TikTok Launches AI-Powered Smart+ Platform to Revolutionize Ad Campaigns

TikTok Has Launched an AI Platform That Can Create Ad Campaigns

The platform competes with Google's Performance Max and Meta's Advantage+ TikTok launched a new artificial intelligence (AI) platform on Monday to help advertisers easily create and deploy ads on the app. Dubbed Smart+, the AI-powered platform automates the entire ad campaign journey starting from the creative development to delivering the ad to the right audience. The platform is focused towards performance marketing and lets clients measure the impact of the ad campaigns. Alongside, the social media giant also launched its Out of Phone: Retail service that allows retailers and brands to display branded TikTok content in retail locations. In a newsroom post, the vertical video platform detailed new advertising solutions to help advertisers easily kickstart ad campaigns at a lower cost than before. These solutions were originally announced at Advertising Week on Monday. The most notable among the announcements was the Smart+ platform. It is a performance automation solution which can seamlessly run the entire campaign based on the requirements provided by the brand. TikTok stated that brands will need to input their assets, budget, and goals and the Smart+ platform can automatically create and select the right creative asset, choose the right audience, and showcase the ad in a way that will make the user of the app click on it. Notably, the creative assets are generated using TikTok Symphony. The social media giant further claimed that based on internal testing, it has found that the Smart+ platform provides a 52 percent improved return on ad spend value. There are three main AI-powered workflows within the platform. First is Smart+ Web Campaigns, which handles end-to-end ad campaigns with a focus on driving traffic to advertiser websites and reducing funnel actions (number of steps required to reach the website). This also has a sister workflow dubbed Smart+ Catalog Ads which automatically shows relevant product recommendations to people based on their interests, intent, and actions on the app. The second is Smart+ App Campaigns which uses the discovery mechanism of TikTok to drive app installs and conversions. Next, the Smart+ Lead Generation Campaigns workflow can be used by advertisers to turn leaned-in audiences (those who have shown an affinity to similar products and services) into customers using native lead generation solutions. Finally, the company has also launched Out of Phone: Retail, an in-store digital advertising solution. Brands and retailers can use it to display organic and branded TikTok content in retail locations. The social media giant claimed that this will bridge the gap between online engagement and in-store purchasing decisions.

TikTok Launches Smart+ Platform: Revolutionizing Ad Campaigns with AI Automation

TikTok detailed its new advertising solutions aimed at helping brands kickstart ad campaigns at lower costs TikTok unveiled its new artificial intelligence (AI) platform, Smart+, designed to simplify the ad creation and deployment process for advertisers on the app. This innovative platform automates the entire ad campaign journey, from creative development to delivering ads to the right audience, making it easier for brands to engage with users effectively. Alongside Smart+, TikTok also launched its Out of Phone: Retail service, allowing brands to display branded TikTok content in retail locations.

TikTok Introduces Automated Ad Tools to Compete with Meta and Google - MEDIANAMA

TikTok launched automated performance tools on October 7, 2024, as part of its new advertising solutions. While the company's press release does not explicitly mention AI, these seem to serve as TikTok's competitive alternatives to AI-ad tools like Meta's Advantage+ or Google's Performance Max which helps businesses automate the advertising process. Why it matters: TikTok is a popular platform, especially among the youth. As per the company press release, 61% of users have made a purchase after seeing content on TikTok. Since the platform claims such a strong influence on the shopping habits of its users, it is worth questioning whether the advertising tools used on this platform utilize AI that is prone to prioritise output satisfaction over information accuracy. The announcement also indicates the growing popularity of AI in the advertising sector. TikTok's automated performance tool: Smart+ automates performance advertising across targeting, bidding, and creative once the advertiser inputs their assets, budget, and target goals. It includes functions such as running campaigns, catalog ads, and lead generation campaigns. Aside from Smart+, TikTok also announced GMV Max which automates TikTok Shop campaign creation-including audience targeting, bidding, and creative selection and 'Out of Phone: Retail' tool for retailers and brands to post branded TikTok content in retail locations. "Adopting a fully automated solution that optimizes targeting, creative, and campaign performance has led to a 50% reduction in cost per acquisition, a 47% increase in conversion rates, and a 42% improvement in ROAS [for RayBan]," said Roberta Atzori, Senior Performance Marketing Manager at EssilorLuxottica, in the press release. Big Tech looking to further incorporate AI into ad products Google in its first quarterly earnings call for 2024 said that AI innovation is core to every aspect of its ads product portfolio from targeting, bidding, creative, and measurement, across campaign types. It said that as the company works on AI models like LLMs, Google will further interact with businesses and users to improve speed and scale and drive return on investment. In this regard, the company already released Performance Max, an advertising campaign businesses can opt for under Google Ads, and combined it with Gemini to curate and generate content assets that meet the asset requirements expected from the AI tool. According to Google, such automatically created assets (ACA) can lead to 5% more conversions at a similar cost per conversion in Search and Performance Max campaigns. Meanwhile, Meta also announced AI-enabled advertising tools, the Advantage+ portfolio, earlier this year. During Meta's earnings call, the company said that its campaign audience targeting tool recorded significant growth since Meta made it the default option for advertisers. Users (advertisers) saw, on average, a 28% decrease in cost per click or per objective compared to regular targeting, said Meta. The company's end-to-end automation products for shopping and ad campaigns also saw growth, with revenues doubling year-on-year. Claiming a 22% higher return on ad spend for US advertisers after the adoption of Advantage+ Shopping campaigns, Meta said it is working on encouraging more advertisers to maximize ad performance and automate more of their campaign set-up with Advantage+ suite of solutions.