In 2022, TikTok is on track to generate around US$11 billion in ad revenue, according to Insider Intelligence, which is almost treble its 2021 income.

That figure is then forecast to rise to US$18 billion next year before landing on US$24 billion in 2024. Although, based on how brand uptake is growing, these figures could easily be understated.

For brands gearing up for 2023, TikTok’s latest insights offering will provide helpful food for thought.

TikTok’s new Audience Insights tool is designed to help brands connect with audiences and target the right people more efficiently. It’s now available globally from TikTok Ads Manager.

How can businesses use TikTok Audience Insights?

Businesses can use Audience Insights in four main ways.

• Use Insights for campaign planning.

Marketers can use data in a variety of ways to explore aggregate audience information to create bulletproof campaigns. For example, brands can use interest hashtags to discover the top 10 hashtags that your TikTok audience is interested in.

TikTok

“Filter your audience by those who have interacted with a hashtag, by category of creators, by engagement (those who have watched, liked, commented or shared a video).”

Advertisers can learn about audiences who’ve seen, clicked or engaged with their content via TikTok Custom Audiences. Custom audiences can be uploaded via Customer File.

• Learn about your audience.

Learning about an audience can be a treasured piece of knowledge for marketers to have. Marketers can quickly gain a high-level understanding of their audience using Audience Insights before drilling down into the numbers.

TikTok uses a beauty adviser as an example…

TikTok

“They can view a high-level snapshot of the audience to gain a quick understanding of demographics, behaviours and interest… then validate, through qualitative and quantitative data, that their “eyebrow audience” is active on TikTok. This in turn allows them to more confidently communicate with those customers and may inspire ad creative that they know will resonate.”

• Get inspired

Audience Insights can help marketers find new audiences beyond those they are traditionally targeting. Furthermore, any surprising interest categories can be targeted to see how they perform.

For example, you might find out that your customers are also interested in sports – which could lead to a sports-themed campaign that brings new customers to your brand.

• Plan content via hashtags and interests

By viewing top 10 hashtags and top ad interest categories, you can see which hashtags or interests to use when targeting your campaign.

TikTok

“For example, the beauty advertiser who found their “eyebrow audience” may use top hashtags like #eyebrowmakeup to reach this audience.”

Data-based insights, but what data?

TikTok says that Audience Insights data is based on all TikTok data, both paid and organic. Metrics such as demographics, location, interests, device and activity are estimated based on user behaviour on the app, information provided by users and device information.

TikTok

“Audience Insights provides aggregated information about TikTok users that have been active within the last 30 days and is not based on campaign-level information.”

How do you access Audience Insights?

To access Audience Insights, go to TikTok Ads Manager, hover over Reporting and click Audience Insights. If you can’t see Reporting, then hover over Insights and click on Audience Insights.

Once you’re there, you’ll need to configure your audience. You can define your audience based on filters such as:

• Locations (you can select up to five).
• Languages (there’s no limit).
• Interests and behaviours.
• Ad interest categories.
• Video interactions.
• Creator interactions.
• Hashtag interactions.

If you want to select a custom audience, click on Select Custom Audience and then select a custom audience to get insights.

You can also view different types of audience sights using overview tabs. There are two tabs: Audience Overview tab, which lets you view age, gender, country, state, device OS, device prices (only available in USD), top 10 interests and bottom 10 interests.

You can also view the insights tab, which shows you top hashtags and ad interest categories.

If you’d like to download your Audience Insights, find the Export All button in the top right-hand corner and click on it to download the data as an Excel sheet.

Follow these best practices

To make the most of it all, you’ll want to follow TikTok’s best practices.

• Use a high-level snapshot to get a quick understanding of your audience.
• Target top 10 hashtags or interest categories.
• Experiment with audiences outside your traditional target and test how they perform.
• Highlight themes in creative and use them to resonate with your audience. Avoid the bottom 10 interest categories like the plague!
• Include the top 10 hashtags when posting a video to increase the chance it’ll get in front of eyeballs.