Attention, accounted for.
Senior-led TikTok advertising, with creative made for the platform, the TikTok Pixel and Events API wired to your sales, and spend judged on customers rather than views.
Views are not customers.
TikTok can put a brand in front of a large audience quickly, and its dashboard counts every view. The difficulty is tying those views to sales, because people often see an ad on TikTok and buy later, somewhere else. Accounts that judge TikTok on last-click results tend to cut it too soon; accounts that judge it on views tend to overspend.
The work sets up measurement first: the TikTok Pixel plus the Events API, which sends conversions from your server, deduplicated so each sale counts once. Creative is then made the way the platform rewards, native, quick and vertical, and tested at a steady pace. If you sell through TikTok Shop, Shop campaigns are run and judged separately from campaigns that send people to your own site.
What a TikTok advertising engagement covers.
- TikTok Pixel and Events API, deduplicated
- Smart+ and manual campaign structures
- Creative briefs and a testing plan
- Symphony, TikTok's AI creative tools, with a person approving every ad
- Spark Ads from creator or brand posts
- TikTok Shop campaigns, where you sell on Shop
- Lead generation with CRM follow-through
- Results read against your own sales data
Part of the whole plan.
One senior operator runs TikTok as part of the whole paid media plan, so it is judged on what it adds to sales across channels, not on the views it reports or the last clicks it misses.
Creative carries most of the weight on TikTok, so it is briefed, tested and refreshed on a schedule, with results read asset by asset rather than campaign by campaign.
Every TikTok result is reconciled against your own sales or CRM data, not taken from the platform's dashboard alone.
TikTok Ads questions.
Is TikTok right for my business?
It suits products that can be shown quickly on video and buyers who discover things while scrolling. A short, measured test answers the question for your business better than any general rule, and it is set up so the answer can be read.
Do we need to make lots of videos?
More than on most platforms, because TikTok creative tends to tire quickly. They do not have to be expensive: simple, well-lit phone footage that feels native to the platform is usually the starting point.
Should we use Smart+?
Smart+ is TikTok's automated campaign type, choosing audiences, bids and which creative to show. Advertisers can hand it a whole campaign or only parts of one, so the parts automated are the ones where your conversion data is strong enough to steer it, and results are compared with a manual campaign on your own sales.
What is the Events API?
TikTok's server-side tracking. It sends conversions from your website's server or CRM to TikTok alongside the Pixel in the browser, so fewer sales are lost to ad blockers and browser privacy settings. The two are deduplicated so each sale counts once.
One budget, every platform.
Each platform is run inside one paid media plan, held by the same senior practitioner, so budget moves to wherever a customer is won most profitably. How the paid media practice works.
Start with a conversation.
A proper conversation with the person who would do the work. Tell me what you run on TikTok Ads today, or are thinking of starting, and you will get an honest read on what I would change, what I would leave alone, and where the real upside is.
Speak with NicThe senior read,
once a week.
Most marketing newsletters are noise on a schedule. This is not that. Once a week I send a short, considered read on the shifts that actually change what you should do, across the AI shift, PPC, technical SEO and analytics. Filtered, weighted and signed off by me before it goes out. The judgement is mine, and now you can hear every edition in my own voice.
Nic CraneFounder, The Crane Consultancy
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