Eight hundred and fifty eight minutes. That’s the average amount of time TikTok users spend on the app each month.

With TikTok engagement like this, the network is quickly moving away from the fringes of the social media landscape and into the center of forward-thinking brands’ strategies. Between its massive global user base and its investments in brand features, there are a number of reasons to use TikTok for marketing in 2025.

This article outlines how brands architect successful end-to-end TikTok marketing campaigns (vs. one-off experimental videos) to capitalize on this engagement. We’ll also sprinkle in examples of brands that are already working the network to their advantage and insights from a marketer who has successfully incorporated TikTok into her strategy—Meara McNitt, Social Media Director at Online Optimism, one of Sprout Social’s agency partners.

Why TikTok marketing campaigns are so valuable

Since its launch in 2016, TikTok (formerly Musical.ly) has grown by leaps and bounds, quickly cementing its place among established networks like Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Twitter. The following list of statistics highlights some of the many implications of TikTok’s meteoric rise in popularity and why brands are increasingly jumping on the proverbial bandwagon.

How to plan, build and launch memorable TikTok marketing campaigns

Whether your TikTok campaign is organic or paid, there are three primary phases you’ll go through as you execute it—planning, building and launching. Master these three phases to execute winning TikTok campaigns that deliver measurable results.

Table showing the steps that go into the plan, build and launch phases of TikTok marketing campaigns

Phase 1: Plan your TikTok marketing campaign

Strategic planning drives successful TikTok campaigns. These research-based tips set the foundation for campaign success.

Get to know your audience

Your TikTok analytics page can give you demographic details about your viewers. If you’re new to the network, you won’t have enough data to draw conclusions. Consider using analytics from your other social profiles (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.) to make sure you have a grasp on who makes up your audience and what they are looking for.

“A critical lesson I’ve learned from running TikTok campaigns is to try everything,” says McNitt. “Understanding your target audience and using that information to create content that you think will work is still a good place to start.”

Being featured on the For You Page is a badge of honor among TikTokers. But for brands, getting there requires a deep understanding of what people are looking for from the app. This is a great forum to attract new followers, but creating relevant and compelling content is the first step.

Research trends

“While other social platforms require adaptability in order to share the latest information from your company, TikTok also requires you to stay up to date on the latest memes and trends so you can incorporate them into your content,” McNitt notes.

One way to keep current is to regularly investigate the Discover feed, represented by a magnifying glass in the app. Here, you’ll find a sampling of TikTok’s latest trends and example videos you can use for inspiration.

Staying engaged in the app as a user and following major influencers is another best practice that supports your efforts to keep tabs on the latest trends.

Consider trending and branded hashtags

Whether branded or trending (or a combo), hashtags can help your TikTok campaigns resonate with existing and new audiences. They help to categorize content, making it easier for creators and users alike to find what they need.

Some hashtags are especially popular on the network, and are thus ripe for brands to pick up and use. Keep in mind that, with extreme popularity, these hashtags also come with heightened competition.

Focus on hashtag categories that drive engagement:

  • Educational content:#LearnOnTikTok, #HowTo, #Tutorial

  • Behind-the-scenes:#BehindTheScenes, #BTS, #TeamWork

  • Motivational content:#Motivation, #Goals, #Success

  • Interactive formats:#Duet, #Challenge, #Trend

With branded hashtags, brands can encourage users to create original content or interact with the company in specific ways designed to increased engagement.

Phase 2: Build your TikTok marketing campaign

Now that you’ve planned out your marketing campaign, you’re ready to start building. While there are many techniques available for branded campaigns, the following are the most useful for new and experienced TikTok marketers alike.

Use TikTok Shopping

Especially for product-based brands, TikTok Shopping features can be a great way to expose your audience to your goods, whether directly in your videos or on your profile’s product showcase tab. Choose to showcase your inventory with product tags on in-feed videos, LIVE shopping or your product showcase tab.

TikTok has already proven to be a venue where consumers are happy to spend their discretionary dollars. Recent commerce studies show that around 55% of TikTok users have bought a product after seeing it on the platform, and 61% say they discover new brands or products on TikTok—higher than on other social networks. By 2025, the hashtag #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt has exploded to more than 200 billion views, turning casual product mentions into a global social commerce engine.

Partner with creators and influencers

Brands teaming up with influencers is a network-agnostic practice, but on TikTok, it’s often the rule rather than the exception. These collaborations increase brand recall, view rates and engagement.

If you’re not sure where to start, consider diving into the TikTok Creator Marketplace, where you’ll get a directory of influencers and be able to view specifics and stats about each to find the perfect fit for your brand or product.

Try out creative effects

Interesting effects have long been part of TikTok’s appeal. Some popular effects you may have seen on the network include “Duet,” “Green Screen” and “Time Warp Scan.” To make it even easier for brands and creators to apply these effects to their campaigns, TikTok recently created its Effect House, a platform where anyone can build Community Effects and make them available to other users.

When brands leverage these effects and promote them via ad campaigns, TikTok refers to them as “Branded Effects.” At the moment, only brands that have been invited to participate can take advantage of this program, but TikTok says it will expand the program soon.

Phase 3: Launching your TikTok marketing campaign

Once you’ve launched your TikTok marketing campaign, your work is not over. It’s important to stay on top of audience engagement and keep track of how the campaign is performing.

Engage meaningfully with your audience

If you just launch your campaign but don’t maintain its momentum by interacting with your followers, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity. Be authentic, stay consistent in your brand voice and values and humanize your account.

If users are commenting on your videos or otherwise engaging with them, it’s critical that your brand has a presence in the conversation.

Screenshot of how to reply to TikTok comments in Sprout Social

“On TikTok, you typically need to put a face to your brand, rather than relying on graphics and text,” McNitt says. “Making sure you look authentic to TikTok without being too deceptive is also key.”

Amplify user-generated content (UGC)

Another aspect of engagement comes in the form of user-generated content, often triggered by a branded hashtag campaign.

Brands can optimize on this activity by engaging with these users and sharing their content on the brand’s page. One study on social proof finds that 72% of customers consider other customers’ reviews and testimonials more credible than a brand’s own messaging—making TikTok UGC especially persuasive.

“While it can certainly drive conversions, TikTok is a key platform for encouraging word of mouth and consumer endorsement,” McNitt notes.

Measure campaign success

“Measuring conversions from TikTok campaigns can be challenging, because you might not see many direct paths of users seeing an ad, swiping up, and making a purchase,” McNitt says. “Keep in mind that this platform excels at driving brand awareness, and it will be better to watch for correlation between flight dates, views, and sales.”

As with any campaign, keeping track of its performance is critical. Getting the data you need to be nimble throughout the duration requires the right tools.

With Sprout Social’s TikTok integration, marketers can zoom in on the most relevant metrics to quickly analyze and optimize their video performance. Teams have the option of seeing all their TikTok metrics in one place, comparing TikTok posts against other networks’ and digging into TikTok campaign effectiveness.

Screenshot of a report in Sprout Social showing a brand's top TikTok posts by engagements

Essential TikTok marketing tools for campaign success

Executing a winning TikTok strategy requires more than just a great idea. You need the right tools to streamline your workflow and prove your impact.

While TikTok offers native features for basic uploads and analytics, scaling your efforts demands a more powerful solution. A comprehensive social media management platform like Sprout Social centralizes your TikTok marketing alongside your other social platforms.

Sprout Social’s TikTok integration delivers capabilities unavailable in native tools: schedule videos up to 13 months in advance (versus TikTok’s 10-day limit), manage TikTok comments alongside messages from all your other social platforms in one unified inbox, and access effectively unlimited historical analytics data compared to TikTok’s native analytics, which are limited to roughly the past 60 days for many metrics. You’ll also benefit from Optimal Send Times, helping maximize the reach of your content by identifying the best times to post based on when your audience is most active.

Beyond publishing, Sprout Social helps you manage every aspect of your TikTok presence. Reply to video comments from a shared message inbox that consolidates messages across all your social networks. The platform breaks down silos by giving marketing, customer care and social teams one unified view of your TikTok performance.

Measuring and optimizing your TikTok marketing campaigns

A successful TikTok campaign is one you can measure. Without data, you’re just guessing.

Focus on metrics that drive business results:

  • Engagement rate: Comments and shares per view, indicating content resonance

  • Completion rate: Percentage of users watching full videos

  • Click-through rate: Traffic driven to your website or landing pages

  • Conversion tracking: Sales and leads generated from TikTok content

TikTok’s native analytics only show you metrics for the last 60 days, limiting your ability to track long-term trends and measure campaign effectiveness over time.

With Sprout Social’s analytics, you’ll have access to comprehensive TikTok data that doesn’t disappear after 60 days. You can measure how your results change over longer periods of time, giving you the historical context you need to make informed decisions.

Sprout Social’s TikTok Profile Report gives you all of your TikTok-specific metrics in one view, while the Post Performance Report lets you analyze how your TikTok posts compare to other networks. The Profile Performance Report shows you how your TikTok profile grew compared to other networks, making it easy to track audience expansion across platforms.

Presentation-ready reports show your TikTok performance in a format that stakeholders understand instantly, regardless of their familiarity with social media. You can customize reports with the metrics that matter most to your business, connecting social performance directly to strategic objectives and demonstrating clear ROI.

Conquer your TikTok marketing campaigns

TikTok marketing is evolving from experimental to essential. Brands that master strategic campaign development now position themselves ahead of competitors still treating the platform as an afterthought.

Ready to start or refine your TikTok marketing campaigns? Learn more about how Sprout Social’s TikTok integration supports you to organize and grow your end-to-end video strategy across social media platforms with video scheduling, comment management and presentation-ready reports.

Frequently asked questions about TikTok marketing

How is TikTok used in marketing?

TikTok marketing involves creating strategic short-form video campaigns that build brand awareness, engage communities and drive sales. Successful brands develop consistent content strategies, partner with creators and use data to measure business impact.

What is the 3 second rule on TikTok?

The three-second rule states that you have just three seconds to capture a viewer’s attention before they scroll away. Your video’s opening must be immediately engaging, visually interesting or emotionally compelling to stop the scroll.

How do you measure TikTok marketing success?

Measuring TikTok success means looking beyond views. Key metrics include engagement rate (likes, comments, shares), video completion rate, follower growth and traffic to your website. Using a social media management platform like Sprout Social, you can track these metrics over time and compare TikTok’s performance against your other social platforms.

What type of content performs best on TikTok?

TikTok users engage most with short-form videos ranging from 15 to 60 seconds long. They’re particularly interested in entertaining content, influencer partnerships and contests or giveaways. The platform rewards authenticity over polish. Content that feels native, relatable and genuinely valuable to the audience consistently outperforms overly produced brand content.

How often should brands post on TikTok?

Consistency matters more than frequency on TikTok. While the platform doesn’t penalize you for posting less often, maintaining a regular posting schedule helps you stay relevant with your audience. Many successful brands post at least three to five times per week, with Wednesday and Thursday showing the strongest performance.