TikTok Campaign Workflow

General

This article outlines the campaign workflow for configuring and activating TikTok campaigns, which entails:

• Syncing campaigns and ad-groups from TikTok campaigns with Flight Control campaigns.
• Configuring your decisioning logic to toggle ads on and off on TikTok.
• Generating and rendering ads based on the campaign logic.
• Publish ads from Flight Control into TikTok under the specified ad groups.
• Collecting insights and analytics, which are then integrated into our cross-channel dashboard.

Important: A social platform ad set/group can only contain a maximum of 50 ads. 

Note: Flight Control doesn't serve TikTok ads directly. Instead, it generates all possible ad variations for each ad group in advance, publishes the ads to the TikTok ad groups, and toggles ads (on/off) in real time to perform dynamic creative optimization (DCO).

Supported Ad Types & Specifications

You can use the following ad types for TikTok campaigns:

• Single Video (5-60 second full-screen video ads)

Supported ad placements

TikTok users' "For You" feeds.

Supported objectives

• Reach
• Traffic
• Video Views
• Website Conversions

Supported metrics

• 1st Quarter
• 1st Quarter Rate
• Mid Point
• Mid Point Rate
• 3rd Quarter
• 3rd Quarter Rate
• CPA
• CPC
• CPM
• Click Through Rate
• Clicks
• Completed
• Completion Rate
• Conversion Rate
• Conversions
• Cost
• Impressions
• Sales
• Reach

User Permissions 

• You need the Campaigns user permission to create or edit campaigns.

Prerequisites

• Integrate with a TikTok account.
• Have creatives stored in your account's Creative Library that apply to your social media campaign type.

TikTok Campaign Workflow 

Once you've started a new campaign by clicking Create from the Campaigns page and selecting TikTok as the campaign type, follow the steps below to set up and activate your TikTok campaign in Flight Control.

At a high level, the setup process follows the steps outlined in the campaign header:

1. Configure General Campaign Settings.
2. Sync TikTok Ad Groups with Flight Control.
3. Set Up the Campaign Logic.
4. Generate and Render Ads
5. Publish Ads.
6. Activate the Campaign Version.

Detailed Campaign Setup and Activation Workflow

1. Configure General Campaign Settings

The Campaign Homepage is the first step of the campaign, where you can: 

1. Add a campaign description.
2. Select any premium services (e.g., Sports, Weather).
3. Add campaign tags for reporting purposes.

2. Sync TikTok Ad Groups with Flight Control

1. Navigate to the campaign's Ad Groups step of the workflow in the Header.
   • This is where you can connect your Flight Control campaign to your TikTok advertising account.
2. Click Add.
3. Select a TikTok account.
4. Select a TikTok campaign.
5. Click OK.
   • This process can take a few seconds. Once finished, all connected TikTok campaign ad groups will be displayed.

Flight Control will sync the ad groups from the TikTok campaign.

3. Set Up the Campaign Logic

1. Go to the Campaign Logic step in the campaign header.
   • This is where you can configure your decisioning logic to toggle ads on and off on TikTok.
2. Add and connect decision cards to your campaign card as needed for your strategy:
   • Product Selection Card - This card selects a product from a product feed to display in an ad using a specified selection strategy.
   • Content Selection Card - This card selects a content item from a content feed to display in an ad using a specified selection strategy.
   • Condition Card - This card conditions by one or more attributes (usually ad groups) and selects which card output and creative to use for an impression.
   • Schedule Card - This card lets you perform campaign actions like dayparting and other date/time ad-serving specifications.
   • Distribution Card - This card generates multiple ads for each ad group based on the number of card outputs used. The social media platform optimizes the ad serving between these ads using their personal optimization methods.
   • Creative Cards - Each creative card represents one or more ads that will be created for the social platform. Social campaign creatives come from your account's Creative Library.
3. Open the Creative Card Settings pane to customize each creative. See the table below for information on fields in TikTok campaign creative cards:

Field	Description
Ad Name	Allows you to define the name of the ad that will be created. If nothing is inserted, the creative name will be used.
Video Name	Allows you to enter a name for the video creative published to the social platform (instead of using the creative ID as the default name).
Landing Page	Lets you choose the source for the ad's landing page. You can enter a URL to use by selecting Insert Manual Link.
Landing Page URL	Lets you enter a URL to use as the ad's landing page. Note: This field only displays if you selected Insert Manual Link for the Landing Page field.
TikTok Account	Lets you select a TikTok account to publish the ad to.
Text	This text will appear on most placements, although its position will vary.
Call to Action	Use this to show a button or link in the ad that represents the action you want the user to take. Select from a list of predefined TikTok CTAs: "Apply now", "Contact us", "Download now", "Get quote", "Get showtimes", "Get tickets now", "Install now", "Interested", "Learn more", "Listen now", "Order now", "Play game", "Preorder now", "Read more", "Shop now", "Sign up", "Subscribe", "View now", "Visit store", and "Watch now".
TikTok Events Tracking	Lists all available website events for the synced account.

Tip: You can copy and paste cards from one campaign to another within the same account using Ctrl + C and Ctrl + V (Windows) or Command + C and Command + V (Mac). Only cards that are relevant to a specific campaign type can be pasted in the campaign map. If the creative for a duplicated creative card doesn't exist in the target account's Creative Library, the creative will be added.

Step 4: Generate and Render Ads

Once the campaign logic has been set up without any errors, the Generate Ads icon on the far right section of the header will become highlighted.

You must now generate all possible ad variations (outcomes) from your campaign map logic:

1. Click Generate Ads within the campaign's header to start the process of generating ads. Once ads have been generated, the system will automatically start rendering the ads.
   • You'll be directed to the campaign's Ads step once ads start generating.
2. Review your rendered ad variations within the Ads table.
   • Note: These are simulated social media previews. Minor preview discrepancies may exist before publishing ads to a social media platform.
3. Optional. Update ad variation elements individually or in bulk as needed (examples: primary text, headline, and CTA changes).

Note: The campaign logic will be locked once ad generation begins. Changes made to the campaign's feeds or creatives won't affect the campaign unless you click Generate Ads again.

5. Publish Ads

Once all ads have been automatically generated, the Publish icon on the far right section of the header will become highlighted, indicating that ads are ready to be published.

1. Click Publish to upload the generated ads to the TikTok platform. This will bring up the Publish Ads window, where you can:

   Review the number of ads being published, updated, or deleted between the last version and the current version being published. Choose whether to pause all ads from the previous version or keep them running until the new version activates. Decide whether to permanently delete or simply turn off ads marked for deletion in the connected social media account. Choose whether the campaign version should activate automatically after ads are published, with options to enter a custom version name and description. Schedule a future activation time and determine what happens if ads fail to publish or are rejected by the social platform. Select how you want to activate the campaign: Once the first ad is approved (Recommended) Once all ads complete the review process, and at least one is approved Only if all ads are approved Click Publish and Activate or Publish, depending on the previously selected activation settings.

   2. Await the "published" status for all ad variations in the Ads step.
      • Note: Campaign version actions are disabled while ads are being published to social media platforms.

If publishing is successful, all ad variations in the Ads step will display a "published" status, and their social media platform ad IDs will populate. At this point, Flight Control uses actual social media placement renderings for creative previews.

Ads published to social media platforms are paused until you activate your Flight Control campaign, which is outlined in the last step of the workflow.

6. Activate the Campaign Version

Once ads are successfully published, the Activate icon on the far right section of the Header will become highlighted, indicating that the campaign version is ready to be activated.

To activate the campaign version:

Click Activate in the campaign Header. The Activate Ads window will be displayed. Optional. Enter a custom version name. Optional. Enter a version description. Select the Set time for future activation  checkbox and enter a day and time for the version to activate on. To cancel the scheduled activation, click the "x" symbol of the Scheduled Activation badge in the campaign header. You can then click Activate to initiate or reschedule activation. Select how you want to activate the campaign: Once the first ad is approved (Recommended) Once all ads complete the review process, and at least one is approved Only if all ads are approved Click Activate.

The campaign version will be activated and "locked" by default after activation occurs. Once a campaign version is activated, Flight Control will begin serving ads on TikTok, toggling ads on and off according to your campaign map configurations.

Important: Once your campaign is running on the social platform, you must make changes to Flight Control-related ads directly within Flight Control, not the social platform. Otherwise, unintentional changes and data overwrites may occur.