Don’t Make Ads. Make TikToks. Really? Gemius experts at the IAB Forum

During three days, over eighty of the best industry specialists presented the latest marketing trends and solutions, developed during the pandemic. Gemius was represented by Lucyna Koba, Business Development Director and Bartosz Wójcik, Sales Manager Agency and Advertisers. During the first day of the conference they presented "Don't Make Ads. Make TikToks. Really?" presentation. They talked about TikTok - an application that has undoubtedly been loud in recent months - especially in the marketing industry. The presentation they gave was among the 5 best lectures of the entire conference according to the ScreenLovers Blog ranking.

You didn’t have the opportunity to participate in this year's IAB Forum? Nothing is lost! Today we invite you to explore the most important conclusions from research and lectures prepared by Gemius experts!

TikTok - globally and in Poland

According to the Digital 2021 Report by WeAreSocial and Hootsuite, TikTok in 2020 was the most often downloaded application in the world. In Poland, it was ranked 4th, ahead only by Facebook Messanger, InpostMobile and Vinted.

From Q1 2017 to Q1 2020, TikTok has been downloaded over 2 billion times worldwide! The greatest number of times - over 315 million - the application was downloaded at the beginning of 2020, during the first wave of the pandemic and the total lockdown.

In Poland, the application is still gaining popularity, which is confirmed by Mediapanel's research for April 2021. In terms of Real Users, TikTok is far from 1st in the commercial group 16-49. In the ranking, the application ranks only 17th, reaching 25.47% in the target group. They are ahead of, among others applications from the Google or Facebook family.

Source: Mediapanel, April 2021, TG All 16-49

Why is the reach of the application in Poland so low with such huge global downloads? Gemius experts noticed that the reason for this is the greater popularity of TikTok among the younger audience. The data obtained in the study for the 7-14 and 15-24 age groups show that the younger the target group, the higher the application is in the popularity ranking (similarly, place 7 with a reach of 36.99% and place 9 with a reach of 41.77%).

Source: Mediapanel, April 2021, TG All 7-14, All 15-24

However, it cannot be said that only young people use TikTok. Mediapanel research for April 2021 showing the number of Real Users in each age group proves that the application has a large group of fans in virtually every age! The Affinity Index line, which determines the age group overrepresented among TikTok users in relation to the entire population, indicates people between 7 and 29 years of age as the most willing users of the application. In the case of analyzing the gender structure of TikTok users, we see a situation similar to any other social media application - women slightly outweigh men.

How does TikTok compare to other popular applications?

Gemius experts compared the number of real TikTok users to the number of users of other, most popular applications in Poland - Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. Conclusions? YouTube and Facebook outclass the competition in virtually all age groups. The social media users themselves are mainly the so-called Millennials - people between 25 and 45 years old. The structure and form of TikTok deviates from traditional, most popular applications, remaining one of the main favourites in the 7-24 age group.

Source: Mediapanel, April 2021

Is TikTok with its young audience and very intense promotion aimed at consumers and advertisers doomed to success?

Data obtained from the Mediapanel research, which shows weekly application reach from September 2019 to January 2021, shows that TikTok is gradually attracting an increasing number of recipients. However, there is still a long way to go to full success. Compared to Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, TikTok ranks last with a weekly reach of 5 million users. Facebook and YouTube are able to reach 20 million users per week, Instagram - over 10 million. Gemius experts note, however, that TikTok is still a relatively young application compared to its competitors. If it maintains its upward trend, it may soon achieve results similar to Instagram.

Source: Mediapanel, September 2019 – January 2021

Source: Mediapanel, September 2019 – January 2021

Is it time to replace traditional advertising with TikTok?

According to the gemiusAdReal research for April 2021, TikTok has the greatest advertising potential in the 15-24 age group. During all advertising creations carried out in the application in April, it was in this group that the advertising reach reached the highest level - 55%. For comparison, for the commercial group 16-49, this ratio was 24.33%.

The same data obtained from the gemiusAdReal study for the 15-24 group and competing applications for TikTok show a higher advertising reach indicator in this age group. This is 93% for YouTube, 89% for Facebook, and 72% for Instagram, respectively.

Source: gemiusAdReal, April 2021

Reach and quality

The time of contact with the ad in the TikTok application for the group that most often uses it (7-14) in April 2021 was 4.22 seconds on average. In the commercial group it was 3.69 seconds. Among competing applications, YouTube is in the first place, for the same period and the 7-14 group, it scores as much as 9.75 seconds. Facebook was in second place with a result of 6.81 seconds. Interestingly, Instagram is the worst on the list - only 2.42 seconds.

Source: gemiusAdReal, April 2021

Is TikTok able to provide advertisers with exclusive coverage ...

... that is, recipients that they will not find in other social media applications? Thanks to the analysis of the incremental (additional) reach data, Gemius specialists determined that TikTok duplicates its reach with other social media - especially YouTube. Therefore, the incremental range is almost non-existent.For comparison, for the commercial group 16-49, this ratio was 24.33%.

Source: gemius AdReal, April 2021

In the data for April 2021 from the gemius AdReal study, in the case of incremental coverage, the situation also depends on the particular application. Here, too, there is a duplication of users between individual channels, especially TikTokiem and YouTube, so it is not possible to build an exclusive reach.Instagram with the lowest duplication was found on the other side of the scale (in the 7-14 group it was over a dozen percent).

Source: gemiusAdReal, April 2021

TikTok's incremental reach and television

Television remains one of the most important reach channels for many advertisers. It is this medium that the lion's share of advertising budgets is allocated. That is why the addition of additional coverage for television is crucial from the point of view of optimizing the media budget. In the gemiusAdReal study for April 2021, Gemius experts examined the incremental reach of all TV advertising campaigns carried out in the month for the 15-24 group, and the participation of individual social media in building additional reach. The group of 15-24 achieved the highest score here, but TikTok is still in the last position compared to competing applications.

Source: gemiusAdReal, April 2021

So - what's the future for TikTok in the advertising market?

Analyzing individual studies, Gemius experts agree that TikTok is not currently the most influential player in the social media group on the advertising market. However, it is an interesting alternative for those advertisers who want to reach separate, younger target groups with their campaigns. Its constantly growing position is also worth further research and analysis, which will help advertisers to properly target their campaigns in the future.