TikTok is on track to overtake the ad revenue of both Twitter and Snapchat combined by the end of this year, looking likely to rival advertising giant YouTube by 2024. The app has had massive increases in growth over the last several years and has been working to make improvements to its services. This could be particularly exciting for marketers and affiliates, who are increasingly using the platform to advertise their brands.
The popularity of TikTok has increased exponentially over the last couple of years and has fast become one of the most important digital media platforms out there. It is extremely popular with consumers, particularly the younger Gen Z users, and is quickly becoming a vital tool used by marketers to appeal to this demographic in particular.
Back in December 2019, TikTok had around 508 million active monthly users, but this number skyrocketed over the pandemic to sitting at over 1 billion active users as of April 2022, making it one of the world’s most popular social media platforms.
In 2021, TikTok managed to take the crown from Google as the most popular web address worldwide, and this has given brands the push to start finding new ways to work with the app and integrate it into their marketing strategies. We are now seeing an increase in businesses using TikTok for e-commerce solutions and other marketing strategies.
TikTok was originally published as a dancing and lip-syncing app where the focus was on creating and taking part in trends as well as connecting with other creators. There is a “stitch” feature which allows users to collaborate with other creators and make content together. TikTok content creators have become dedicated and innovative, always working hard to publish new, exciting content and as a result, have developed a strong bond with their audiences.
This has become a great opportunity for affiliate marketing opportunities, with TikTok creators having amassed an expansive and extremely loyal audience through a lot of hard work and dedication. This makes content creators ideal candidates for affiliate partners, with an effective affiliate increasing ad revenue substantially for a low cost to the company. This is because affiliate marketers usually work on a cost-per-action basis, meaning that they are compensated only for successful sales or website visits.
TikTok has found a way to help businesses reach extremely engaging, dedicated audiences through the use of affiliate marketers, who are increasing the ad revenue of TikTok as well as most businesses through little additional work.
This increase in interest across casual users and brands too is making TikTok’s ad revenue climb higher than ever before and is soon set to overtake the ad revenue of both Twitter and Snapchat combined, according to reports.
The ad revenue of TikTok is reportedly expected to triple this year, from $3.88 billion to a massive $11.64 billion. This will overtake Twitter and Snapchat even when their totals are combined, with reports sitting at $5.58 billion and $4.86 billion respectively, coming in at a total of $10.44 billion.
Looking into the future, if these trends continue TikTok could be looking at an estimated ad revenue from across the world of around $23.58 billion by just 2024. This would take it significantly closer to the totals shown by YouTube, which are currently sitting at around $23.65 billion in ad revenue. This would take both platforms to make up around 3% of the digital ad market globally, compared to Meta’s 21% and Google’s 30%.
Although TikTok is still showing small numbers, this is a massive increase and would prove extremely useful in future marketing techniques. This is something the app has noticed and started to act upon, with TikTok investing significantly in the development of its privacy, commerce and advert measurement as well as adding in creator tools and even going so far as to launch a TV app which will allow TikTok to be displayed and linked to larger screens such as in restaurants and gyms.
These improvements will allow TikTok to take a larger share of marketers’ budgets, as well as work towards earning their trust in the app itself. This comes after figures showing that over half of the ad revenue for TikTok this year is estimated to be coming from the U.S., which will be bringing the business almost $6 billion alone. However, there have been recent regulatory concerns in regard to consumer data across the U.S. after the former president raised concerns about the security of the app and made moves to ban it.
In response, TikTok has put in the work to improve security and include new features that will help marketers to create and share viral content, increase demand for products and develop social commerce across the board.
Overall, these developments have improved the already successful application immensely, allowing it to generate significantly more ad revenue and create an incredibly lucrative space for marketers and influencers to work together on affiliate marketing programs to develop businesses.
