Click Through Reads #58: Gen Z Marketing Reports & Opportunities

Hello Click Through Readers! Once again, we’ve got some news for you this week...

We all know TikTok has a reputation for its ability to provide endless hours of entertainment, but TikTok released a report that sheds light on the platform's influence on the customer purchase journey. TikTok is also working on their brand safety habits in their new partnership with Zefer. 

Also, Snapchat rolled out a new update for its Snap Stars, and—if you haven’t heard—Google is now allowing bullet points in their ad descriptions!

Let’s dive in!

TikTok’s Impact on the Purchase Journey

TikTok has released a new report providing insights into the role the platform plays for brands looking to move consumers down the purchase funnel. 

Contrary to the common linear purchase journey moving from top to bottom, TikTok suggests that there is no start and end point but rather an infinite loop, fueled by the community's desire to constantly learn and discover something new. 

Key findings:

• 49% of TikTok users say that the app is a good place to discover something new.
• 44% of TikTok users discover products from videos posted by brands.
• Compared to other platforms’ users, TikTok-ers are 1.5x more likely to immediately go and buy something they discovered on the platform. 

Impacts at every stage of the purchase journey:

• Discovery 
  • TikTok is 1.7x more likely than other platforms to be the source for product discovery.

• Consideration
  • TikTok users are 1.4x more likely than other platforms’ users to research products/brands they find on the platform.

• Purchase
  • TikTok users are 1.4x more likely than the platforms’ users to buy a product they saw on the platform.

Here’s an infographic with more details of the findings!

TikTok Partners with Zefr to Assist Brand Safety

With the hope of increasing advertisers' trust that ads won’t be shown alongside offensive or risqué material, TikTok has partnered with Zefr, a brand safety solution platform. 

Zefr’s dashboard features insights into individual campaign safety and suitability by mapping them against the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) Suitability Risk categories. 

The two categories measured are: 

• Brand Safety: Objectively bad for brands, excluded by default, and aligned to GARM brand safety floor. 
• Brand Suitability: Subjective risk by brand, included/excluded by preference, aligned to GARM brand suitability definitions. 

The key component of Zefr’s technology is their ‘Cognition AI’ that processes audio, text, and frame-by-frame video analysis, alongside a scaled-human review to determine the scores. 

Having a more secure way of reassuring brands that their ads will be seen with safe content will hopefully encourage more advertisers to spend on the platform. 

Snapchat Releases Mid-Roll Ads for Snap Star Stories

In Snapchat’s continued efforts to support creators on their platform, they have announced new mid-roll advertisements in Snap Star Stories (Snap Stars are Snapchat creators that receive more than 50,000 viewers per story). 

This is currently in beta testing with select Snap Stars in the U.S., but the ultimate goal of this new ad placement is to allow creators to receive a portion of the revenue generated from ads within their public stories. The ad specs for this placement will remain the same as other single image or video ads on the platform, which will enable advertisers to properly test the same creative in this new placement.

Snapchat said they are hoping for a “flywheel effect” from this new ad offering, rewarding eligible Snap Stars for their content and spurring them to create even more engaging content.

So what does that mean for advertisers? This provides us with a new ad placement opportunity to reach our Gen Z and Millennial community, who can often be difficult to reach with common ad placements. 

Google Experimenting with Bulleted Lists Within Search Ads

Search ads with bulleted lists have been spotted in the wild! 

As confirmed by @adsliaison via Twitter, Ginni Marvin confirms bulleted lists are being experimented within descriptions.