How to use first-party data to boost TikTok ad performance

This spring, we started the discussion around all the ways first party data is going to play a critical role in paid media strategies for B2C brands. We focused on the impact of Google’s cookie deprecation, signal loss, Apple’s privacy updates, and budget constraints seen all across our market of customers, prospects and peers.

Change is hard, but it isn’t all so dark and ominous. After collecting the experiences from our work with hundreds of partners – at brands, agencies, and vendors – we confirmed that there is still a (BIG) opportunity to drive revenue growth with paid media. Our playbook, published earlier this year, summarized all the ways you can win with by bringing your CDP into your Paid Media strategy.

But why should you trust us? At Simon Data, we understand the weight of a strategic decision to double down on data and have no plans to stop supporting our partners even after all of this reflection. And to ensure that businesses aren’t taking our advice only to fend for themselves, we called on our friends at Power Digital, a tech-enabled growth marketing firm, to share their expertise.

Why you should lean into TikTok

Consumer-facing businesses have already started adopting the method – establishing first party and zero party data as the drivers for audience creation and segmentation. But marketers still need to identify the most effective and efficient channel mix to deploy these audiences so business teams tracking metrics like ROAS, LTV, AOV, CAC can agree that money is well spent.

Consumer behavior and channel engagement are crystal clear, TikTok and short form video is leading the way across audience growth and user engagement, providing an exciting opportunity for brands on and off the platform.

On average, TikTok’s CPCs and CPMs are 25-40% lower compared to Facebook or Instagram. More brands are looking to TikTok to drive lower traffic costs to their site during a time when traffic costs soar across all marketing platforms.

Rob Jewell, Chief Growth Officer at Power Digital

TikTok’s impact on brand growth today

• TikTok’s userbase has grown at an incredible pace, with ~1b active monthly (DemandSage, TikTok)
• TikTok has surpassed Google as the most popular domain, establishing itself as a top search destination for Gen Z (Epsilon)
• Digiday reports that brands are increasing their spend on TikTok compared to other channels and seeing dollar go further (Digiday)
• Statista found that average users have aged up with 58% being 25 and older (Statista)

These data points, plus conversations with our own customers and prospects, confirm that TikTok is where the consumer is and that the consumer is responding to video. Simon has long held a philosophy that brands and advertisers must reach the consumer where they are, and have built our product to enable just that.

Simon Data + Power Digital

Over the course of the last several months, Simon Data referenced this research as we defined our product roadmap. With an understanding that our customers and prospects are already engaged with the walled gardens we are all so familiar with, we sought to achieve complete channel coverage and prioritized a native integration to TikTok that would complement our existing actions with Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google, etc.

As a result of this months-long effort, we’re excited to help brands push audiences for targeting, retargeting and suppression to TikTok to be reached with the most effective ads, and do so with expert support. For a more technically inclined audience, documentation that walks through the functionality of Simon’s native integration with TikTok is published and publicly available on our docs site.

Lucky for us and our mutual customers, Power Digital is a TikTok partner with over 60+ clients on the platform and a dedicated team of TikTok experts and creators solely focused on client performance. Their TikTok division offers everything a brand could need to perform on TikTok including Paid Advertising, Performance Creative, Organic, Testing, and Influencer marketing. Their track record helping brands like SmartSweets, Sambazon and NZXT drive incremental revenue growth made them an ideal partner for client success.

Outside of the existence of integrations with the most relevant channels, Simon Data is the connective tissue between the business’s first-party data strategy and custom audience creation and management. Simon Data provides access to all of the business’s first-party data with easy segmentation capabilities to automate and manage audiences across a variety of end channels within a single platform. No longer will paid experts need to manage multiple CSV uploads with outdated data within each paid channel!

A business that decides to integrate the power of a CDP with a thoughtful paid media strategy will see very real outcomes from a side of the business that cannot afford reckless spending. For B2C/DTC, digitally native retail brands, this partnership is excited to offer the above services from digital marketing experts and data activation veterans in the name of data-driven and growth-focused marketing.

Interested in optimizing your TikTok strategy or starting new? Check in with Power Digital for a complimentary nova appraisal with a custom marketing audit and revenue forecast, or reach out to me directly.

Additional resources:

• Simon: Learn about how Simon Data can help support your paid media strategy
• Simon: Connect and Authorize Simon’s Native TikTok Channel Action Today
• Power Digital: Learn more about Power Digital’s offerings around Paid, Creative, Organic, Influencer
• Power Digital: Unlock Your TikTok Playbook

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