On TikTok, traditional advertising is no longer enough. To capture the attention of an ultra-engaged audience, brands need to combine creativity, authenticity and targeting. This is precisely where the alliance between TikTok Ads and influencer marketing makes all the difference. Far from being two opposing strategies, they reinforce each other to boost visibility, conversion and recall. Integrating influence into a campaign requires a clear vision of the overall advertising strategy on TikTok. It can also be useful to master the workings of the advertising formats offered by TikTok, to choose the right lever for your influencer partners.
Zoom in on a powerful combination that advertisers can no longer ignore.
Influencer marketing on TikTok: a relationship of trust serving your brand
Influencer marketing on TikTok involves collaborating with influential content creators to promote a product or brand through engaging native videos. These creators, whether nano, micro or macro-influencers, produce a variety of formats such as tutorials, product reviews, challenges or sketches in tune with TikTok culture. Why do brands rely on TikTok influencers?
A massive, committed audience
With over a billion monthly active users worldwide, TikTok is particularly popular with Generation Z and millennials – key targets for many brands.
Strong credibility
82% of users say they trust reviews seen on social networks. Influencer recommendations are perceived as more authentic than traditional advertising messages.
High virality potential
Creators’ content can go viral in a matter of hours, generating organic visibility that few platforms can match.
Ultra-targeted marketing
Each influencer federates a community around precise centers of interest, enabling refined targeting based on values, behaviors or consumer habits.
A lever for keeping up with trends
Influencers are often the first to adopt new codes or formats. By partnering with them, brands stay in step with the platform.
TikTok Ads, high-paying campaigns with great potential
TikTok Ads, or sponsored advertising, enables brands to broadcast their messages to an audience defined according to very precise criteria (age, gender, interests, behavior, etc.). The model is mainly based on cost-per-click (CPC), with average budgets ranging from €1,500 to €50,000 per month by 2025, and CPCs from €0.50 to €3.
The main objectives of TikTok Ads:
- Increase brand awareness
- Generate leads or sales
- Stimulate engagement (likes, comments, shares)
- Developing a loyal community
With its high-performance advertising tools, TikTok offers advertisers powerful leverage to achieve their objectives, provided they master the platform’s codes.
Leverage: why combine influencer marketing and TikTok Ads?
The combination of TikTok Ads and influencer marketing increases the impact of campaigns tenfold. This is what we call Influencer Marketing 2.0, or the art of amplifying creators’ organic content via targeted advertising campaigns.
This synergy offers several advantages:
- Improved performance: Sponsored content resulting from influencer partnerships often converts better than traditional branded advertising.
- Extended reach: By sponsoring influencer content, we go beyond the creator’s own community to reach new audiences.
- Precise targeting: thanks to the advertising tool, brands can choose to whom, when and how to distribute content.
- Better performance tracking: You can now measure the direct impact of influencer content (sales, clicks, engagement, etc.).
Three approaches to combining TikTok Ads and influence
TikTok offers several advertising formats to promote influencer content. Here are the three most effective:
Sponsor a publication from the influencer’s account (Spark Ads / Whitelisting)
Spark Ads enable brands to directly sponsor a video published by a creator, while preserving the authenticity of his or her account. The result: native advertising content, perceived as organic by users, at a cost that is often 30% lower than traditional In-Feed Ads.
Brands benefit from a stronger “ambassador” effect, and influencers from increased visibility.
Distribute content from the brand’s account
Quicker to set up, this method involves publishing the influencer’s content on the brand’s account, then sponsoring it. This is similar to an ambassador program, where the influencer provides content that can be used at will.
Less perceived as intrusive than traditional advertising, this approach remains highly effective in combining brand image and proximity to the audience.
Promote UGC (User Generated Content) content
UGC are testimonials or scenes spontaneously produced by consumers. Combined with In-Feed Ads, they reinforce a brand’s credibility and encourage purchasing decisions.
Nano and micro-influence campaigns can stimulate the creation of UGC, while generating concrete returns.
Keys to a successful TikTok influence + Ads strategy
To maximize the effectiveness of your campaigns, here are a few best practices to follow:
- Target precisely and define clear objectives: start by establishing your KPIs (CPV, CTR, ROAS) and identify your ideal audience.
- Choosing the right influencers: consistency between the designer’s universe and your brand is essential for campaign performance.
- Test and iterate: allocate part of the budget to testing (formats, content, targets). A/B testing enables continuous optimization of results.
- Create TikTok-first content: to capture attention, your content must respect the platform’s native codes (trendy, full-screen format, integrated sound, dynamic editing).
- Leverage TikTok’s Smart+ campaigns: these AI-based automated solutions optimize targeting and distribution according to your objectives.
- Take advantage of the high points of the year: the post-holiday period, for example, is ideal for disseminating content focused on well-being or good resolutions.
TikTok Ads + influence, an unavoidable combination for 2025
By combining the targeting power of TikTok Ads with the credibility of influencer marketing, brands can create a winning dynamic that maximizes visibility, engagement and ROI. In an ecosystem where authenticity is paramount, and where users consume content as peer-to-peer recommendations, this hybrid strategy is an indispensable lever for advertisers wishing to succeed on TikTok.
Are you hesitating to take the plunge? Start by identifying one or two influencers aligned with your universe, test a Spark Ad, and observe how it performs. Or better still, call on our TikTok Ads experts!
