All you need to know about TikTok’s Dynamic Showcase Ads and how to set them up with Channable

Dynamic Showcase Ads are currently not available in all markets. Please check with TikTok if you are eligible to launch DSAs.

TikTok advertising: What are TikTok Dynamic Showcase Ads (DSA)?

TikTok’s Dynamic Showcase Ads (DSAs) are customized video ads. They’re created in real-time based on an ad template. This template is filled with product information from a product catalog that’s regularly updated.

DSAs are TikTok’s version of Dynamic Product Ads. They're a type of social ad popular among advertisers who use them to promote large product portfolios in apps and across social advertising platforms, including Facebook, Instagram or Snapchat.

DSAs are a key part of TikTok’s full-service eCommerce solution. It comprises of an array of ad formats and tools designed to give businesses the “opportunity to capture the full power of TikTok's influence on purchase decisions.”

On TikTok, authenticity is crucial, says Rochelle White, CEO of a Gen Z focused digital marketing agency that has worked with clients including Adidas, Asos, Skoda, VW and more.

“Consumers see through polished content and even fake content. Users on TikTok use the platform for 3 key things: education, entertainment and inspiration.”

“If you're fake, your content won't resonate with any of your target audience.” It’s why advertisers are turning to DSAs.

What are the benefits of Dynamic Showcase Ads?

Typically, advertisers use DSAs to build awareness and drive app downloads. They achieve this by promoting products and retargeting potential customers to increase purchase intent – and it works!

There are three main benefits for running TikTok Dynamic Showcase Ads:

1. Advertise a large product portfolio at scale

TikTok ads are based on templates, which are automatically filled with information from a product catalog. This makes them a powerful and effective solution to advertise large product portfolios at scale in a personalized way.

Everything’s done automatically, saving marketers the cost and expense of having to create thousands of individual ads manually.

2. Create highly personalized content

DSAs make It easier than ever for advertisers to create personalized content. The adaptability and optimization of product catalogs in real time (e.g filtering out-of-stock products) enable you to (re-) target relevant products to audiences showing a specific behavior or interest. TikTok’s advertising formats and creative templates blend seamlessly with the content created by users, so ads appear more native making them more appealing and effective.

3. Target customers across devices

DSAs can be used to target customers who’ve shown interest in an advertiser's products across platforms and devices. Advertisers can target an interested visitor, who initially browsed a website on a desktop computer and later re-visits it on a mobile device. Ads are served seamlessly across platforms.

How do Dynamic Showcase Ads work?

At the core of Dynamic Showcase Ads is a product feed. This is a data-file, which contains all of your product information. You’ll need to ensure that this feed is constantly updated and optimized to make DSA’s as effective as possible.

The product feed is connected to TikTok’s Ads Manager, where the ad template pulls the product information from the feed to create the final ad. Dynamic Showcase Ads can be targeted to two types of audiences:

1. Potential new customers

TikTok allows advertisers to specify a custom audience on the ad group level to whom the dynamic video ads should be shown.

2. Retargeting audience

One of the most interesting – and effective – ways of using DSAs is by retargeting an audience. Your ads will be displayed to any user who has shown interest in a brand or product on an app, a website, or the TikTok platform itself.

TikTok tracks customer behavior via a pixel for websites or an SDK for apps. Marketers can use this information intelligently to drive clicks. An advertiser can set up certain “events”, which tell TikTok what type of behavior and products to cross reference with the uploaded product catalog in order to serve an ad for the same product again.

4 reasons to consider TikTok advertising right now

With over 1 billion active users, TikTok is a social media behemoth. Some of the world’s biggest brands and best marketers have quickly realized the unique advantages of the platform.

Here are 4 reasons why brands, retailers, and digital marketers should advertise on TikTok:

Reach Gen Z

According to Wallaroo Media and Statista, TikTok’s main audience is Generation Z (age 10-19). This demographic makes up an impressive one quarter of its users (25%). Late Millennials (age 20-29) are second, almost 22% of the platform’s total users.

The lesson? TikTok and Instagram are the only social platforms that reach this many young adults and teenagers.

The impact for a brand can be massive, says White. She describes working on a project for a well-known drinks brand. “ Building a brand that can freely express itself without having to fight the algorithms or fit in with anyone else, is refreshing.

This provides a new way for brands to be creative, tell their story and for users to engage and discover new products,” she says.

Getting the right ad approach has had incredible results. In just 6 months, the results were:

• 1.7m views on the advert
• 13.7k on organic content
• Increased followers from 12,567 to 222.9k
• 33.5k account likes

The brand decided to extend its reach from Instagram Reels into TikTok, but had to adjust its approach for the audience.

High engagement rates

According to The Verge, youngsters, aged four to fifteen, spend an average of 80 minutes per day on TikTok. The average TikTok user spends 52 minutes per day using the platform.

These are impressive numbers when compared to other platforms, with users spending just 28 minutes on Instagram and 30 minutes on Snapchat.

The majority (68%) of users watch, like (63%) and follow (63%) other people, which enables ads and videos to organically spread, which can lead to huge exposure for campaigns. Especially when using TikTok’s full advertising capabilities, like hashtag challenges and live streams.

Engagement on the platform can be broken down as follows:

TikTok users (really) like to shop, but buy on impulsive

According to research from GWI, more than 80% of TikTok users are more likely to cite a “buy button” on a social media platform as a purchase driver compared to users on other social networks.

According to TikTok, its users are 1.7x more likely to have purchased a product they discovered from the TikTok app than any other social media platforms.

However, only 14% actively research products on TikTok (compared to 28% of other social networks), highlighting the impulsive nature of shopping on the platform. Users who see it, want to buy it – straight away.

TikTok showcases its work with Aerie, a women’s athletic brand. Using DSAs, the brand was able to automatically target users with thousands of different products. The results showed a 7.88 ROAS, with a 78% more efficient cost per purchase than goal.

TikTok is great at increasing awareness and top-of-funnel communication

The research from GWI also sheds light on how successful brands currently advertise on TikTok advertising. Top of funnel communication (such as creating brand awareness by sharing marketing messages) is a key objective for over a third (33%). Just a quarter (26%) of campaigns aim to achieve a direct sales lift.

“All the ad campaigns we’ve run on TikTok have been tested to work out the effectiveness of future promotions,” says Kristian Sturt, owner and lead influencer marketing agency Colossal Influence. “What we worked out in this time is that as of today TikTok tends to offer better value than IG and Youtube when done correctly (their native ad platform).”

TikTok advertising is highly cost-effective, says Sturt.

“Brands often use TikTok to promote to Gen Z in short-form content. As of today, it tends to offer decent value when compared to its counterparts on social media because comparatively it’s a new platform and so price points are still being formed/being kept lower to entice companies.”

6 Steps to set up and run TikTok DSAs with Channable

By now, you should understand why advertising on TikTok is critical for retail brands and businesses. Setting up campaigns on TikTok is simple, if you know what you’re doing. Channable makes it as easy as possible to create campaigns that increase awareness and drive engagement among hard-to-reach customers.

Here are 6 steps to set up and run TikTok DSAs with Channable.

1. Create a Channable TikTok Product Feed

It’s now easier than ever to have your source feed updated, optimized and ready to go for TikTok’s Dynamic Showcase Ads. Channable enables you to create, manage and evaluate social selling campaigns that target Gen Z. Read our Social Commerce in 2022 guide to learn how to drive conversions across TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat and more.

Simply upload your products to Channable and create a TikTok feed channel: It’s simple to categorize your products.

You can use Channable’s rules to enrich and optimize the product information and map all relevant fields to match TikTok’s requirements.

2. Create a Product Catalog on TikTok Ads Manager

Enter TikTok’s Ad Manager to create a product catalog within the platform.

3. Connect the product feed to the Product Catalog

Use the URL generated in the “feed setup” step in Channable to integrate your updated product feed into the TikTok product catalogue.

Once a catalog is created, you can connect Channable’s product feed to the platform by inserting the Feed’s URL. TikTok automatically loads all products into your catalog and keeps the product file up to date. You can manage the feed completely within Channable. Any updates will be updated on TikTok in less than an hour.

4. Generate one or more video templates for your catalog

This is the fun part. TikTok provides you with a huge range of ad templates in the same style as user content. You can adapt and adjust these to suit your brand.

5. Integrate Events

If you want to retarget a specific audience, which has taken action on your website or app, you’ll need to fill in the pixel and set up “events”. TikTok then tracks this behavior and matches it with your product catalog.

6. Choose your audience and launch your campaign

You’re almost done! Here you can set up campaigns, ad groups and ads. At the ad group level you are able to select your catalog and product sets as well as choose the audience.

At ad level you can specify your video ad design and (deep) link your ads to your preferred destination.

Conclusion

One thing is certain: Advertising is changing. Users on TikTok don’t want generic ads, they want personalization - and delivering it pays. “In most cases they’ll give authentic content a shot, and as long as it's displayed as an ad no rules are being broken,” says Sturt. Using DSAs is a shortcut to better CTR, engagement and overall, higher ROAS.

DSAs enable you to create a brand with personality, and that's powerful, says White. “Building a brand that can freely express itself without having to fight the algorithms or fit in with anyone else, is refreshing,” she says.

Channable makes it simple to generate thousands of ads in an instant, helping you to reach Gen Z consumers more efficiently and effectively than ever before.

If you’re a Channable customer, you can trial TikTok DSAs in your existing Channable account.

Not signed up? Contact us today for your free trial.