At NC, our approach to innovation thrives on constant evolution. We believe in achieving strategic "micro-wins" by continuously testing and adapting our methods. This commitment means staying at the forefront of every new update, beta, and AI advancement from our key partners, including TikTok. When the TikTok Demand Gen Leadership Summit arrived in NYC, the NC team eagerly immersed themselves in 24 hours dedicated to the future of performance marketing on this dynamic platform.

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The summit hammered home several critical themes, with TikTok's evolution beyond entertainment to a full-funnel marketing powerhouse taking center stage. Users spend over 90 minutes a day on the platform, and a surprising 23% search within 30 seconds of opening the app, often researching and purchasing products directly within TikTok.

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Unlocking Audience Insights with Market Scope and Brand Consideration Ads

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TikTok is rolling out powerful new tools to help advertisers optimize performance and gain deeper insights. The NC team learned about the new "Market Scope" analytics offering, which enables advertisers to examine key audience insights based on where they are within the buying cycle. This tool separates audiences into "Awareness," "Consideration," and "Conversion" categories, providing a more nuanced understanding of audience specifics. Critically, Market Scope tracks over 12 signals to identify the "Consideration" audience, who are 14- 16x more likely to convert than those in the awareness stage. This precision allows for honing in on this specific, high-intent segment.’

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Building on these insights, Brand Consideration Ads are a new campaign objective designed to grow the high-intent, mid-funnel audience pool – users already showing meaningful signs of exploration and engagement. Utilizing the same signals as Market Scope, these ads offer an easy way to convert insights into targeted promotions for a more active audience.

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Streamlined Lead Generation and CRM Integration

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TikTok supports two destination options for lead generation: TikTok Instant Page or a third-party site/form, with destination optimization helping choose the most effective conversion point. A strong emphasis was placed on passing leads into CRMs for real-time activation, and TikTok is actively expanding its CRM integrations. The platform recommends capturing omnichannel lead events and focusing on deeper funnel actions (e.g., contact schedule, place an order) over surface-level CPL metrics, aiming to generate at least 50 events within 14 days and ensure a deep funnel conversion rate (beyond just lead form submissions) is over 5%.

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Smart Plus Automation Solution: Amplifying Existing Strategies

Smart Plus is TikTok's automation solution, designed to amplify existing data-backed strategies and target audiences rather than completely taking over campaigns. This solution automates campaign setup and optimization, improving lead generation and conversion. Benefits include creative variation generation, audience expansion via algorithmic targeting, and reduced setup time by over 25%. Best practices recommend using 10x CPA as a starting budget and avoiding campaign edits during the 7-day learning phase. These practices have resulted in up to 81% more conversions and 23% lower CPA for advertisers.

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Creative Strategy & Tools: Quantity, Quality, and AI

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Creativity is paramount on TikTok; both quantity and quality significantly impact ROAS. Recommendations include maintaining at least 3-5 fresh creatives per week and leveraging GenAI and Symphony tools for refreshing and editing creatives. The TikTok Creator Marketplace helps scale branded content, offering solutions like AI-generated avatars, image-to-video tools, script generators, and creative relevancy diagnostics.

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TikTok Search Ads: High Intent, Higher Conversions

Search ads on TikTok now mimic traditional search engines, with one in four search results capable of being an ad. These offer 20% higher conversions due to targeting high-intent users. Different match types (broad, phrase, exact) are available for keyword control. TikTok encourages advertisers to use its keyword tool to "TikTokify" terms and align creative with search intent for better performance.

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Measurement & Attribution: Proving Incremental Value

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A robust measurement strategy is emphasized, likened to a GPS for a long road trip. TikTok supports Attribution Analytics (click/view windows, time to convert) and Conversion Lift Studies (CLS) to prove incremental lift via randomized control tests. Multi-cell CLS can test strategic changes like funnel shifts, and split tests are available for tactical changes (creative, bidding, etc.). The platform highlights that its impact is 2-3x higher than typically reported through last-click attribution.

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Industry Tools & Partnerships

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The summit underscored the importance of integrating data. Zapier integration allows for lead enrichment, routing, and automation directly from TikTok to CRMs, with over 200 million AI tasks on Zapier demonstrating widespread automation use. The critical roles of RevOps and Marketing Ops in scaling efforts were also highlighted.

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Creative Enablement for Small Teams

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For smaller institutions, TikTok offers solutions to overcome challenges in producing vertical video assets. Leveraging organic content, student ambassadors, and TikTok's creative exchange and UGC solutions can drive lead volume and quality. TikTok also offers support programs to help meet spend thresholds and scale for small teams.

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General Best Practices & Strategic Advice

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Key strategic advice included minimizing changes during learning phases or lift studies, aligning creative with search keywords for relevancy, and testing carousel ads (which can be up to 10x more effective). The focus should be on deep funnel performance metrics, not just CPL, and always building campaigns with KPIs and testing hypotheses in mind.

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The TikTok Demand Gen Leadership Summit was an intense and incredibly informative event. The NC team left NYC energized and equipped with the latest strategies and tools to deliver even greater performance for its clients. NC remains committed to continuous innovation, and its proactive engagement with platforms like TikTok ensures they are always at the forefront of what's next. Get ready for even more powerful campaigns!

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