ARTICLE: https://www.rankster.co/p/death-media-buyer

Rankster Team
August 01, 2024

Death of the Media Buyer ☠️

TikTok just changed the game……Introduced GMV Max Ads

You don’t need to run ads on TikTok Shop….. let TikTok do it for you.

If your job is to run ads on TikTok….. you will be unemployed….. Thanks TikTok 🤬

– Every TikTok Agency

⚙️ How It Works

Look how smart we are…..

It’s genius…. imagine if Amazon built an Amazon Sponsored Ads campaign that achieves better results than the best Amazon Ads manager.

That’s what GMV Max ads are on TikTok.

In a nutshell:

These ads use all your content, published on TikTok, to create AI driven ad campaigns.
You set the budget and goal ROI and it does the rest

You are sacrificing a key part of your marketing to AI.

I hate that….. but it works….. it outperforms me 😞…… and I have created hundreds of TikTok ad campaigns.

It’s successful because it understands what the customer wants…..

If I customer is searching for “What baby blanket is hypo-allergenic?”
Then it will only display videos about that specific content
This is gold because TikTok may display some of your videos that are 2 years old…. but if you were running ‘manual ad campaigns’ there is no way you would pay money to display a video that is over 2 years old….. hence, you would have missed the sale.

But most importantly, GMV Max ads fit perfectly into the TikTok Shop ecosystem. TikTok wants you to use their Affiliates and run TikTok Live’s and this makes them more effective.

It’s as if you have a 20m head start in the 100m race (I have been watching a lot of Olympics).

Think you can beat AI? 🤖🥊

This is hard for me to admit…..

But GMV Ads always outperform me……but there is a big condition.

Here is a screenshot from one of our campaigns:

Roi/RoaS of 8.5 to 11.17

But this brand is unique:

Running daily lives for hours
Tons of affiliates videos and their own content
The brand is ideal for TikTok

This brand is feeding the AI Ads algorithm exactly what it needs.

GMV Max ads are ideal for the brand that is actively creating content, it can be through TikTok Shop affiliates, TikTok Live’s, etc….. just create content.

If you are not creating content….. Manual Ads are your only option.

📖 How to set them up

It’s incredibly easy…..

If you overthink this…. you are not setting up GMV Max ads

Step 1: Set your budget

Step 2: Set your ROI Target

That’s it… it does everything else.

Set it and forget it (Think of it like a 5c bid Auto Campaign in Amazon Sponsored Ads).

💩 Why GMV Ads are a bad idea

Requires a high ad spend

I like to spend $50 per day when testing out products….. this is not possible with GMV Max ads.
You can set the budget as low as you want, but it wont spend/convert unless it has the budget.

It won’t spend unless it reaches your ROI target

This is a good thing, but frustrating because it does not tell you why it didn’t reach those targets

You don’t know which videos performed

This is the most frustrating part…… it’s great seeing a high ROI, but we do not know not what videos/affiliates are responsible.
Once you have a successful video/affiliate then you would double down on that type of content and try to replicate it as much as possible….. but you do know what it is 🤬.

You cannot run a manual ad along a GMV Max ad

If you are running GMV Max ads for a product, then you cannot run any manual campaigns for that product (TikTok has said it will confuse the algorithm to have two campaigns targeting the same product)

No sudden changes….. make micro-changes every few days

GMV Max ads require time….. making changes, turning the ad on/off will delay it’s learning phase.
Rather make micro changes (slightly increase ROI target, increase/decrease budget) every few days and observe the results

Overall, GMV Max ads are great….. they make ads insanely easy and are likely to achieve better results that the most seasoned Ads Manager.

But….. there will always be a need for a ‘manual ad campaign’.

I feel a ‘hybrid’ solution of “manual ads” + “GMV Max ads” = 💰💰

The only method to achieving this is to test, test and test again.

🔥 Conclusion

GMV Max ads make it too easy 👊

But ads are useless unless you have great creatives/affiliates.

The winners will be the brands that create the most content.

Essentially…… your ads are now covered, but creating content is more important than ever.

TikTok moved the goalposts, because success on TikTok is no longer about ads….. it’s all about content

Thanks for reading

– Paul 👊

PS. Rankster contacts a few thousand affiliates per day and obtains around 500 Affiliate videos per month. We have changed our whole strategy to incorporate GMV Max Ads.

PPS. If you are thinking about TikTok Shop….. let’s chat