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How TikTok Broke the Ad Business
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- lelandbatey 4y agohttps://archive.is/B1Jb6 https://archive.is/B1Jb6
- donclark 4y ago[flagged]
- waynesonfire 4y agoThe only thing tiktok broke is the revenue model of incumbents. TikTok offers revenue-sharing opportunities with content creators. This change has disrupted the traditional model of social media.
- simonsarris 4y agoYouTube started revenue sharing in 2007. Unlike YouTube, TikTok is not profitable. It is no surprise they show fewer ads when they are generating no profits. There is no "breaking the revenue model of incumbents" when you are not profitable. Perhaps when they try to be profitable, they will be more like... YouTube.
- hgsgm 4y agoYouTube wasn't profitable when it broke the model of incumbents.
- creato 4y agoIt was an actuality different model from the incumbents at the time. TikTok is the same thing as YouTube, just with different tuning for profitability.
- sharemywin 4y agoEven Youtube can't monetize shorts very well.
- cheriot 4y agoIs it a better deal than YouTube? Last I heard TikTok has a pool of money they distribute in some magic way that's not directly tied to either company revenue or a video's view/like counts.
- Arrath 4y agoI've yet to hear very many stories of TikTok randomly and capriciously demonetizing videos as one often hears of YouTube doing, so there is that?
- sujinge9 4y agoTikTok doesn't need to demonetize videos. They just adjust their algorithm to never show it again and it's effectively the same thing.
- hgsgm 4y agoDoes that prevent users from seeing a video from someone they follow?
- 360macky 4y agoDo they have that? I’ve seen that TikTok just shallow-ban that kind of videos.
- nodja 4y agoI haven't used tiktok in a month, but right before I left lots of creators were complaining that their videos weren't getting as much views anymore, specially some that mentioned political stuff and the obvious thirst traps. That essentially becomes their demonetization strategy, if you say things tiktok/ad sellers don't like, you stop being recommended. Youtube on the other hand at least separates their monetization from their recommendation system.
- miguelazo 4y agoWhich is precisely why they’re now conspiring to get it banned under dubious ”national security” pretenses. As if the data-sharing sins in question hadn’t been committed repeatedly by almost every major tech company for the past decade+.
- testHNac 4y agoI guess it's allowed when an American company does it. That's their privilege. In return they give up access to user data, allow deplatforming and shadowbanning whoever they are asked to by people in the government. "American Free Speech" is ensured.
- throwaway12245 4y agoCan I use google in China? Part of it is China can ban US internet companies, but US can't retaliate?
- brwck 4y agoGoogle isn't banned. Google simple chose to leave china because they refuse to follow chinese laws because google is a state controlled corporation. Repeating the same lies doesn't magically turn it into a truth. The difference between google and tiktok is that tiktok follows all the laws and yet still is getting banned.
- qwezxcrty 4y agoYou say Google is not banned, then try to open google.com through any Chinese ISP, can you get anything but connection timeout? Also check Google's transparency report. Which Chinese law didn't Google follow? Failure to implement the never public admitted content censorship? Did Chinese government ever acknowledge it's internet censorship? While banning TikTok is not fair to me, saying Google isn't banned in China is lying.
- dirtyid 4y ago
- wnevets 4y agoI would to love to hear first hand from a TikTok creator in this thread because everything I've seen and heard is that their revenue-sharing is a complete joke and afterthought.
- delecti 4y agoHank Green, a fairly prominent Youtuber and increasingly successful Tiktoker did a video a while back, and AFAIK the situation with the TikTok creator fund hasn't changed significantly since. You basically TLDR'd it: their revenue-sharing is far worse than main Youtube videos, and even quite worse than Youtube's model for Shorts. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAZapFzpP64&t https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAZapFzpP64&t
- wnevets 4y agoThat is actually one of the youtubers I had in mind when I made my comment, thanks for linking to his video.
- dannyisaphantom 4y ago[dead]
- partiallypro 4y agoI work in advertising and we've found that ads on Tiktok are expensive to produce and also get less engagement than other social media companies. I enjoy Tiktok as a product but I'd love to see conversion metrics across the platform.
- dannyisaphantom 4y agoI think that is something which has been in the background over there for awhile now considering their plan has always been to replicate the success in e-commerce in the Asian market [1] by expanding it to include the US/EU market [2]; to that end they also began to build fulfillment centers in anticipation [3] but I don't think it's had much success as of right now. I imagine they are still very eager to shift into that type of model since the format does present some real potential in generating conversions. If you've done the ads where the user can 'swipe' into the e-commerce shop those seem to work really well for makeup brands from what I've seen. Sources, if anyone is interested in checking out what I mean [1] https://archive.ph/YWt6N https://archive.ph/YWt6N [2] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/oct/12/job-listings-tiktok-e-commerce https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/oct/12/job-listi... [3] https://www.axios.com/2022/10/11/tiktok-chases-amazon-fulfillment-centers https://www.axios.com/2022/10/11/tiktok-chases-amazon-fulfil...
- wcfields 4y agoSimilarly, their reporting sucks and is years behind Meta and Google. No APIs, and can't give really any geo delivery data.
- rgavuliak 4y agoI train market mix model for high level attribution for US companies and it usually looks like TikTok doesn't have a strong impact on revenue compared to how much is spend on it. Might be that there is some reason that the model doesn't view them as strong and I am planning to carry out a couple of incrementality tests to see how true that is.
- usednet 4y agoI still haven't heard any convincing reasoning for banning TikTok besides Western companies being salty that a Chinese product is beating them in the free market.
- nindalf 4y agoYes, of course we should ban TikTok by Noahpinion (https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/yes-of-course-we-should-ban-tiktok https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/yes-of-course-we-should-ba...) should help you understand the arguments in favour.
- Zigurd 4y agoI read that. tl;dr: CCP bad. It didn't make a lot of sense. It was a weak argument. Until I got to this part: In other words, even if the TikTok issue seems largely symbolic right now, the app’s dominance of American media gives China’s government a considerable amount of option value in the event of a crisis. TikTok could become really important, really fast. In other words, it could be bad at some future time. But the US is overwhelmingly supportive of Ukraine (and there is a lot of pro-Ukraine content on TikTok) and Taiwan. Americans broadly understand these are democracies under threat and deserve support. TikTok is not in a position to change those perceptions.
- kaczordon 4y agoHmm idk about this. You should always be suspicious when something has overwhelming bipartisan support and the US Security State also wants to ban it. See this video: https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1637483021120024579 https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1637483021120024579 Because they can’t control it like they can control Google, Microsoft etc. inserting whatever back doors they want. Video outlines it well.
- dannyisaphantom 4y ago> TikTok could become really important, really fast. We shouldn’t let things get to that point. Twitter was and is still very, very popularly used to get immediate news in the event of domestic and international emergencies and it still is at this point considering it is used as a platform which agencies can use to convey information quickly and have it retweeted. Anyone who has been on Twitter recognizes this. You can still find first-person POV from users in some really interesting situations that would otherwise not be shown on mass-media networks due to regulatory controls on what can and can't be shown. Does that validate the use-case in Twitter being banned? Let's say the new owner doesn't want to show reporting from what is happening in Eastern Europe - does that further solidify an argument that it should be banned because it has been 'weaponized'? The author at no point references Twitter in their article and just continues on a narrow lens on the subject matter. What is the value in banning an app in a shroud of hypotheticals?
- vagabund 4y agoI listened to the Meta investor call that forms the bulk of the article and for what it's worth, Zuckerberg framed the low monetization as a conscious part of their product strategy -- that they spend long periods refining the experience with little consideration of ad revenue, and then only afterwards, as a somewhat separate endeavor, begin to investigate ways to monetize efficiently. They've been hugely successful rolling out successive products/experiences in this manner. A lot of the perceived gap between short-form video and other social media's profitability can likely just be explained by TikTok's relatively nascent ad platform -- you could substitute TikTok with Twitter and make the case that it's text-based social apps that are worse ad businesses. My guess is it's more about the ad infrastructure itself than the experience you're bolting it on to. But it's also interesting to think that TikTok made a product that's too good at retaining users' attention, such that they can't be tantalized by an ad to interrupt their addiction.
- hgsgm 4y ago> refining the experience with little consideration of ad revenue, Refining engagement maximization, to maximize ad slots, with a little consideration of user satisfaction.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 4y agoI hate to be this guy, but if user was not sufficiently satisfied, the user would not keep using it. I am saying this as a person, who does not like social media.
- halfnormalform 4y agoUnless they're in withdrawal.
- xxpor 4y agoIsn't that essentially the instagram model? They didn't have any ads when FB bought them IIRC, and they didn't add them for quite a while.
- joenot443 4y agoAs an anecdote from an average-joe consumer - I don't think I've purchased something from a banner ad in my entire life, but in the past couple years I've bought mountaineering glasses, a bomber jacket, and a corduroy hat with a beaver on it after having seen the ads enough times between Instagram stories. Is it anything special I couldn't have gotten elsewhere? Of course not, but that's the trick of advertising, reminding you of products you'd forgotten even exist. I think it will take a few years for the data to come through and for ad agencies to fully wise up, but I'm convinced that short-form video is THE fertile ground for advertisers at the moment. There's an entire generation of consumers who never watch broadcast TV, never buy magazines, and don't spend much time browsing the regular web. Short form video ads are in many way the ONLY way to reach them, and based off the amount of stuff I see my teenage cousins order, I think it's working as designed.
- mym1990 4y agoIt ultimately comes down to covering a wide range of sources. Maybe I get used to seeing the same things in one channel, and then all of the sudden I see a billboard for a product I wasn't expecting. And then maybe I see that thing in a random magazine at the dentist's office. Now my decision fatigue is really wearing thin or maybe I think "I'm meant to buy this thing!" (kinda ridiculous I know).