10 Best TikTok Ad Examples That Work In 2024
TikTok Ads campaigns are a great way for advertisers to reach TikTok viewers with fun and engaging sponsored content.
The cost of advertising on the platform starts at $10 per CPM (which is the cost per 1000 views), with a suggested minimum investment of $500 per campaign. Yet, because TikTok ads are a relatively new advertising channel, a lot of brands are approaching the channel with caution. After all, are TikTok ads worth the investment?
As with any platform, TikTok Ads campaigns can drive great return on investment for your brand if you create great ads aimed at your target audience’s best interests. Note that the demographic of around 50 percent of TikTok's global audience is under the age of 34, which makes TikTok a perfect advertising channel for brands with a younger target demographic.
With that in mind, what would the "best TikTok ads" look like? As a rule, ads must do a lot of heavy lifting by combining engaging, action-oriented, and targeted content. The ads we’re about to mention have checked the three boxes successfully. These TikTok ad examples are by large and small businesses from around the globe.
10 Best TikTok Ad Examples in 2023
1. Marc Jacobs
With the meaningful goal of celebrating uniqueness, Marc Jacobs created the #PerfectAsIAm Branded Hashtag Challenge to promote its newest fragrance, Perfect. The campaign counted on the participation of internet personality Rickey Thompson, who kicks off the challenge by spritzing the fragrance into the air, inviting users to join the fun by dueting with his video.
As a successful result, the campaign garnered over 6 billion views, thanks to the collaboration of 2M users who accepted the challenge of celebrating themselves.
Key takeaways: Marc Jacobs nailed this campaign by combining the right influencer with the most viewed ad format, and branded hashtag challenges. More on challenges later.
Finding the right person to promote your brand will be one of the most important and challenging steps of your influencer marketing campaign.
Fortunately, help is at hand. According to a recent influencer marketing report, influencer discovery and communication platforms like Collabstr are still the most popular way to find influencers and suitable content creators. Consider using Collabstr to buy customized content for your TikTok ad campaign.
2. PUMA
The purpose of this specific campaign was to drive traffic to PUMA’s new Mayze sneaker, aimed at a stylish female audience. By partnering with singer-songwriter Dua Lipa, the campaign leveraged the power of both celebrity influencer marketing and In-Feed ads.
The awesome thing about In-Deed TikTok ads is that they operate with sound on, which, according to a recent Kantar report, 88% of users find essential in the TikTok experience. Plus, this type of ad blends into TikTok users’ feeds, creating native uninterrupted browsing.
The heavy-hitting combination resulted in a 9.4% increase in purchase intent and over a 13.5% increase in ad recall.
Key takeaways: Influencer collaborations are a powerful marketing strategy, and platforms like Collabstr have a plethora of talented and professional content creators on their books. Even if you're not ready to collaborate, it's a tactic worth considering down the line.
62% of TikTok users say that the custom music in an ad made them more curious about the brand. And 88% say it's crucial to the experience. When considering audio use in your ads, use sounds to hook your audience. You could include trending audio to be a part of the conversations happening around it. Here are some ways to find trending sounds:
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Use your "For You Page". Any audio that has been used more than once may have viral potential.
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Use the search function. You could enter a simple "viral sounds" search or use the "Hashtag" tab for trending options.
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Use the sound library. Via the "Sound" tab, you can find recommended playlists with popular sounds.
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Visit the Creative Center. There you can see real-time stats about how well sounds are doing based on region, which is super handy if you're targeting another part of the word.
And if you decide to compose your own, hopefully, these TikTok ad examples will inspire you.
3. BlendJet
BlendJet successfully targeted their Spark Ads to organic food aficionados and promoted its Next-Gen Portable Blender®. As a refresher, this type of ad format allows users to boost their organic content, turning them into In-Feed ads.
The strategy used for this campaign was an interest-based targeting strategy, which shows ads based on known tastes and preferences of the target audience in question. In this case, the interest was centered around a healthy lifestyle.
To develop the campaign, influencers were encouraged to create organic video content in which they reviewed the portable blender. The blender was featured on “TikTok made me buy it” types of videos, where creators would share their own experiences with the product, starting at the unboxing phase to the making of smoothies and recipes.
The result? 30k videos were created for the campaign, with over 2M views.
Key takeaways: With In-Feed Spark Ads, you can cheaply test out ad creatives before running them as ads. Those that do well among your target audience will be more likely to convert. In addition, you have the option to repurpose and re-upload other people's content in a Stitch or a Duet, for example, or as a direct upload without receiving a copyright strike. This is handy if you find creating content challenging. You can take ad inspiration from what's available.
To get started, check out this guide on TikTok Spark Ads.
4. Peculiar Eyewear
Based in the Philippines, Peculiar Eyewear specializes in stylish eyeglasses to reduce the blue light emitted from screens. To increase purchases via their Shopify-powered storefront, they installed TikTok Pixel to develop a complete purchase funnel. Their campaign included several ad groups optimized for conversion goals and campaign tags for key performance insights. The data allowed them to build custom and Lookalike Audiences to increase reach and scale.
Peculiar Eyewear's campaign reached 2.3M audiences with a 54% two-second view-through rate.
Key takeaways: When creating your ad, consider the best way to connect to and engage your audience. If you look through Peculiar Eyewear's page, you'll see various TikTok ad examples demonstrating how to nail advertising for an e-commerce business. They connect to their audiences by switching between the Filipino dialect and English and use likable influencers to showcase how stylish the glasses look when worn.
If you have a Shopify storefront, the TikTok Pixel can help you create targeted ad campaigns by understanding which ads perform best. To get started with TikTok Pixel, enter a search for "TikTok," install the app and connect your TikTok For Business account.
5. Book Of The Month
Book of the Month is a web book subscription service, in which subscription members are granted an exclusive selection of five new hardcover books each month.
The goal of the campaign was to encourage viewers to read more and acquire more books as a way of “treating themselves”. Of course, there was no better subcommunity to target for this campaign than the BookTok community. The campaign creators leveraged Spark Ads aimed at an interest-based audience: people who enjoy books, book reviews, and literature.
Thanks to the campaign, Book Of The Month saw a 22.88% decrease in Cost Per Acquisition (CPA).
Key takeaways: This ad engages hardcover book lovers with hardcover books, modeling themselves against a backdrop of more books. It speaks to their appreciation of a well-designed hardcover. And the voice-over mentions their personal favorite and makes other comments for gentle persuasion.
According to a recent study, TikTok users are more receptive to branding messaging and calls-to-action when offerings are relevant and they're engaged. Creating an engaging and relevant ad is more straightforward than it sounds, and here's how to make it happen:
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Use hashtags as an opportunity to find your niche audience and their interests. In the search, enter a keyword or interest to find popular hashtags. Trends, hashtags, and creative insights are available via the Creative Centre.
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Understand your audience by finding the mood and the tone of the content they prefer to engage with. Get to know your target audience to create effective marketing messages. A TikTok business account offers audience insights and other useful resources.
Once you’ve decided on the ad format, Collabstr offers access to professional and seasoned influencers across all categories to ensure an engaging delivery.
6. Baseus
Baseus is a consumer electronics Amazon store that found it difficult to stand out, especially on Prime Day. They wanted to increase their conversion rate and order volume, plus drive traffic to their Amazon store. Using TikTok Instant Pages, they simplified their purchasing process and educated potential customers on their products. In addition, they used the Pop-Out Showcase add-on to draw more attention to their products and encourage customer engagement.
Baseus' marketing campaign achieved conversion rates 60% higher than usual. On Amazon Prime Day, they reached more than 8.03% conversion rate and outdid their Return on Ad Spend by five times.
Key takeaways: Baseus shows how easy it is to grab one of their powerstrips on Prime Day with a hand grabbing it from a laptop screen. This clever technique speaks to our natural urge to want things now rather than later. The ad demonstrates how quick it is to start charging common devices at home, and uses a popular Bruno Mars track as a finishing touch.
Like Baseus, you can use "Instant Page" to drive traffic to your business through your TikTok ads. It allows you to connect your ad to a native landing page that loads up to 11x faster than regular mobile pages via the TikTok platform.
In a page speed report, 70% of consumers said that page speed impacted whether they'd purchase from a retailer. Click here for the steps to create your Instant Page.
7. Koala
The best ads don’t look like ads. Instead, they look native to the platform in question. This was Australian mattress and furniture brand Koala’s goal when they created four different TikTok ads featuring organic elements – such as captions, humor, and familiar background music. The choice of In-Feed ads was ideal for the campaign, as they wanted their ads to blend with usual TikTok content.
The home-buyer community warmed up to this type of slightly humorous, organic-feeling, and relatable type of ad. For this reason, the campaign resulted in higher efficiency in Cost Per Click (CPC) by 14%.
Key takeaways: According to business trainer Jeffery Gitomer: "People hate to be sold to, but they love to buy!" This is key when considering the elements of your TikTok ads.
Consumers can be repelled when a salesperson gives off a pushy and untrustworthy vibe. And the same can be true for online advertisement. To avoid a pushy vibe in your ads, include all the elements of an innate TikTok creative and make selling your offerings an afterthought.
Koala adheres to the TikTok mantra, "Don't Make Ads. Make TikToks'" in this particular ad. They've adopted a laid-back; you can buy this if you want to approach while demonstrating their product's usefulness with an innate TikTok vibe. Again, connecting to your community is critical to selling without being too salesy in your ads. Connect through authenticity, positivity, and creativity while complying with TikTok terms.
Customers become loyal to companies when they emotionally connect with the business. And emotional marketing is an effective way to develop such a connection.
Koala's Pillow box ad uses humor to invoke a positive emotion of happiness. They show a cat almost reluctantly getting out of the box. This idea is relatable to their cat and pet owner audiences.
8. Wolf Game: The Wild Kingdom
"Wolf Game: The Wild Kingdom" is the latest strategy game by a top-notch Android app developer, Special Gamez. Game developers typically use a pre-registration method to build hype around new game launches. Wolf Game turned to TikToks' partner Madhouse Inc essentially for access to the data insights necessary to launch a successful campaign.
In meeting their campaign objectives, they drove target audiences to different landing pages, including their store page and TikTok Instant Page, based on the best chance of conversion per audience. They also implemented App Event Optimization (AEO) and Value-based optimization (VBO) to improve bottom-funnel conversions and daily profit.
On launch day, TikTok pre-orders for the game exceeded the expected result by a whopping 230%. The game has been installed more than 500,000 times and is ranked in the Google Play hot list Top 20.
Key takeaways: If you're in the video game industry, you can copy the ad format used here to appeal to your gaming audience. A snippet of gameplay and great sound quality will showcase the life-like graphics and create a brief immersive experience. Out of all our TikTok ad examples, this idea is probably the easiest to produce. Once you’ve developed a format that works, it can be used as a blueprint for other ads.
To ensure your game reaches far and wide with lots of pre-orders, consider Madhouse Inc. They specialize in mobile app marketing and can help with engagement and brand awareness.
9. Goldfish
A lot of us grew up snacking on Goldfish, but don’t care for it anymore. That’s why the brand’s goal was to re-engage a different demographic: adults.
For this purpose, they created the #GoForTheHandful Hashtag Challenge, which challenged snackers to fit as many Goldfish crackers as they could in one handful. The winner would get a year's supply of Goldfish snacks.
It’s no wonder the campaign was a huge success: besides being a lot of fun, massive-handed NBA player Boban Marjanović encouraged users to duet with the kickoff video of the NBA star as he got no less than 301 Goldfish in his hand. The campaign also featured creators like Matt Steffanina and Taylor Pierce.
The campaign resulted in a 19.5% increase in engagement rate and 2.9 billion video views.
Key takeaways: Hashtag challenges are a type of user-generated content, and an excellent way to drive engagement and awareness while building a fan base. Hashtags under the Entertainment category get the highest views, at 535 billion.
The #GoForTheHandful Hashtag challenge encourages TikTokers to re-engage with Goldfish by getting them into their hands. After seeing whether they could beat Boban's 301 score, they may want to remember their taste or try one for the first time. Getting your audience to imagine life with your product can gently persuade them to purchase. In this case, you at least get to prove how big your hands are when you buy Goldfish crackers.
When considering Hashtag challenges, here are some tips:
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Many branded hashtag challenges are from big brands. However, with some help, small businesses can earn millions of views from their challenges. Consider using an existing challenge or trend if your brand is up and coming.
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If you're starting your challenge from scratch, look through trending TikTok ad examples for the challenge inspiration. #InMyDenim by Guess jeans challenged TikTokers to show off their denim fits simply. The results of the first run of the campaign were over 5,500+ user-generated videos and 10 million views.
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Choose a short hashtag that explains the challenge in a fun way and is campaign-specific. Something like "InMyDenmin" is perfect, or if the challenge is a dance, the dance name should intrigue users enough to want to see what it's all about.
10. Social Dot
This one shows that you don’t need celebrities or significant investment to create a successful ad campaign. All you have to do is leverage the tools at your disposal, and make your ad harmonize with users For You pages.
Australian-owned small business Social Dot has created a product that instantly links users' social handles with one main goal: to replace traditional business cards.
Creator Mia Dickson used Spark Ads to increase the company's reach and brand awareness. She made the ads feel like a natural conversation by simply demonstrating the product, and explaining why Social Dot makes business owners’ lives so much easier. It’s the simplest ad campaign in this list.
Despite its straightforward and simple nature, the campaign saw a 44% increase in followers and gathered 1,7M video views on TikTok.
Key takeaways: When creating ads to show on people's For You page, consider the following:
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We can’t stress enough that other people's content is your friend. Go through trending TikTok ad examples, and answer questions like why an ad has done so well and whether the idea is being recreated. What audio did they use? Music is powerful in TikTok ads. Find something catchy. Even if your ad isn't overly impressive (something that will get better with practice), great audio will make a huge difference.
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Keep reviewing your audience, and post regularly and at the time they're most likely to see it. TikTok supports audience targeting, and you can optimize targeting based on TikTokers who watch and interact most with your ads. TikTok's Lookalike Audience feature uses your existing high-value customers to help you find other audiences with similar attributes that could be interested in your offerings. However, there are recommended times to post, and who you're posting to should be a factor. For example, college students may sign into their accounts between 3 PM and 9 PM.
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The more creative, the better. Keep changing up your ads so your audience doesn't become bored. Use vivid colors and visual effects to support your story, and feature affordable offerings to encourage more impulse conversions. Another way to generate creativity and keep your TikTok party popping is by collaborating with other successful creators and influencers, where possible. If you're just starting, it may be challenging to convince a celebrity to partner, but Collabstr can help.
You'll have access to high-quality content from a hand-picked selection of content creators, across different categories, at various price points. Collabstr offers everything you need to run successful TikTok ad campaigns.
What Do Most of These Ads Have In Common?
Almost all of the ads mentioned owe part of their success to the collaboration of influencers, big and small. The presence of influencers, be them celebrities or micro-creators, was the factor that ignited the campaigns and kept things moving.
The right influencers can get your brand in touch with the right people. That’s why, if you’re interested in getting the most return on ad dollars for your TikTok Ads, consider hiring influencers for your next campaign. Most importantly, give them the freedom to develop authentic and personality-filled content that evokes the right emotions in your audience.
