The art and science of marketing effectiveness

By Jorge Ruiz, Global Head of Marketing Science

TikTok has emerged as a powerful platform for brands to connect with their audiences. While many are familiar with TikTok's explosive growth and cultural impact, fewer understand the sophisticated science driving its success as a platform for brand-building and business growth.

As TikTok's Global Head of Marketing Science, I have the privilege and fortune to lead a very talented team at the heart of ensuring that every ad dollar spent on our platform not only captures real business value, but also helps to uncover insights and learnings. Measurement is a learning journey to prove and improve business outcomes for advertisers, and our role is to help clients navigate that journey so they can maximize those outcomes relative to their efforts and investments on TikTok.

Ultimately, we're here to help our clients master effectiveness on our platform - and to give them the confidence to grow and scale. The perspective I'd like to share with you builds on a few good milestones from this journey over the last few years.

Measurement is a learning journey to prove and improve business outcomes for advertisers, and our role is to help clients navigate that journey so they can maximize those outcomes relative to their efforts and investments on TikTok.

Jorge Ruiz

The magic of Marketing Science

Here at TikTok Marketing Science, we're all about digging deep into the why and how of ad effectiveness. Our mission is to answer two fundamental questions: do the ads work, and why and how do they work? Our team comprises measurement, research, and data science functions, and we work closely with product and client teams to delve into these questions and find ways to unlock value. This holistic approach ensures that TikTok provides marketers with the value and sophistication they expect - and that they're able to run high-performing campaigns on our platform.

Measurement can often be seen as a prescriptive area that only a few delve deeply into. However, it goes beyond crunching numbers; it's about clear insights, recommendations, and accountable follow-through across the organization. I find great excitement in the innovation happening right now, particularly in markets where clients are able to bring analytically-minded planning to life early, thus ensuring that their measurement framework and process can be resilient.

And this works across the campaign lifecycle, because we know just how much creative can have an impact. We're constantly unlocking new insights and evidence to help brands make informed decisions, and ultimately forge stronger connections with their audience.

The journey from measurement to outcomes

When the TikTok for Business platform first launched, our first set of global studies was aimed at proving its value through media mix models. We partnered with Nielsen to run these models globally, and in every model we ran, we saw consistent return on ad spend, effectiveness and efficiency for TikTok.

Today, the conversation has evolved beyond proving TikTok works, to focusing on how brands can improve and grow with TikTok. This evolution underscores our commitment to driving not just impressions, but true engagement with audiences, creating meaningful connections for brands, and ultimately leading to the business outcomes that are most important to them.

This approach allows TikTok to meet marketers where they are and evolve alongside them. We continually refresh our measurement strategies to keep pace with industry changes and consumer behavior. Today, brands are asking how to grow with TikTok and seeking to understand metrics like incremental reach. We've expanded beyond brand measurement and into performance and commerce. As our clients have diversified in categories and objectives, our suite of first-party and third-party measurement solutions have expanded to keep up. Beyond mix models, we now offer tools like Attribution Analytics, conversion lift studies, unified lift, post-purchase surveys, and more. It's a growth journey, applying a holistic measurement portfolio to help brands answer the right questions at the right time.

And let's not forget the power of collaboration—working with industry leaders in the measurement space allows us to be at the cutting edge of marketing innovation. Our success in building measurement capabilities is also thanks to our expansive and growing ecosystem of measurement partners. Through these partnerships, our advertisers have access to a growing suite of third-party solutions, such as cross-media audience measurement across TV and other video platforms.

While our core measurement questions remain consistent across markets, we tailor our execution to meet local needs. From low to full-funnel marketing to strategic brand planning, TikTok's solutions and approach are as diverse as our global user base.

Guiding brands to success

Advertising success isn't just about following a set of best practices; it's about having clarity and alignment on goals and working together towards them.

I'm excited to see that clients and marketers are creating more sophisticated learning agendas, and understanding how to turn a research construct into a measurement operation. Regardless of the tools you use to measure, it's important to have a robust internal measurement discipline, and create accountability around data-driven decision-making. Whether you're relying on attention metrics or advanced econometric modeling, you have to have that accountability in order to scale what's truly working for your business.

Our team works with advertisers throughout this journey - and sometimes the journey is long. You can't gain all of your learnings from a three-day campaign; often it takes much longer to truly optimize your approach.

When it comes to success on TikTok, it's also crucial to think about creative effectiveness, and build for the platform. TikTok thrives on authenticity and creativity. A TV spot works best for a TV campaign, and while a good TV ad can also work on TikTok, a natively-built ad with TikTok-first tone, style, and creators works better. It's refreshing to see that clients are now focusing more on getting the creative right first, and then aligning the media strategy around that. It's a shift towards prioritizing creative, not as an afterthought, but as a central element.

Where creative brilliance meets scientific insight

Despite our global reach, we know one size doesn't fit all. That's why we're all about customization, with building towards advertiser success as our north star. And this is why we've built up an industry-leading Marketing Science team that's not just smart but also deeply committed to making a difference, driving us forward in our mission to pair creative brilliance with scientific insight. This ensures that we can inspire action based on the insights we provide.

In a space where marketing strategies are continuously evolving, TikTok’s commitment to blending creative insight with robust full-funnel measurement sets us apart. By focusing on measurable outcomes, innovative collaboration, and authentic engagement, TikTok is guiding brands towards meaningful success built to scale and built to last. Together.

Check out Beet.TV's fireside chat with Jorge: TikTok's Measurement Chief Jorge Ruiz: ‘Build For The Platform’