What Makes TikTok Tick? With Its Future in Question, 5 Takeaways for Marketers

The U.S. government seems determined to eventually ban TikTok. Will that happen? Or will it continue to thrive and delight 150 million Americans and the advertisers using it to reach them? It’s hard to imagine a ban while users are still scrolling and brands continue shelling out to engage them: Ad spending on the social media platform increased a reported 11% in March. 

Even if TikTok is banned or eventually loses some of its die-hard fans to competitors—Instagram and Facebook Reels (140 billion views per day) and YouTube Shorts (50 billion views) are doing their best to entice them—its influence and lessons will live on in the audience habits, content formats, and influencer tactics it has inspired.

So as long as it’s still around and going strong, here are five lessons marketers and agencies can learn from TikTok’s tricks and apply beyond its platform: 

 

Sticky content keeps users glued to the screen.

Anyone who lives with TikTok users knows it’s almost impossible to get between them and the platform’s quick-cut videos. As maddening as this can be for anyone who’s around heavy users, there are lessons for content and ad pros in the attention-absorbing fast takes, endless stream of content and algorithmically driven recommendations. How many times have you seen someone watch a single TikTok video about, say, adorable Golden Retriever puppies and look away from their phone when they know there will be even more compelling canine mini-stories right behind that one? Good content delivered to the right person at the right time creates true “lean in” moments. 

Creators should be central to marketing efforts.

Word-of-mouth marketing has been around forever and is surely here to stay—except now it’s on steroids. For a long time In digital video, influencer marketing was focused first on those YouTubers and vloggers (remember them?) who talked straight to the camera about, for example, their favorite makeup brands or video games. Today the barriers to creating impressive videos are gone. Creators like Mr. Beast, who recently flew a youngster to Paris in search of baguettes and, to promote Netflix’s “Murder Mystery 2,” gave away a Lamborghini,  attract marketers and TV-size audiences. And you can bet fans of TikTok longtimer Charli D’Amelio were as interested in her recent Amazon storefront tour (which included items from Polaroid and Hydro Flask) as in her dance videos. While some creator content is truly cringe-worthy, the creator economy is a force for marketers and for the consumers who buy into their pitches. Just like when digital jumped the shark to become a mainstay in every campaign, influencer marketing has sealed its place in ad budgets.

 

Big brands can play this game. 

You know a media platform has hit the big time when a traditional marketer chooses it over buying ad time on the Super Bowl, as State Farm did this year in tapping TikTok star, Khaby Lane, for a Gen Z-focused pregame campaign. As the company’s VP of Marketing Alyson Griffin said, they were aiming for “more engagement than just eyeballs.” Better still, influencers can be tapped as creators, a move Mondelēz made when it had designer Vandy the Pink create an exclusive hoodie as part of a party kit aimed to encourage Gen Z snackers to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Chips Ahoy! 

 

Authenticity rules.

While Instagram users were initially thrilled with filters and features that helped them create slick content that looked professional, many users on TikTok like content that’s far from polished. Consider Miriam Ezagui, an Orthodox Jewish mom of four and nurse who posts technically simple “day in the life” videos from her home. Or consider the curious allure of TikTokers who offer tips on how to clean bathrooms and organize closets by taking us inside their own. It’s hard to get more personal than that.  

 

Video is here to stay.

Though we’ve been talking about the ubiquity of web video for over a decade, in truth the web remained stubbornly text-centric until recently. Today, video isn’t just embedded in web pages, it’s replacing them as the quality, ease of use, and effectiveness of short-form communication continues to rise. Even news outlets that still publish in print are getting the message that short videos are here to stay. For brands, that means that TikTok-like creative will someday be a primary ad asset in a campaign rather than just one of many digital extensions.

While some of us in the ad business haven’t yet succumbed to TikTok’s charms and become habitual users, we can’t deny it has been a game changer for content consumers, creators, and our own industry. Since it’s going to inform the way brands engage audiences for years to come, it’s worth learning a few lessons from what makes TikTok tick.

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So what are the implications for marketers, developers, and end users in iOS 15? How might Apple’s new operating system impact location intelligence and data collection for ad targeting purposes? Let’s dive into the details.

Share My Location

With low adoption rates for the ‘Allow Once’ permission, Apple introduced a ‘Share My Location’ button as a replacement. Similar to ‘Allow Once,’ this button will prompt users to share their location just for that individual session. This button is customizable so brands can stylize it however they wish. Gimbal sees this as a positive direction for location sharing and enables brands to create dynamic, location-driven experiences that provide value to their app users.

App Tracking Transparency (ATT) Prompt

In iOS 14.5, ATT required developers to disclose their privacy practices within the App Store while simultaneously allowing users to opt in or out of data sharing (via their IDFA) on a per-app basis. In iOS 15, the privacy dashboard shows the permissions users have given to apps, such as location or the camera, and how many times they have accessed these features. Additionally, Apple reinforced its stance that fingerprinting – using various data points such as email, phone number, IP, etc. to attribute to a single user – will be disallowed, noting severe penalties for those that don’t comply. 

Companies have been looking for ways around asking users for their permission to be tracked across apps and sites for some time now, and Apple is cracking down. This also highlights the importance of first-party data. Gimbal has always had a strong stance around end-user privacy and advising our clients on how best to approach data rights continues to remain one of our top priorities. 

Other Privacy Related Features

iPhone users will feel even more secure about their data with features like Private Relay, Record App Activity, and Hide My Email. 

• Private Relay will obfuscate IP addresses through a series of proxy servers that are shared between users in a given area. This will ensure that brands can’t get around ATT prompts by reducing the accuracy of IP addresses for fingerprinting individual users.
• Record App Activity will list all services that are used by any app installed, including a list of domains that were actively used by those apps (including timestamps of when these events happened). Ultimately, bad actors that are needlessly trying to access remote services are going to pay the penalty of uninstalls as users become more aware of each app’s actions.
• Hide My Email will allow users to hide their real email addresses when filling out forms in Safari or when downloading new apps. It’s essentially a burner email that enables more secure processes for individuals filling out basic personal information because again, privacy.

Nearby Interaction

Ultra Wideband (UWB) enables directional precision for new products like AirTags, but an important API change is coming out with iOS 15. Following the patterns of Location and Bluetooth permissions, Apple will introduce a persistent permission instead of the current, session-based permissions for Nearby Interaction. Whether it’s used for easier curbside handoffs, more accurate wayfinding, or enhancing operational efficiencies, developers can now implement practical use cases with UWB and expect scalable adoption. Gimbal will be announcing more around UWB in the coming months as it relates to our own platform.

When Apple first announced the advent of iOS 14, we released a guide that walks you through the implications and best practices that still remain relevant to app developers and marketers today.

If you have any questions around Apple’s iOS 15 updates, please contact your Gimbal representative.

The post Preparing For the Next Phase of Privacy With iOS 15 appeared first on Infillion.

Let’s dive deeper into the location opt-in workflow…

View in High Res

3) In-App Data Collection

App developers will be required to list the data they collect about users which includes a high-level overview of how it accesses, uses, and shares app user data. It’s also important to note that this information is self-reported by the app developer and displayed in the App Store Connect.

The post An App Developer’s Guide to iOS 14 Changes appeared first on Infillion.

On February 19th, Android announced it will be following Apple’s footsteps to provide a one-time permission opt-in for location, along with other changes related to background location. 

The goal of these changes is to provide consumers with greater control and transparency over how their data is being used and ensure apps are providing a clear value exchange.

With that said, there are several things app owners and developers should keep in mind related to this update.

What’s New With Android 11?

1. App users will have the option to select ‘Only This Time’
   
2. The Google Play Store will require developers to obtain prior approval to access location data in the background. Factors include:
   • Does the feature deliver clear value to the user?
   • Would users expect the app to access their location in the background?
   • Is the feature important to the primary purpose of the app?
   • Can the experience be delivered without accessing location in the background?

It’s still unclear if this only applies to Android 11 devices or if it will be enforced on devices running older versions of the OS. However, come November 2nd of this year, a review of each app’s permissions will be required even if the application was already in the Play Store. 

What Does This Mean for App Owners?

With these expected new changes, it will be critical to clearly communicate the value of location-based services in a way that resonates with users. 

There are several ways to do this:

• Be specific about the wording that will appear in your location prompts to ensure it is accurate, transparent, and clearly communicates the value of location services 
• Highlight the benefits (in the app) that require location services, i.e. in-store mode, and direct the user to update their location permissions in the privacy section of their device 
• Aside from location-opt in, it will be critical for app owners to review privacy best practices, ensure disclosure of why location data is being collected, and have updated privacy policies in place

Location services have always been about providing better customer experiences. Whether it be to fulfill use cases like Buy Online, Pick-Up In Store (BOPIS) or reward consumers for in-store shopping via timely offers and promotions, location will continue to be a large part of an app owner’s digital marketing strategy. 

Gimbal will continue to test beta releases and stay ahead of major industry changes with the intent to always provide clear and consistent communication to customers. For any questions around Android 11 as they relate to the Gimbal SDK and/or location permissions, please contact support@gimbal.com.

The post What to Expect With Android 11 Location Permissions appeared first on Infillion.

As with all our clients, we had brand- and candidate-safe whitelists in place to preserve the proper message to the right folks.

Almost immediately after launching the campaign, our placements lists was spotted with websites comprised of violence, fake news, profanity, dating, porn, or other placements that simply didn’t fit the user base of the client.

Building and Maintaining Whitelists

My Ad Operations team and I worked furiously over the following hours and days to compile what we felt was the “perfect” whitelist, comprised solely of top-tier, brand-safe apps and sites from the likes of Fox News, Huffington Post, Words With Friends, and more.

For the next few days, we worked to ensure that this brand safe list was vetted by our partners and then applied to all their campaigns. We were confident that no leakage would occur and that we were golden.

We were wrong.

The day after we re-launched the campaigns with this whitelist, we were met with furious emails from our partner again. According to their third-party reports, we were still serving ads on placements such as mangareader.net, mangamap.com, mangahop.com, kisscartoon.me, poopreport.com, and the like.

These sites were not on our hand-curated whitelist, so we were left scrambling to figure out how this could have happened.

We checked our internal placement reports and to our surprise, none of those placements appeared in our report; our whitelist was “working.”

Persistent Masking and Leakage

What the hell was going on? How could the results from our internal report be so vasty different than the third-party report?

While the overall percentage of impressions on undesirable sites had dropped significantly, any leakage was unacceptable. And we were determined to get to the bottom of the issue.

We went back and forth for a month with a partner that was rightfully pissed off, testing various theories on what was causing the leakage. We tested the following:

• Matching the third-party impressions for a specific day against our internal reports to any placements that had a similar range of impressions delivered, then blacklisting those placements to see if they appeared in the third-party report the following day
• Checking with SSP’s if they had any of the inventory mentioned that was labeled incorrectly
• Verifying placement names matched either the web domain or the mobile web URL and then blacklisting any that didn’t match

Accidental or Purposeful Deceit?

After much back and forth, testing, checking, and re-testing, we still didn’t have a definitive resolution. We we’re still seeing those placements coming through in the client’s third-party reports.

We began to think that this wasn’t happening accidentally, but rather intentionally.

What we discovered was that a large number of impressions that we were bidding on were actually different domains than what was represented from the SSPs.

This is not at the fault of the SSP’s – but rather who the SSPs work with.

Often times, networks of publishers work with SSP’s to extend their reach of buyers, but these networks can actually mask their inventory and pass it off as something else that’s more coveted – more premium sources, such as Fox News, Huffington Posts, and Words with Friends – in an effort to charge more for their inventory.

The Cost of Manual Intervention

Due to this “spoofing,” there was no way for us to definitively isolate which offenders to remove from our whitelist. It was through 5 weeks of daily meetings between Operations, Account Managers, and Engineers across our company and the SSPs and running a plethora of trial and error test campaigns that we were we able to weed out 99.9% of the undesired traffic to create the finalized whitelist.

We went from seeing 20,000 – 30,000 “leaked” impressions a day across all our campaigns to seeing around 50-100 impressions a day.

All it took was approximately 75 hours of time between three Ad Operations team members, as well as two engineers to come to this theory and resolution. Not bad for nearly $600 per hour if you add up our salaries.

ads.txt by IAB

A Programmatic, Industry-Wide Solution

Several months later, the IAB announced ads.txt, their industry-wide initiative to address and weed out fraudulently represented inventory in the open exchange. This solution allows for sites to place a crawlable text file on their site that informs the buyer (a DSP) which companies are verified to be able to sell their ad space by classifying the SSPs Seller Account ID, Payment Type, and TagID.

Our team has attended the IAB’s open working sessions to help define the criteria and methodology by which ads.txt will eventually be implemented.

In the example provided by the IAB, it would look like this:

http://example.com/ads.txt:
#< SSP/Exchange Domain >, < SellerAccountID >, < PaymentsType >, < TAGID >
greenadexchange.com, 12345, DIRECT, AEC242
blueadexchange.com, 4536, DIRECT
silverssp.com, 9675, RESELLER

While this initiative is much needed and helps create more transparency, there are pending questions:

• How long will it take for publishers and SSP’s to adopt this?
• How long will it take DSP’s to adapt their bidding to this?
• The IAB doesn’t have a solution for in-app traffic yet and the majority of mobile traffic is in-app. If spoofing mobile web dries up, will we see an even higher influx of spoofed in-app traffic?

Like most things, the first iteration of any major initiative is often the most exciting because it’s a fresh idea, but it is by no means complete. Ultimately, the rate of adoption and the effectiveness of the solution will require open feedback from the advertising ecosystem. In doing so, it will help further legitimize the viability of automated advertising for brands around the world.

The post The Cost of Mobile Fighting Ad Fraud: Manual vs. Programmatic appeared first on Infillion.