What do you think if I say, “Every Facebook ads consultant out there is now suddenly a TikTok ads expert?” People usually watch for the flood of courses with the “secret” formula to massive viral success and $1 leads. ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, reached out to me last year, asking for help in building a proper course on TikTok ads. We’ve been testing hundreds of campaigns and looking at the results shared by our friends in real estate, e-commerce, agency, legal, and so forth.
I’ll save you the $2,500 course and tell you the “secret” right here:
Short Video Recipe
It’s in your simple, vertical video shot from your phone– that doesn’t look like an ad, has a “Hook” in the first second to capture attention, has big text so people know what it’s about, and tells a “Story”.
Algo-Does the Job.
No crazy targeting or sophisticated campaign set-up is necessary– the super smart algorithm uses your content’s performance. Same for spark ads, where you boost someone else’s post (called “creators” no longer “influencer”).
What about hiring an agency for TikTok Ads?
Hiring an agency makes ZERO sense unless they can actively coach you through making 15-second videos. The campaign set-up is relatively easy, as long as you already have your digital plumbing (pixels, tracking, data) in place.
TikTok is the Next Big Thing. Right?
The frothy white waves of hype about TikTok being the next tsunami of traffic are true — just like we saw with Google and Facebook.
How much does it Cost?
Traffic is about 1/4th the cost on Facebook on the paid side (because base CPMs are about $2.50, meaning CPC, CPL and CAC are correspondingly lower). Of course, you’re optimizing to the objective (the algorithm is so smart), using base traffic cost as one of many diagnostic measures.
Don’t Rush Because of FOMO
But make sure you’re not jumping in just because of FOMO (fear of missing out)…..but because you’re shoring up the fundamentals of collecting your client stories in 15-second videos, have a process to process these within your operations, have your digital plumbing properly in place, and are putting money on the winners.
How smart is TikTok Algo?
I was at Jake Paul’s house making 15-second videos for our social media marketing course for young adults. One of the videos leaked out and got half a million likes.
It had nothing to do with our course and wasn’t even on his TikTok account– but one of the guys helping film. But the TikTok algorithm recognized it was Jake Paul’s house in the background of the video, showed it to fans of Jake Paul– and then it went viral.
You’ll see more stuff like this blow up out of nowhere on TikTok, almost exclusively on the organic side. But these are unlikely to be the posts you will be boosting as an extension of the Dollar a Day strategy.
Instead, you’ll find that the same themes that worked for you on Facebook will work on TikTok, adapted to their format of storytelling via 15-second videos.
It’s the same algorithm as Facebook and Google (fight me on this), which seeks to optimize your chosen objective based on conversion data you allow it to see.
But if you’ve found success with the fundamentals of the Dollar a Day strategy, I’m pretty sure you’ll find success on TikTok– when repurposing videos, extending your conversion tracking/remarketing, and starting testing at $10/day.
What About Dollar-a-Day?
There’s no better time to implement or refine your Dollar a Day process across Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, LinkedIn, and all social networks.
We are seeing a growing convergence on the data and ads side of social platforms– since they are all dependent upon the same optimization algorithm that balances user experience with ad monetization.
Most Importantly
Remember this each time you see a breathless pitch on how you need to jump on TikTok ASAP– to buy their secret before you forever miss the boat.
These Tips will help you make decisions for your TikTok journey. However, if you want a more detailed insight, check out my best-selling book, The definitive guide to TikTok Advertising.
Anyone can buy or sell a course— an info-product that’s a self-serve experience, not much different than producing a record for sale that potentially millions of people can consume.
The success rate on books, courses, and other formats is single digits– as few even complete the training– and then a fraction of these folks do the exercises necessary to achieve whatever result.
A program, however, has the hidden promise of results– like a college degree has the hidden promise of a job. Thus, programs are courses that also have coaching, support, and other components beyond a series of videos you can play– even if it’s LightSpeed interactive videos.
We’ve sold millions of courses for Rosetta Stone to help people learn Spanish. Most of these DVDs sit on the bookshelf, like all the other beautiful aspirational decorations, collecting dust for the one eventual day where we just might want to use it.
We’re happy to sell COURSES via LightSpeed– free and paid. The system has all the functionality necessary for the basics, much like Kajabi, LearnDash, Thinkific, and even GoHighLevel.
But a PROGRAM means we can’t accept a 2% success rate, as is normal for courses. We would want to flip this into a 98% success rate with only a 2% fail rate.
People joining a program must be committed, qualified, and able to do what it takes to win– like what each of us have discussed about winning being the absence of not quitting. And only upon this commitment, which is to be earned, not granted by default, are we willing to let people into any of our programs to invest in their success with our network, our time, and our money.
The “turd in the punchbowl” is that course creators peddle their wares as if it were a PROGRAM. But there’s no valid certification, implementation, accountability, support, or backing.
The way I closed one of our clients — when he was the one who attended my workshop and called me, not me calling him– was asking him if he was here just to make millions selling courses or if he wanted to actually help people succeed. The latter requires measurement, which none of his famous course creating buddies are doing.
