How To Create Tiktok Ads in Kenya – Complete Guide 2023

TikTok Ads in Kenya is becoming a space that more and more entrepreneurs and digital marketers are looking to venture into.

Gone are the days when we referred to TikTok as the new App on the block. With TikTok having been around since 2016 and long enough to have TikTok stars, it has proven that it is here to stay. This raises two important questions.

First, how to go about setting up TikTok Ads in Kenya. Second, how to measure the success of TikTok Ads in Kenya to ensure return on Ad spends.

In this post, those are some of the questions we shall be answering and more. Without further ado, TikTok Ads, how to create them, and best practices.

What about the viability of Tiktok as a marketing platform? Here is what we know. First, it is currently the number one [#1] most downloaded App on both Google Play and the App Store.

Second, Tiktok users spend an average of 52 minutes a day on the platform as opposed to the 30 minutes that Instagram users spend on Instagram.

For stats that are a little closer to home, in Kenya as of January 2021, TikTok was recorded as being actively used by 44.7% of active social media users aged between 16 and 64 years. If we calculate with a population of approximately 12 million active social media users, that would land us squarely at 5.36 million people who can benefit from your products or services.

TikTok advertising is structured in three layers; Ad campaigns, Ad Groups, and Ads which are very similar to Facebook Ads.

TikTok Ads in Kenya Step 1: Create a business account

The first step for setting up TikTok Ads in Kenya is to create a TikTok business account. If you already have a private TikTok account that is advantageous because you are familiar with the platform. However, you still have to create a business account.

We recommend using your business email here. In the past, you had to get your business approved to advertise on the platform, but now anyone can get in and start launching campaigns.

TikTok Ads in Kenya Step 2: Create an Ad campaign

The second step for creating your TikTok Ads in Kenya will be to create your Ad campaign. Once you log in to your TikTok business account, TikTok will take you straight to the campaign creation. 

Name your campaign and set your budget in the settings.  TikTok also has a great feature that can allow you to start a creative split test at the campaign level.

Once you’ve named your campaign and set your budget, you’ll need to choose an advertising objective for your campaign. Like most Ad platforms, TikTok breaks it down for you. Let’s look through the options.

TikTok Ads in Kenya Step 3: Select an Ad group

In this step, you’ll choose the ad placements, details, budgeting and billing, and third-party tracking. Ad details will vary based on your campaign objective. 

For example, if you chose “traffic” as your objective, the ad details will need to identify if you’re driving users to your website or an app and exactly where you want them to land.

Placement

TikTok gives you a few options when choosing your Ad placement, however, only for certain campaign objectives. TikTok, like Facebook, has a “family of apps” that you can advertise on. For TikTok examples include; BuzzVideo, Pangle, News Republic to mention a few. 

Like on Facebook Ads, with TikTok Ads you can choose automatic placements where the app decides where to place your Ads. Alternatively, you can manually select where you would like your Ads to be displayed.

Targeting

When creating your TikTok business Ads in Kenya, you will have to set up your targeting similar to how you would on Facebook. TikTok targeting is not as detailed as Facebook’s. However, you have the option to target your customers in Kenya based on their age, location, gender, and language.

The most in-depth targeting is under “interests”. This includes a variety of general topics people follow on TikTok, from apparel and appliances down to tech and travel.

These interest categories are pretty broad therefore, where you get the most bang for your buck will be through creating a custom or lookalike audience from your existing database.

Budget and bidding

Next, you’ll need to fill in your daily budget. You can then choose your bid per click, or conversion, or view (whatever goal you set for the campaign), the delivery type, and input any third-party tracking links you might want to include for your analytics. 

If you are accustomed to Facebook advertising which can be fairly affordable, it’s worth mentioning that for TikTok Ads, your daily budget needs to be $20 and up.

You can choose dayparting and frequency caps in this section if you know what times your target audience is most active on TikTok.

TikTok Ads in Kenya Step 4: Create your TikTok Ad Creative

The fourth step in creating your TikTok Ads in Kenya is to make your Ad creative. If your business doesn’t have an in-house creative team or videographer on call fear not. TikTok truly is the platform for user-generated content, and they will hold your hand through the ad creation process.

The best part of creating TikTok Ads is that the platform will help you create a video with a matching background track from uploaded imagery. Typically, we wouldn’t recommend creating a video from stock images, it is best to keep your business TikTok videos real, short and casual.

You can also create a video from the imagery on your website’s landing page. This is mostly for eCommerce sites with product pages or mobile apps. TikTok will grab images straight from your landing page, match them up with music appropriately, and make them into lovely ads.

TikTok Ads in Kenya Step 5: Set up billing and payment

The final step of creating your TikTok Ads for your business in Kenya is to simply input your billing information and you are set. After that, you are free to launch your Ad.

How to measure the success of your TikTok Ads in Kenya

Success KPIs for your TikTok Ads will depend on the objectives you set for your TikTok campaign at the start. If the objective was traffic then the measure of success will be the number of people who landed on a given landing page from the link you used in your TikTok Ad.

If your objective was conversion, your measure of success or KPI will be the number of people who complete a purchase on your website.

Where do TikTok Ads appear?

For TikTok Ads, they’ll appear on a user’s For You page in the feed. After the video ad ends, it’ll freeze on the last frame and give the user a call to action—which is why they ask for the final frame above.

In conclusion, TikTok is a great platform to venture into. Even if you try it and it takes a while for you to finetune the targeting or the Ad spend or even the strategy, you will be way ahead of the competition on the TikTok Ads in Kenya learning curve which will give you a great competitive edge.

However, at this time TikTok ads are not yet available to the Kenyan Market. Sign up for our newsletter to be the first to be notified when TikTok Ads become available in Kenya.