TikTok has announced its latest machine learning ad solutions, Performance Automation, at its fourth annual TikTok World product summit. The new product aims to automate more of the advertising process, including creative aspects. Advertisers provide the necessary assets, budget, and goals, and TikTok's predictive AI and machine learning select the best creative asset for the campaign.
The platform also launched a similar capability for its TikTok Shop, named TikTok Shop Marketing Automation, which automates bidding, budgeting, ad management, and creative for TikTok Shop products. This product is currently available in South-East Asia and is being tested in the U.S.
Performance Automation and TikTok Shop Marketing Automation are similar to solutions offered by other tech giants, such as Google's Performance Max, Meta's Advantage+, and Amazon's Performance+. These developments confirm that automation is the future direction of the advertising industry.
However, there are concerns about these technologies as they are essentially "set it and forget it" type of campaigns. Marketers provide the assets and data, and the technology takes over, leaving marketers with no way to independently verify the performance of these campaigns.
TikTok is also launching unified lift, a product that measures TikTok campaign performance across the entire decision journey, using brand and conversion lift studies. Other new features include TikTok One, TikTok Symphony, and interactive add-ons for TopView.
Despite legislative challenges, marketers continue to include TikTok in their proposals, indicating that it's business as usual for the platform.
