Social & Influencers

DTC advertisers are spending more on TikTok

Smaller companies are spending the most advertising dollars on the app, per one analysis.
article cover

Illustration: Francis Scialabba, Photo: TikTok

· less than 3 min read

Get marketing news you'll actually want to read

Marketing Brew informs marketing pros of the latest on brand strategy, social media, and ad tech via our weekday newsletter, virtual events, marketing conferences, and digital guides.

Questionable food trends aside, advertisers seem happy to keep funneling money into TikTok.

DTC ad spend on the platform increased about 60% between Q1 and Q2 of this year, according to an analysis of e-commerce data from more than 5,000 stores conducted by software company Triple Whale, reaching almost $30 million.

  • Marketers spent $377 million on Facebook in Q2, marking 6% growth quarter over quarter. Google captured $119 million, a 20% increase. Meanwhile, ad spend on Snap fell 11% to $2.9 million.

Back to TikTok: It’s the “little guys” that are spending the most advertising dollars on the app, per the analysis, which said stores within “the $1m–$5m annual revenue range are skyrocketing platform usage and driving up aggregate spend.”

Break it down: Triple Whale’s findings are pretty much in line with other figures that have come out over the summer.

  • Last month, data analytics firm Varos shared ad spend data from nearly 2,000 e-commerce companies with Digiday, offering a look at how advertisers that are spending money across Facebook, Google, and TikTok are allocating $$. According to the data, spend on TikTok “doubled from 7% to 14%” between July 2021 and July 2022, while spend on Facebook fell from 74% to 60%.
  • Similarly, Jones Road Beauty cut its marketing spend on Facebook and IG earlier this year in part “because of promising engagement results of marketing efforts on TikTok,” its CMO Cody Plofker told the Wall Street Journal.

+1: Even brands that don’t spend a dime on TikTok are having luck with it.—MS

Get marketing news you'll actually want to read

Marketing Brew informs marketing pros of the latest on brand strategy, social media, and ad tech via our weekday newsletter, virtual events, marketing conferences, and digital guides.