Spark Ads on TikTok: how to make creators' videos sell

When a creator's video does well on TikTok, it's natural to want to run it as an ad, with her name and the likes it's already picked up. The format that lets you do this is called Spark Ads, and I mentioned it briefly in my article on usage rights. Here I'll go through it step by step, using what TikTok says on its official pages, from the code the creator sends you to what you should agree with her.

What Spark Ads are and how they differ from a normal ad

TikTok calls Spark Ads a native ad format, because it uses organic posts, the ones an account publishes without paying to show them, rather than a video uploaded separately. A brand can promote its own posts this way or, with permission, a creator's, and in that case the ad runs under her name and with the caption she wrote, neither of which can be edited in TikTok Ads Manager, the tool where ads are created. To the people who see it, the ad behaves like any other post, so they can tap the photo to go to the profile or follow the account right there.

In a normal ad, according to the table where TikTok compares the two formats, tapping the ad's button, the caption, the profile photo or the name takes people to the landing page, the page on your site the ad points to, while in a Spark Ad only the button and the caption lead to your site. That also changes how things are counted, because the paid clicks on a normal ad include taps on the photo and the name and those on a Spark Ad don't. Keep that in mind when you compare the click-through rate of the two formats.

How the creator gives you permission

For one of her videos to run as your brand's ad, the creator has to authorise it in the TikTok app. She opens the video, taps the three dots and goes into the ad settings, where she accepts the advertising content terms, turns on ad authorisation and chooses how long the authorisation lasts. Then she generates the video code and sends it to you, and that code is what brings the video into your Ads Manager.

According to TikTok's Help Center, the possible durations are 7, 30, 60 or 365 days. Agree on the duration with the day the ad ends in mind, not the day it starts, because if the authorisation ends before the end date you've set in Ads Manager, an error appears and TikTok asks you to talk to the creator to adjust it. Extending it goes through her too, and when the authorisation expires that's exactly what TikTok tells you to do, contact the creator to extend it, so if an ad is selling well, talk to her before the period runs out.

How to run the video in TikTok Ads Manager

With the code in hand, the rest happens in Ads Manager as you create the campaign, and here are the steps with the menu names TikTok uses in its Help Center:

• In the “Campaign” tab, click “+Create” and choose your objective, which for Spark Ads can be sales, conversions, traffic or reach, among others.
• Fill in the campaign and ad group settings.
• In the “Ad creatives” section, click “+ Add videos or images” and open the “TikTok posts” tab.
• Click “Add post” and paste the code. You can authorise up to 20 codes at a time, and under each post you'll see its authorisation period.
• Pick the post, click “Confirm”, fill in the ad details and the landing page, and finish with “Publish all”.

What counts towards the original post

Everything the ad picks up stays on the creator's post. According to TikTok, the views, comments, shares, likes and follows the video gains while it's being promoted are credited to the organic post. The followers your budget brings in go to her account, and questions about the price or shipping turn up in the comments on her video, so it's worth agreeing who answers them. The video can't disappear from her profile halfway through either, because TikTok only lets it be deleted from the account once its Spark Ad authorisation has been removed.

Which UGC videos work as Spark Ads

A Spark Ad shows up in the feed among everyone else's videos, and that's where a UGC video, short for user-generated content, filmed by a creator with the product in her hand, has the edge. In the creative best practices it publishes for advertisers, TikTok recommends featuring people, whether creators, employees or customers, and a homemade, low-polish style, so the ad blends in with the videos users post. It also asks for the basics: vertical video in 9:16, with sound, and with the essentials inside the safe zone, the part of the screen the app's buttons and text don't cover.

The hook is the opening of the video, the seconds that decide whether someone stays or scrolls past, and TikTok advises putting it in the first six seconds and getting your proposition, what the product does for the viewer, across in the first three. The structure it suggests is the hook, then what makes the product different and, at the end, a clear call to action that tells people what to do next. Since it also suggests three to five different videos in each ad group, it pays to have several versions, and with Spark Ads each one is a post with its own code.

In my UGC campaigns, choosing the creators matters even more when the videos are going to run as Spark Ads. For each product I pick the right creators from my network of more than 100 Portuguese creators, and in this format each one's profile becomes part of the ad, because that's where anyone who taps her name ends up. Then I write the scripts with the hook right at the start and follow the shoots, so each video sounds like a person telling you how she uses the product.

What to agree with the creator

Because a Spark Ad uses the creator's name, face and account for weeks or months, it's worth putting this in writing before she generates the code:

• The post: which videos, how many versions she'll publish and with what caption, because the caption becomes the ad's text and TikTok doesn't let it be changed once it's been authorised.
• Labelling it as advertising: TikTok requires the commercial content disclosure setting to be turned on when a video promotes a brand, and without it the video may be left out of the For You feed. If the creator tags your brand as a partner, Spark Ads authorisation is given by default for 60 days.
• The duration: how many days of authorisation, starting when, and who asks for the extension.
• The music: TikTok says businesses can't use the general music library for commercial purposes and points them to the Commercial Music Library, with pre-cleared tracks.
• The comments: who answers the questions that come up on the video while the ad is running.

When the campaign is with me, these five points can be settled in the script, which I write before anyone films. Then I deliver the videos ready to publish in about five working days, with three months of paid ad usage included. If you tell me what you sell and where you want to advertise, I'll reply within 24 hours.