keep these top tips in mind:

Build your TikTok ads for ‘Sound-On’

TikTok is a sound-focused platform⁠(opens in a new tab or window), which means every element of sound plays an integral role in captivating and entertaining viewers. Research conducted by TikTok found that videos featuring any type of audio had 16% higher impressions than those without sound. Establishing a sonic identity through the use of sound will help your brand stand out.

Use and follow trends

Creating content that follows the latest trends is essential, especially when trying to reach a wider audience. TikTok is one of the most effective tools for achieving this goal. Use their Creative Center⁠(opens in a new tab or window) inspiration page to see what’s trending and review some of their top performing ads.

Hit the 21 to 34 second sweet spot

Studies have found that videos lasting within the 21-34 second range are the most successful in terms of engagement, displaying a 2% lift in impressions. This sweet spot provides just enough time to capture the attention of an audience and give them the information they need without overloading and overwhelming them.

Tune in to our comprehensive tutorial to learn how you can design impactful and effective TikTok ads in Canva to build your brand awareness.

Now we’ve established a strong foundation for our TikTok ads, we’ll explore how to use Canva to create ads for the second stage of your marketing funnel, the ‘Consideration’ phase.

This middle ‘Consideration’ funnel is where your brand will need to build trust with your audience by creating a deeper understanding of your products or services. These ads will prepare your viewers to take another step towards purchasing your product.

Marketers often launch middle funnel campaigns to get more consumers to shortlist their brand, to reinforce or change their brand perception, drive deep emotional engagement or differentiate their brand from competitors.

Consider these metrics when running a middle funnel campaign using TikTok.

Primary metrics:

• Completed video views, which refer to the number of times the entire video was watched.
• Click through rate, which is the ratio of users who have seen your ad to the number of users who have clicked on the ad.

Secondary metrics:

• Viewable impressions, which refer to the impressions excluding the unviewable, unmeasurable, non-go, fraudulent and non-targeted impressions.
• Cost per click (CPC), which refers to the price it costs per click. This metric should be monitored and kept within a healthy range.

Tertiary metrics:

• Conversion, which is an action that is counted when a user interacts with your ad through a click and then takes an action to put in an enquiry, add to cart or purchase.

By following the creative tips below, you too can begin to generate successful middle funnel campaigns.

Add offer text and real voice overs

TikTok users found that by incorporating a real voice over, they were able to help illustrate the benefits of their products or services. By incorporating offer text in their ads they also experienced an impressive 87% lift in conversion rates and a 9% lift in impressions.

Add closed captioning

By adding closed captioning⁠(opens in a new tab or window) (or text on the screen that displays an offer or call to action), not only did it make the creative more engaging for users, it also showed an 80% lift in conversions and 16% lift in impressions.

Add an end frame

TikTok has found that by including an end frame that summarizes key information on your products or services, users had a 47% lift in impressions, compared to videos that didn’t include an end frame.

Follow along with our tutorial below to learn how to apply this new knowledge on middle funnel marketing to create a scroll stopping TikTok ad in Canva.

Moving your audience through the sales funnel is a delicate dance. In the next section we’ll discuss how to move your users from the consideration phase and turn them into paying customers.

The last stage in your marketing funnel is Conversion, which encourages your audience to take steps towards buying your product.

Conversion is when your audience engages with your advertisement and subsequently purchases your products or services. At this stage, we assume your audience has already been exposed to your brand and products through the use of awareness and consideration ads.

In this phase, your job is to get people to buy. To do this, it’s important to provide more detailed facts about your product to build up a greater level of trust between you and your audience.

To make your brand stand out from the rest, you should track these common metrics to determine the success of your Conversion campaign:

• Landing/Cost Per Lead (CPL): These metrics are often the key performance indicator used for conversion campaigns as its the closest available metric prior to purchase. Landings are a sign of interest and potential conversion.
• Number of purchases: This is the number of sales or leads you have generated, which you would gather from your platforms external to TikTok.

Here are a few key insights to show you what performs well as a Conversion ad on TikTok. By applying these two principles your conversion ads will be well on their way to converting your audience into paying customers.

Add in varied scenes

Videos showing five or more scenes indicate a 171% lift in conversion, compared to videos that show fewer than five scenes.

Video resolution at a minimum of 720 pixels

Ensure your video format has a resolution of 720 pixels or higher. Advertisers who posted creative with a video resolution of 720 pixels or higher had a whopping 312% lift in conversion compared to lower resolution videos.

Watch our tutorial below to get a grasp on how to create effective Conversion ads with super crisp visuals using Canva.

By using the tools available in Canva, you can customize each ad in your marketing funnel according to your brand's identity and style, ensuring maximum impact when it comes to reaching potential customers. With Canva, you can integrate animations and music into your ads and ensure your text and logos are front and center.

For more design inspiration and marketing collateral ideas, be sure to check out Canva Design School here⁠(opens in a new tab or window). And, if you’d like to learn more about TikTok, head over to the TikTok Creative Center here⁠(opens in a new tab or window).