TikTok ads might actually be a thing for breweries, here’s why

May 18

There is a ton of hype about this social platform, and with good reason. TikTok is probably the fastest growing social network in the United States over the last year. Techcrunch forecasts that it will be the 3rd largest platform overall in 2022. According to Wallaroo Media, as of April ‘22 there are over 138 million active users in the United States and a sizable chunk of those users are between the ages of 20-39; plus, those users are spending an average of 52 minutes a PER DAY on the platform.

Just a few months ago, I commented on TikTok in this presentation for the Craft Beer Professionals Spring Virtual Conference. My critiques of the platform in relation to the craft beer industry were:

The audience on TikTok is still kinda young
The advertising minimums were a little high
The targeting capabilities were a little weak
The content style of a little challenging

After getting a chance to dive deeper into the TikTok advertising platform recently, I wanted to share some updated notes with you; I’ll drop them below. In short, TikTok is only gaining steam and I think it’s worth investing some resources there…

Advertising minimums might not be as strict as we thought

Most information on ad budgets for TikTok point toward a $500 lifetime minimum - meaning that you have to spend at least $500 to run ads. Well, that doesn’t necessarily pan out within the platform. When building ad campaigns, the minimum requirements for a campaign are actually $50 for the lifetime of a campaign and as low as $20/day for ad groups within a campaign. It also seems like you can set those budgets and pause/enable campaigns at will. Meaning that you don’t necessarily need to spend the full minimum before stopping your ads. From what I can gather, the minimum requirements are more about budget pacing than anything else.

Age-based targeting is limited but still kinda works for craft beer

With ad platforms like Facebook and Google, you can set your age demographic targeting based on very specific years. Within TikTok, you can target based on a range of pre-set ages. The presets are 13-17, 18-24, 25-34, 35-44, 45-54, and 55+. The 25-34 groups fit really well for craft beer, but there are potential missed opportunities with slightly younger or slightly older demographics.

Targeting craft beer drinkers is possible, but only with hashtags

Hashtags are a big part of the way TikTok functions. People can subscribe to certain hashtags and then their feed is filled with videos from creators posting and using those hashtags. Within the ad platform, you can target people who follow and/or engage with certain hashtags; and there are some decent ones for craft beer. Besides hashtags, you’re essentially left with broad categories of interests like “beverages” and “home improvement” which are just too obtuse to make sense for brewery ads.

The content style is a challenge, but not impossible.

Chances are that if you’ve been running story ads on Instagram, you can use that same content over on TikTok too. For the ads that I ran, we essentially used the same 9:16 spect ratio (1080x1920, WxL) content as we were using for Instagram stories and reels. The sizing is an exact match for TikTok, and the short/snappy content format works on that platform too.

Account setup was really easy

I was actually pretty surprised at how easy it was to set up an ad account and get ads going. Within a few hours, my account was reviewed and ads were approved. Considering how challenging it is to set up a Facebook Ads account, it was nice to not have so much red tape.

Results so far

Metrics like Cost Per Click (CPC) and Cost Per 1000 Impressions (CPM) seem to be very comparable to Facebook Ads. However, the “click” data is a little strange. For example, TikTok claims that my ads have driven over 300 clicks, but according to Google Analytics, the website has only recorded about 30 visits from TikTok ads. That’s a huge difference! I have to assume that TikTok is counting all clicks in their metric, which would include profile visits and probably any other type of interaction with the ad (even pausing the video could be a click I think). It’s fine if TikTok wants to report that way, but they need to be clear about their metric definitions because the mixed data makes me question how accurate all their other metrics are too.

My updated thoughts on TikTok for breweries…

I can’t help but kinda like the platform. It’s easy to get started. The targeting has its quirks, but you can still find ways to be accurate enough. Plus, the platform is only gaining steam as more and more people start to use it. I definitely don’t think TikTok replaces IG/FB at this point, but it’s probably worth segmenting some of your ad budget toward TikTok - at least to experiment. Just make sure to track performance and review the data to see for yourself.

Chris Overlay