TikTok has been more aggressively pushing its search product to advertisers recently, sources say.One agency source predicts TikTok search ads will become more widely available by Q3.TikTok has been beta-testing search ads on an invite-only basis. But three advertising agency sources said their TikTok reps have been pitching the product more aggressively in recent weeks.
Shamsul Chowdury, vp of paid social at the ad agency Jellyfish, believes it's"inevitable" this will happen by the third quarter of this year, which will give TikTok time to understand search trends before the heavy fourth-quarter spending period. "TikTok is taking this seriously," said Brendan Gahan, partner and chief social officer of the ad agency Mekanism."They can actually generate a whole new ad revenue stream."Microsoft recently said it can add $2 billion in ad revenueA TikTok spokesperson said the details it could share about TikTok search ads were limited during its initial testing phase.
For example, a TikTok search for"sneakers" during the Austin Marathon weekend served one user a Kane Footwear ad, promoting a recently-posted video starring the running influencer Matt Choi. Kane Footwear declined to comment.