TikTok gets more aggressive with advertisers amid ban uncertainty

TikTok is projecting an air of confidence that the app will remain operational in the U.S. beyond Saturday's deadline to secure a deal, and it is backing that stance with a more aggressive push for ad dollars. According to agency insiders who spoke with Ad Age on the condition of anonymity, TikTok's sales team has been pressing agencies to commit more dollars this year, assuring them that the platform isn't going anywhere. In recent weeks—as TikTok gears up for upfront ad negotiations, which typically kick off in earnest this month—its sales reps have been aggressive in their asks from ad land. One top agency leader said that when they reached out to TikTok for an update on the company’s U.S. negotiations, a TikTok executive changed the conversation to marvel at how high engagement was on the app. “It became just kind of a sales push,” the executive said. “So, that was brave, I think—to be pushing for increased investment the week before a potential ban, when everyone might be thinking about moving money off your platform.” And in an effort to lock in a deal, TikTok has also been offering incentives, such as discounts on certain ad campaigns, according to other ad buyers. The most generous deals, however, seemed to dissipate by March, according to ad buyers, as TikTok sensed brands returning to the platform after its pause. Data-Driven Marketing Playbook Join us May 22 in NYC to explore how data powers marketing Learn more here TikTok is still in the middle of negotiations with the Trump administration and its business allies to cut a deal to permit the China-owned app to remain operational in the U.S. Last year, then-President Joe Biden signed a law that forced ByteDance, TikTok’s owner, to divest from its U.S. holdings to satisfy national security concerns. In January, when the initial deadline approached, TikTok went dark in the U.S. for about 14 hours before restoring service and crediting President Donald Trump with the reprieve. Trump gave TikTok an extension to work out a new ownership structure, and there have been a few proposals on the table. On Tuesday, Andreessen Horowitz, a venture capital firm, emerged as a potential savior that could buy out Chinese investors in the company, The Financial Times reported. There also have been reports that tech infrastructure giant Oracle could help run the app in the U.S., setting up an arrangement that could protect U.S. user data. However, ad leaders told Ad Age the structure of that deal could still leave doubts about whether TikTok would be totally disentangled from its handlers overseas. TikTok declined to comment for this story. The ad world appears less panicked than it was during the first TikTok showdown in January, but the future of the app is still uncertain, and there have already been residual effects on the platform felt by brands and creators, according to ad leaders. TikTok’s fate has broad-reaching implications, considering it has 170 million U.S. users and 7 million businesses that rely on its tools. Meanwhile, TikTok is expected to top $11 billion in ad revenue in the U.S. this year, according to WARC, the media analytics firm. Brands and creators have built followings and conduct commerce on TikTok, and they would have to find new outlets for those activities in the event of a ban. In the run-up to the first TikTok blackout, brands and creators game-planned a world without TikTok and considered turning to other platforms and media. TikTok rivals also seized on the tumultuous moment, sensing an opportunity to grab greater shares of ad budgets. So, despite what anyone says about the imminence of a deal and prospects for long-term stability, there are still important considerations weighing on advertisers, creators and TikTok. Here is a look at everything marketers need to know. What is the status of a TikTok ban? “It does seem increasingly likely that some solution will emerge that will result in TikTok sticking around,” said Evan Horowitz, CEO of marketing agency Movers + Shakers. “My read on the temperature of brand marketers right now is that there's much less concern that it will actually permanently go away than there was two months ago.” That seems to be the general mood—that TikTok won’t go dark again. It will either get another Trump extension as Saturday’s deadline approaches, or there will be an all-encompassing fix. Still, even with a deal, there would be lingering questions brands might have to consider, according to ad leaders. One of the remedies that has been floated include Oracle stepping in to safeguard user data and make sure it doesn’t flow to China. One ad leader, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the contours of that arrangement sound like Project Texas, an initiative TikTok already implemented to keep U.S. user data from leaking. However, U.S. lawmakers passed the anti-TikTok bill despite those measures, and this ad leader said TikTok’s opponents could challenge any deal that seems to revert to the status quo. “I keep reminding TikTok that [Project Texas], that's what the previous administration said was not good enough,” this ad leader said. How is TikTok dealing with advertisers ahead of the deadline? There could be no clearer sign that TikTok intends to remain in the U.S. than its inclusion in the IAB NewFronts in May. At the event, TikTok will promote its latest ad product and look for long-term deals. Advertisers have already had glimpses of the types of ad products TikTok is expected to highlight going into negotiations. TikTok is leaning into offerings such as Pulse Premiere, which it launched in 2023, a product that puts advertisers next to content from major media companies such as Disney and NBCUniversal, emphasizing sponsorships during live broadcast events, according to one media buyer who spoke with Ad Age on the condition of anonymity. Advertising on TikTok has already been affected over the past two-and-a-half months. Leading up to the original ban deadline at the end of January, brands were rethinking budgets and planning on where to spend money if TikTok shut down. Platforms such as Meta’s Instagram and Google’s YouTube were eager to drive a wedge between TikTok and concerned brands. “Every other player, even Spotify, was kind of like, ‘Alright, I know you're now sitting there with hundreds of millions of dollars that might not be going somewhere,” the media buyer said. The platforms were ready to reopen contracts to allocate more incremental dollars their way, this media buyer said. TikTok has mostly recovered, though, with robust activity returning to its ad platform. By mid-March, for instance, e-commerce advertising platform MikMak detected almost double the amount of activity emanating from brands on TikTok compared to the fourth quarter of last year, according to Rachel Tipograph, CEO of MikMak. The ad platform tracks how much traffic is coming from ads placed on a variety of channels, including Meta, TikTok, YouTube, Pinterest and Snapchat. The TikTok traffic was exceeding where it had been before the stoppage, MikMak found. Some advertisers enjoyed the TikTok turbulence, too, as they faced less competition in ad auctions, leading to lower rates, according to ad leaders. “A bunch of advertisers left, so I enjoyed the CPMs [cost per thousand ad views] for a few weeks,” said a marketing executive at a major brand, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity. “It was great; everyone runs scared, so I can buy cheap.” Ad Age's TikTok coverage—everything brands and agencies need to read Not only were CPMs lower in the ad auctions, but TikTok was offering discounts of between 15% and 30% on reserved inventory for individual campaigns on ad space that’s paid for in advance and not in the auctions, according to the media buyer. TikTok offered tiered incentives, especially for advertisers who had lapsed spending for an extended period and for new advertisers, according to media buyers. Incentives were up to 10% in additional ad credits and varied depending on how much the advertiser spent compared to the prior quarter. In some cases, TikTok gave the biggest-spending advertisers incentives to spend double the amount they had the previous quarter to unlock the most value, according to a sheet of deals from TikTok to agencies reviewed by Ad Age. For premium ad buys of a certain level, advertisers could receive up to 40% of added value. TikTok also offered to pay for media mix modeling studies, a measurement perk. Some advertisers said TikTok has been at a disadvantage during its flirtation with exile because it caused a distraction for sales teams. Last week, TikTok even reduced the role of Blake Chandlee, who was president of global business solutions, a position he had occupied since 2019. Chandlee has been one of the steadiest voices advocating for TikTok in front of advertisers, but he has been moved to an advisory role. “It feels like the relationships, and this is across the board with advertisers, are a bit weakened with TikTok right now,” said Toni Box, executive VP of brand experience at Assembly Global, a media agency within Stagwell. “I think that that's why there is sort of still a lot of brands that are on the sidelines, kind of waiting to see.” What do TikTok creators need to know? There has been some residual TikTok trauma for creators who make their living mostly on the app, according to Horowitz of Movers + Shakers. Creators, like advertisers, were forced to at least envision a world in which TikTok would be unavailable, and they started to diversify to other apps, mainly YouTube Shorts and TikTok Reels. Snapchat, Substack and others have also been courting displaced creators. “There seems to be sort of a life cycle of a creator, where once you get to a certain level, you're able to diversify across platforms,” Horowitz said. “But the ones who are more starting out, and they've gotten their legs on TikTok, they are the most vulnerable.” One appreciable change in the creator landscape has been around planning for campaigns that are months out. Movers + Shakers has begun accounting for the potential that TikTok is unavailable and writing that into contracts with creators, Horowitz said. That way, if a campaign with a brand can’t meet goals on TikTok, the creator could fulfill the obligations using another channel, Horowitz said. TikTok Trends Tracker—Ad Age's guide to the most recent trends on the app Meanwhile, the current interest in TikTok and the speculation about the outcome of its U.S. tribulations is fodder for creators to make content, Horowitz said. It’s a trend that “you can be playful with,” Horowitz said. Creators are making memes about Chinese spies looking over their shoulders or joking about the obscure platforms a creator would have to start visiting if TikTok were to go away. Other creators have detected a bit of a vibe shift on TikTok since it went dark and came back, sensing that the algorithm is acting differently, according to Box. Assembly has been tracking sentiment among creators and TikTok users and found there is a detectable change in general satisfaction with the platform. After the shutdown, many creators were left with a sour taste about the way the platform handled the situation. “Half of users feel like they've been successfully able to retrain the algorithm to serve up the right content based on their engagement on the platform, and then you have this other half that are still, like, ‘No, the essence of TikTok has been lost,’” Box said. “So, there's this interesting mix and sentiment and behavior on the platform that brands have to take into account.”

TikTok gets more aggressive with advertisers amid ban uncertainty

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