The online world has never been more saturated with brands selling products. And with consumers making purchasing decisions across multiple touchpoints, advertisers need to meet them across the entire marketing funnel to really drive impact and significant business results.

TikTok's unique placement at the intersection of entertainment and commerce is transforming how brands connect with their audiences. Let's rewind a few years when we saw the sell-out success of products like Ocean Spray and Little Moons. Since then, we've seen the exponential growth of #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt, proving that the platform has revolutionized how consumers discover products and shop — playing a valuable role in all stages of the purchase journey. In fact, 65% of TikTok users are likely to buy a product that they previously saw on TikTok in the future,[1] and 61% of users have made a purchase either directly on TikTok or online after seeing an ad on TikTok.[2]

Crafting full-funnel strategies with TikTok can enable your brand to unlock its full potential by improving marketing efficiency and agility, and driving brand salience. Want to find out how? We've broken down the key elements of three common marketing scenarios — launching a product, implementing an always-on strategy, and capturing peak season sales — and used brand examples to show you how to effectively consolidate multiple ad formats and objectives into single campaigns to drive demand and action.

It's been a pleasure to work with the team at TikTok to develop our content and targeting strategy. The impact of a full-funnel campaign structure on our performance can't be overstated. Tom Donegan, senior paid social manager at PureGym Take your products from just out to sold-out: See how Sephora did it

Sephora implemented a full-funnel strategy on TikTok to generate brand awareness and increase online sales for their new line in Spain. 60% of their budget for this campaign was allocated to increasing reach, with a first phase focusing on TikTok's Top Feed Ad product, which was enhanced using the Pop Out Showcase Interactive Add-On. This was followed by a consideration phase, which featured In-Feed Ads optimized for video views and landing page views objectives supported by TikTok's Display Card Add-On.

The campaign's final phase focused on conversions and utilized TikTok's newest conversion product, Video Shopping Ads. The brand optimized its ads toward high purchase intent and directed its target audience directly to the product catalog to encourage purchasing.

Thanks to this strategy, Sephora's campaign achieved its best ROAS results to date. The total number of complete payments increased by 40% compared to similar campaigns run by the brand, and there was a 29% decrease in cost-per-action.

Brand takeaways:

Bundle multiple ad formats to drive impactUse premium placements such as Top View & Pulse to maximize awareness on launch dayLeverage Reach & Frequency buying to deliver maximum reach and awareness Get game-changing results with an always-on strategy: See how PureGym did it

PureGym wanted to increase consumer consideration and grow its member base, all while reducing its cost per acquisition. Knowing that the most successful content on TikTok is content that is created specifically for the platform, the brand utilized the TikTok Creative Exchange Programme to develop 20 pieces of creator-led content that leveraged trending sounds, special effects, and Interactive Add-Ons. The brand then developed a full-funnel always-on strategy consisting of reach, traffic, and conversion campaigns that utilized a suite of ad solutions, including In-Feed Ads and Spark Ads.

The campaign reached more than 10.9 million people in the UK, delivering over 173 million video views and over 26,000 new joiners to the gym, and as a direct result of their test-and-learn approach, PureGym reduced their cost-per-completed-payment by 77%. PureGym proved that an always-on approach and the right mix of ad formats are key to driving long-term success on the platform and real business results.

Brand takeaways:

Run campaigns for longer periods to see the best resultsUse a nurture strategy, rather than optimizing directly for conversionsScale budgets over time as performance improves Harness the seasonal shopping state of mind: See how ghd did it

ghd France wanted to capitalize on the holiday season and drive qualified traffic and sales to their website. The brand initially implemented a nurturing phase in order to gain awareness of its special offer using TikTok's In-Feed Ad solution.

Once this top-funnel phase was over, ghd France utilized Video Shopping Ads (VSA) with an efficient retargeting system to pinpoint users who had visited the ghd France website and/or added a product to their basket. The VSA format includes a CTA on creatives that either leads users to the advertiser's website or product catalog. By doing this, advertisers significantly improve the quality and speed of the shopping experience and are more likely to drive sales.

This campaign was a success for ghd France, driving a 4.88x increase in conversions, an 80% reduction in cost per acquisition, and an impressive return on ad spend of 23x.

Brand takeaways:

Build audiences in advance, giving them time to scaleStart campaigns early, to pick up on demandIncorporate learnings from past campaigns There's a TikTok solution for every objective

TikTok's solutions enable brands to combine creative entertainment and commerce across the entire marketing funnel, powering a seamless customer journey from discovery to purchase and beyond. Find the solutions that work for your brand here.

To read more about the impact that short-form video platforms like TikTok have across the marketing funnel, dive into this report from research organization WARC.

This post was created by TikTok with Insider Studios. 

Sources:

1 TikTok Marketing Science EUI TikTok for Full Funnel Research 2023 conducted by Material

2 TikTok Marketing Science Global Shopping Ad Products Study 2022 conducted by Material February 2022 (n=17,937).