How is TikTok advertising different from Google?

With over 2 billion downloads and around 1 billion TikTok is far past the point of being a new contender in the social media platforms arena. Thanks to its meteoric, never-ending growth, TikTok managed to rise into the mainstream and become a giant proudly standing next to the big shots like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

Besides being a breath of fresh air in a stale social media landscape, especially for younger people, with its relatively new marketing platform TikTok opened some new doors for marketers, too.  It’s already one of the best places to reach a mass audience and with news of the future e-commerce plans, TikTok should be something every marketer must have in mind.

Now, there are so many options to advertise at our disposal. But, when it comes to investing budget in one of them, one could ask the question “Which one is the best?”. Despite being the hottest place on the internet, is TikTok a good choice for your business? Or should you pick something more old school, like Google ads, for example? Let’s dig into the options and benefits that both these platforms bring to the table and finally determine is there the best way to spend bucks on ads!

Where Google rules?

The biggest search engine handles almost 6 billion searches every single day and maybe one even brought you to this article! With so many searches there must be a lot of people searching, too! That’s the place where Google Ads jumps in.

It’s pretty simple, specific Google ads pop up every time one or more keywords match with the search query of Google users.  You can choose to drive your website traffic, receive more phone calls, or increase your in-store visits.

These stats are illustrating just how big Google advertisement is:

  • 63,000 searches get processed by Google each second
  • 65% of small-to-midsized businesses have a PPC campaign
  • 35% of users purchase a product within 5 days of searching for it on Google

And that’s not the only channel – You can also use, Google display network campaigns, Youtube videos to reach your audience.  So, when it comes to buyer intent, Google takes the win against anybody. Search ads can place anyone’s business in front of a potential customer at the exact moment they could need their product or service. 

What TikTok has in store?

For a long time, ads on TikTok were not an option, except for those brands with really deep pockets. The introduction of a self-bidding advertising platform on TikTok was a breakthrough in advertising on TikTok.  

Now, even smaller brands can afford presence on this network through in-feed, short video ads format. What makes it so special? 

First, with the platform comes an integrated Video Creation Kit with a huge base of templates, images and music backgrounds.

Next, during setting up the campaign, TikTok offers 3 options for campaign objective- Traffic, Conversion and App Install. TikTok also lets you use custom audiences in your ad group targeting level. You can use your customer’s contact data, website traffic, app activity, or ad engagement.

One last thing worth mentioning is the style of ads unique only to TikTok. Ads don’t look like ads and completely fit in with the videos users create. At least, the good ones. So, brands that can manage to pull this off with their ads can expect a big turn around on their investment.

What is the verdict?

If we have to cut it to the bone, both Google and TikTok are great places to reach your customers. Both platforms are relatively cheap and each of them has billions of active users to target for your product. But, they have a hugely different role in everyday life of their users, making them so much different in terms of advertising goals and benefits of it. The answer to TikTok vs Google advertising question highly depends on the nature of the business, objectives and budgets for it.

Sometimes the same goals can be achieved in different ways on these advertising platforms, so never exclude one over the other and always keep in mind what is your end goal.

So, if you see that TikTok suits better for your business after reading this article, you should definitely give it a go! As the app grows in reach, its ability to advertise and promote products and services will surely become more versatile and effective. Also, you could additionally boost your presence and results by having a team of professionals by your side, specialized in Tik Tok marketing! Consider GrowMojo as your partner and feel free to contact us anytime. Let’s make your business grow together!

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