TikTok Ads Audit: Optimizing Your Advertising Strategy

TikTok has exploded in popularity and attracted advertisers to the new platform in the process. However, because it’s a new platform, many advertisers are not getting the best results from their TikTok Ads.

Auditing your TikTok Ads and your profile allows you to maximize your TikTok reach and frequency to generate the best ROAS possible.

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What is a TikTok Ads Audit?

TikTok Ads have the potential to deliver a high ROI when done correctly. However, too many advertisers are unaware of issues in their campaigns or profiles that may be preventing visitors from converting.

A TikTok audit report is intended to rigorously evaluate several components of your TikTok presence to identify any opportunities to optimize your overall advertising strategy. You can use a TikTok audit tool or dive into the details manually to find actionable insights that ultimately help grow your business.

For example, one crucial aspect of an audit is examining your KPIs to determine if they’re falling behind or at a good level. However, it can be challenging to see how you compare without a tool like Varos.

Below, Varos compares your results alongside your competitors, updated in real-time, so you always know if your campaign needs work or exceeds the norm.

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How to Audit Your TikTok Ad Account

Auditing your TikTok Ad account doesn’t involve exploring a few cornerstone aspects of your presence. While this type of audit focuses more on paid ads and results, the rest of your account also needs to be considered.

Let’s explore how to audit your account to gain insights into how you can optimize your overall ad strategy.

Identify or Focus on TikTok Ad Goals

Before running a single report, what do you hope to achieve by advertising on TikTok? Are you trying to increase overall awareness of your brand? Generate immediate sales? Or generally educate people about your product or service?

Define your ad goals and remember them as you conduct the audit. Knowing what you’re working towards helps you evaluate specific areas of your ads so you can understand if they can be optimized or aren’t contributing at all.

For example, if your current goal is awareness, you’ll want to make sure you use TikTok retargeting ads. Otherwise, your awareness campaigns may struggle to produce the results you expect. An ideal retargeting campaign will reduce customer acquisition costs (CAC), making CAC a key metric to stay on top of.

Identifying your specific goals for advertising on the platform will frame how you analyze the results of your audit. You’ll be able to relate everything back to your primary goal, evaluate how effectively the specific component contributes to it, and optimize your ads to work collectively towards your goal.

Review Ad KPIs

Paid ads produce a wide range of KPIs that must be understood, tracked, and optimized over time to maximize your ad spend. As such, a significant portion of your audit involves reviewing various KPIs related to your past and current campaigns. 

TikTok Ads will have several KPIs to stay aware of, such as:

• Cost per click (CPC): The average cost of every click on your ads.
• Cost per mille (CPM): The average cost of every 1,000 users who see your ad.
• Conversion rate (CVR): How many users make a purchase after visiting your website from the ad.
• Click-through rate (CTR): The rate of people who click on your ad after seeing it.
• Cost per conversion (CPC): The average cost of every conversion from your ad.

Your TikTok Ads manager will help you see these stats for relevant campaigns. Then, you need to determine if your results are lackluster, right as expected, or exceeding your goals.

Below, you can see how Varos shows your TikTok CPC alongside your peers’ results. You can compare these benchmarks with your TikTok audit results to understand if your KPIs are within an expected range or need optimization.

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Analyzing each KPI, considering how it relates to your overall goal, and comparing it to competitors’ results. Then, you can drill down even further into ways to optimize your campaigns to boost that specific KPI, such as refining audience targeting or creating new ads entirely.

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Consider Campaign Configurations

There are several different campaign types and ways to configure each campaign to get the best results. Evaluate and explore specific campaign options to make sure you’re using the right option to maximize your ROI.

For example, TikTok Ads placements play a significant role in the effectiveness of the campaigns and, in turn, your total ROI. Some organizations opt to manually configure placements, but it’s worth considering automated options, too. Run a campaign with automatic placements, track results, and see if it exceeds the results from manual placements.

Other options should be examined in relation to your overall goal. Consider the type of optimization event and optimization goal you’ve configured — do they reflect your overarching ad goals?

Evaluate Your TikTok Profile

Every aspect of your profile needs to be audited, as it plays a significant role in what people think of your organization and how likely they are to become customers. Look over your profile and ask the following questions:

• Does your bio quickly convey the right message about your brand? 
• Is your bio link optimized to take users to the next step in the conversion funnel?
• Does your profile picture need to be updated with a revised logo or a more engaging image?

Depending on your overall ad goals, users might check out your profile before continuing on through your bio. Don’t overlook this step — not everyone will go directly from the ad to your landing page.

Audit Your Ad and Organic Content

Step back from the specifics and watch your ads or organic TikToks. Revisiting previous content helps you learn from what you don’t like and what you do like to optimize future campaigns better.

Both types of content need to be audited while keeping in mind they should be distinctly different from each other.

For your ads, are they properly conveying your unique value proposition? Do they clearly guide the viewer to the next step in the conversion funnel? Are they intriguing to someone who’s never heard of you before? 

Then, take a look at your organic TikToks, the posts you make like any other user. Are you still trying too hard to make a sale? Do you participate in trends relevant to your product or service? Are you showcasing your brand’s personality and values with your content?

Auditing and optimizing ads alongside your normal content help you optimize your overall strategy to use both effectively to meet your end goal.

Analyze Existing Followers

What users have already followed your account based on previous ads or organic posts? Their information sheds light on who might be the most receptive to future ads.

Analyze your followers using provided or third-party tools to ascertain key demographic information, such as:

• Age
• Gender identity
• Interests
• Follower count
• Following count
• Geographical location

Understanding this data, even if you only get a general sense of some of them, can go far in audience targeting. People with the same interests and other characteristics as those who already follow you are more likely to be interested in your ads. 

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Enhance Your TikTok Ads with Varos for Real-Time Peer Benchmarking

Analyzing your results and auditing your account is vital to optimizing your strategy, but you can still go further by leveraging industry-specific TikTok benchmarks. Benchmarks focusing on your competitors can give you powerful insights into your performance with the full context of your industry.

For example, if your performance suddenly drops, real-time benchmarking will help you understand if it’s a result of something specific to your campaigns or an overall industry trend.

Varos is a unique platform that allows you to monitor your own results in the full context of your industry. Below you can see how our dashboard breaks down TikTok Ads metrics with tiered median results from other businesses in your industry.

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Ready to unlock peer benchmarking to drive more effective decisions? Book a demo or sign up with Varos today to get started.

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About the Author

Sarah Clowes-Walker 

Head of Marketing at Varos

LinkedIn