Companies looking to hire digital marketers are often misled by misleading ads from social media marketing agencies claiming that they can create a viral video for them, but this is simply not true!
The truth is that a company's success on these networks relies less on the type of creatives used and more on operational processes, such as controlling data ownership rights and managing legal agreements for using the content.
When we take a closer look at the facts, it becomes clear that many of the TikTok marketing agencies currently dominating the market are essentially glorified social media teams that can't deliver results because they lack a fully developed media-buying strategy.
In the following guide, we will break down the creator-only myth and show you the current price points and operational models that generate sales.
The Truth About TikTok Marketing Agencies
Within TikTok marketing agencies, the operational realities are very different than those of traditional marketing firms. Companies purchasing services based on a "viral video" promise are going to find that they will be spending a lot of money to get an average amount of return. A successful campaign on TikTok requires a manufacturing-style methodology for testing videos and purchasing media.
Many social media agencies are not equipped to handle the challenges associated with managing and supporting a viral campaign on TikTok. They create ads that look like every other ad on TikTok, they upload them using standard business management tools, and they are left to wonder why ad prices are relatively high.
The issue is that in order to have success on this network, the assets that work on this network will have to be native to the platform and be promoted through the creator's account - they will not work simply by producing video files as high-quality corporate videos.
The top-tier producers on TikTok operate completely differently. In addition to producing videos, they also create an entire ecosystem of creators, which allows them to work with thousands of creators on a regular basis. These teams work to build and manage their creator networks, which include contracts and are the exact legal steps required to run ads through an individual creator's personal profile.
They are able to monitor the decay of ads and remove ads prior to their audience becoming bored. This will only occur using a high-volume testing approach.
A brand that has invested significant amounts of money into their campaign will need to partner with a TikTok marketing agency that can deliver 50 to 200 new video variations every week.
If a marketing agency cannot share how they manage the store connection and how the authorization flow for running advertising through creators works, they will not be able to spend your budget.
Leading TikTok Marketing Agencies by Performance
To accurately identify who the true operators are versus basic agencies, it is critical to review the raw performance results of the campaign, methods of tracking, and capabilities for scaling the business. The following providers have proven to be the true leaders based on actual market data.
1. Power Digital
For enterprise brands, measurement must not only include basic platform numbers; however, Power Digital's key differentiator is that they focus on incrementality modeling and full funnel strategy versus view counts.
They connect the social spend to the revenue growth created for the business to provide a significantly different level of financial tracking.
According to market data, this model produces 18% more revenue growth and 47% greater blended returns for clients that require strict reporting.
2. House of Marketers
House of Marketers has a strong emphasis on direct-to-consumer performance and on mobile app install campaigns, as well as maintaining a huge creator network that allows for aggressive growth metrics. For example, through their partnership with Beauty of Joseon, they produced a staggering 500% year-over-year sales growth.
Through another campaign for d'Alba, they executed 60 monthly creator activations which generated 25 million views each month and resulted in a 150% increase in sales volume. They also execute app install campaigns, and through their model, they lowered the cost to acquire users to a level that allowed them to acquire users profitably.
3. inBeat
When brands require a large volume of creative, inBeat has the right solution. inBeat operates an engine that produces and ships more than 300 content assets each month with high velocity. This constant influx of new video helps to facilitate aggressive testing and rapid reduction in costs.
For one client, this model has resulted in a reduction of user acquisition costs by 20%. Hurom engineered an incredible 300% increase in return on ad spend, while simultaneously decreasing the cost per action by a massive 70%.
4. Ubiquitous
Ubiquitous creates campaigns that are designed for large volumes of impressions at scale. They manage large-scale influencer collaborations that allow for the creation of incredibly inexpensive attention. Ubiquitous' BlueChew campaign received over 37 million views, at a CPM of only $5.47.
Ubiquitous' Wienerschnitzel campaign achieved over 42 million impressions, and NightCap's activation achieved 93 million views and 51% overall increase in site traffic.
5. Viral Nation
Viral Nation has established itself as a leader in maximizing integrated social commerce.
They have the ability to connect creator-generated content directly to sales in real time. Using a combination of storefront operations, affiliate links, and live shopping events, they successfully sold 50,000 e.l.f. products in ten hours through a campaign combining creators and stores.
6. NeoReach
NeoReach's primary focus is identifying, vetting and managing creators to optimize return on investment.
When they launched a major U.S. account on their platform, they reached 179+ million users, generating $6.00 return for every $1.00 spent. Through a launch for HISTORY Channel, their matches generated 12.2 million views, and nearly 2x the initial investment.
7. SAMY
High engagement rates indicate high quality of content, and SAMY consistently generates above average engagement.
SAMY takes standard influencer marketing and replicates those efforts as highly native platform assets. SAMY's efforts allowed L'Oréal Revitalift Laser to achieve a number one ranking in its shop category. Fazer Chocolates achieved an astonishing 657% higher return on their advertising investment, leading to a surge in overall customer engagement.
8. MuteSix
MuteSix provides a very high level of performance marketing services exclusively to businesses that sell products directly to their customers.
As a performance marketing company, MuteSix is well positioned to provide performance marketing services to companies that are scaling rapidly and want to achieve maximum performance.
MuteSix requires a minimum of $50,000 in order to begin working with a new customer in order to ensure that they only work with companies that have the financial resources to adequately support their technology platform and data analytics.
9. Moburst
Moburst has developed a unique strategy for the user acquisition of mobile applications utilizing various vertical cost-per-install methods to achieve optimum conversion rates.
They were able to produce more than 8,500 installs for PlugSports and achieved a 227% increase in click-to-install (CTI) ratio. In addition, they produced a 370% reduction in the cost-per-install for PreVue from a separate campaign.
10. Acceleration Partners
Acceleration Partners has developed the infrastructure required to manage the extensive network of over 1,500 brands that utilize influencer marketing services to generate new customers.
While most influencer marketing agencies utilize a purely brand-based model, Acceleration Partners uses a performance-based approach to managing their programs. This model helped develop the DIVI brand, which generated a 5.3X return on investment using a performance-based model.
11. The Shelf
The Shelf utilizes proprietary technology designed to facilitate the creation of effective influencer campaigns that produce maximum reach and engagement.
Their campaign for ROAR Organic generated an estimated 12.2 million impressions and received 236,000 direct engagements. As they continued to scale their customer base, their campaign for Savers Value Village produced 88.1 million total impressions across the platform.
12. AdParlor
AdParlor focuses on media buying efficiency by lowering their costs per user while increasing brand recall.
According to their internal data, the company drove a 108% increase in brand awareness along with a 166% decrease in cost per thousand impressions from standard campaigns.
13. HireInfluence
Choosing the wrong creator will ruin the campaign before it even launches. HireInfluence uses advanced matching technology to place brands with the right faces for their target audience.
This level of precision has resulted in significant performance increases. They recorded an 832% improvement in performance and a fourfold increase in click-through rate compared to other brand advertisements.
14. Clicks Talent
Having access to a huge creator network gives Clicks Talent a major advantage in the marketplace.
Clicks Talent manages a network of creators who have collectively amassed over 1.47 billion views on the platform, with an engagement rate of 6.5%. During the Imanbek campaign, their creators generated six million views and 500,000 likes at a cost of just $0.50 per thousand impressions.
15. Sociallyin
Sociallyin takes a direct approach to reducing paid media expenses. Rather than simply focusing on video production, Sociallyin develops their campaigns for the purpose of dropping the cost of customer actions.
When examining the data in the marketplace, their applied strategies for driving down action costs for social media accounts exhibit an average reduction of about 22%.
The True Cost of Platform Ads
Pricing in the marketplace is broken down into three levels. The entry-level package will generally range from $3,000 to $7,500 per month. This package typically requires the client to provide all video materials and allows the managed ad team to supervise the ad management and reporting function only.
Mid-level packages generally cost between $7,500 to $18,000 per month. Typically, a complete content marketing strategy will include paid advertising, the production of eight to sixteen pieces of organic video each month and a small creator testing program.
The cost of a complete service package is typically between $18,000 and $35,000 or even higher each month. This package includes a full-service marketing strategy, a dedicated content studio, substantial scaling of paid media and multiple deals with large creators.
Beyond the monthly package, brands working with TikTok marketing agencies must also be aware of the minimum amount of money they need to spend on advertising to generate any tangible results. To exit the platform's learning phase, and to receive any reliable performance signal to optimize future ad spending, brands need to invest at least $10,000 a month into advertising.
Spending less will result in a lack of data for optimizing correctly. It usually takes a 60-day to 90-day time frame to find this reliable performance signal.
Admin Rules for Professional Campaigns
The difference between a campaign that fails and one that succeeds is often due to the level of administrative control. Amateur or poorly-run campaigns lose track of video assets, do not have legally binding authorization to use the assets, and lose valuable social proof from their best-performing advertisements.
Professional marketers have full and complete control of the mechanics behind every piece of social media content. They establish the following procedures to ensure a successful outcome with each post:
They obtain authorization codes for all Spark Ads before posting directly from the original content creators.
They track and maintain all Post IDs so ads run from the creator's account and retain all original likes and comments.
They establish kill criteria, pausing all ads that reach 1.5x the target cost per action automatically.
Twenty to thirty percent of creative assets should be refreshed on a weekly basis in order to mitigate audience exhaustion.
If you want to avoid spending your budget on ineffective automation, the operator must be able to articulate their entire workflow regarding the four steps.
Final Thoughts on Operations vs. Creative
While the marketplace may prefer more flashy media outputs, mathematically, advertising on a large scale should be run aggressively, tested thoroughly, and operated cleanly. The value of choosing a TikTok marketing agency is not based on their video editing capability alone.
Rather, they should understand decay curves as they pertain to data, be sure they have obtained all necessary approvals to run ads through real profiles, and be able to directly correlate social viewership to overall revenue generation. The operators who approach this network as if it were an industrial testing lab are the ones that ultimately gain market share.
Questions to Ask When Picking a Partner
What kind of usage rules change your growth?
If an operator does not have the correct permissions and authorization codes, the operator will not be able to promote organic content created by a creator as a paid advertisement.
This means that the organic content will have to be promoted using corporate branded accounts, which dramatically reduces click-through rates and decreases trust. Without a proper acquisition of legal usage rights, effective scaling of paid advertising cannot occur.
What is the true time needed to see results?
A new account should expect stability 60 to 90 days out. The first couple of weeks consist of completing the basic setup and running initial video tests. During weeks 3 and 4, inefficacious creative should be cut and enhanced copies of the better performing ads created.
It generally requires at least $10,000 or more of total investment over a two-month target period to generate sufficient data for consistent targeting of optimal new buyers.
Why are app numbers not enough?
Relying solely upon return on ad spend reported inside the app is not smart. This is akin to the platform taking credit for any sale that may have been made, regardless of the marketing efforts.
Mature brands should incorporate blended return calculations along with incrementality tests measuring new customer acquisition generated by video vs control groups (those not exposed to ads).
How should a brand handle the store handoff?
Advertising on a social platform and managing an active storefront on a platform are two distinct skill sets.
For brands who intend to sell products through the app, the operator should be familiar with managing a product catalog, structuring the affiliate program, and synchronizing the timing of the live shopping events with the paid media spend. A separation of responsibilities for ad buyers and store managers will cripple a campaign.