In the era of short videos, TikTok is a powerful amplifier helping big brands grow recognition and revenue conversion. Building a long-term TikTok Ads plan is not just about running ads, but is the "strategic weapon" to lead the brand to dominate the minds of young customers – the group accounting for more than 70% of TikTok users in Vietnam (according to DataReportal 2023). DPS.MEDIA observes that any brand with a long-term, continuous, and flexible TikTok strategy will reap clear results in natural growth and paid advertising performance, instead of "quick explosion – rapid decline".
Do you want to optimize your communication budget, create quality leads, and promote sustainable interaction? A long-term TikTok Ads plan is the answer. The key point: You must think of TikTok as a community-building platform, not just a place to "run ads and get immediate results." Creative video series, coordinated KOLs, smart retargeting, measurement – continuous optimization… are pillars that help brands reach emotions and user behavior over time.
This is extremely important, especially for big brands with wide coverage. Without a visionary plan, a multi-million dollar budget will turn into "burning money" without leaving long-term value. Experience deploying for hundreds of businesses at DPS.MEDIA shows: brands that clearly set roadmaps, stage goals, and allocate focused resources for TikTok will achieve customer return rates 3 times higher than short-term or scattered campaigns.
Understanding the long-term TikTok Ads strategy is the "compass" for big brands not only to appear spectacular, but also to maintain stable momentum and sustainable development in an increasingly competitive digital ecosystem..
Positioning big brands on the TikTok platform: Unique opportunities and challenges
Characteristics of big brand positioning on TikTok
TikTok has completely changed how big brands approach young customers in Vietnam.. However, this environment is both a golden opportunity and brings unique challenges. According to DPS.MEDIA, some important aspects to note include:
- "Speed content" platform: TikTok prioritizes short videos and highly interactive content. The rapid spread factor makes brand image control difficult to measure.
- Requires flexibility: Large brands must be ready to change campaigns overnight based on trends or community feedback.
- Competition with KOLs & microinfluencers: Users sometimes care more about "personal perspectives" than traditional advertising messages.
Opportunities and obstacles when investing in long-term TikTok Ads
| Opportunities | Challenges | Proposed strategy |
|---|---|---|
| Maximize reach to Gen Z & Millennials | Need to control multi-dimensional content, avoid contradictory viral content | Combine advertising + build a "sustainable presence" through fan communities |
| Save budget significantly compared to traditional TVCs | Effectiveness is difficult to measure consistently across multiple campaigns | Proactively set separate KPIs for TikTok Ads, referencing recent studies (according to Nielsen, 2023) |
| Easily adapt to each local trend | Risk of brand "fading" before diverse personal voices | Choose consistent storytelling and visual branding, prioritize market education over short-term sales |
Lessons from case study: Success and warnings
DPS.MEDIA has successfully implemented TikTok campaigns for a major Vietnamese fashion brand, focusing on UGC (user Generated Content) & creative hashtag challenges (#MixDoChuanGu). Actual results: Conversion rate increased 16%, but also faced many hard-to-control negative comments. As noted by Harvard business Review (2023): "Brand equity on TikTok is closely tied to the community; the bigger it gets, the more fragile it becomes".
The golden rule at DPS.MEDIA is not to "force" messages, but rather encourage open dialogue and proactively resolve image crises in real time.
Multidimensional analysis of target audience and TikTok user behavior
Demographic and psychological characteristics of Vietnamese TikTok users
DPS.MEDIA recognize Vietnamese TikTok users mainly belong to the Gen Z group (16-26 years old) with a habit of using this platform over 90 minutes/day (according to We Are Social 2024 report). However, Gen Y users (26-35 years old) are growing strongly, especially those interested in lifestyle, family care, and high-end consumption.
- Seeking quick entertainment experiences, community connection, and being attracted by trends, music, visual effects.
- Purchase decisions are strongly influenced by short video content and UGC (User Generated Content).
- Low brand loyalty levels, but quick and open feedback on new products/services.
Typical consumption and interaction behaviors on TikTok
Word analysis DPS.MEDIA along with research citations from MC&F and Nielsen show that prominent behaviors of TikTok users in Vietnam include:
| Behavior | Characteristics | Meaningful to big brands |
|---|---|---|
| Continuous video scrolling | Focus on new content, fast-forward | Messages must be concise, capturing attention within the first 3 seconds |
| Save video/Hashtag | Retrieve product information, hunt deals | Nurture leads through multi-channel follow-up |
| Comments & Duet | Interact, debate, and create content with the brand | Activate trends, increase organic engagement, build brand reach |
Case studies show that an FMCG brand applying this strategy with hashtag campaigns & duets increased brand awareness by 47% among target customers in just 10 days.
Setting KPIs suitable for the brand's long-term goals
Determining KPIs based on long-term brand objectives
For the campaign Long-term TikTok Ads to truly create sustainable value for major brands, DPS.MEDIA it is recommended that businesses should not stop at short-term metrics such as views or clicks. Set up a KPI system closely linked to the brand’s long-term vision, based on both behavioral data and comprehensive brand growth objectives.
- Brand Awareness: Measure awareness through actual follower growth, number of organic brand mentions on TikTok.
- Brand Engagement: Calculate average engagement rate (likes, shares, comments), full video watch duration.
- Customer Acquisition: Conversion rate from TikTok to landing page or CRM data (e.g., offer sign-ups, inbound hotline).
- Brand Affinity: Evaluate brand love and loyalty through the rate of user-generated content or customer satisfaction index (post-campaign survey).
Illustration with practical KPI tables for the FMCG sector
| Core metrics | Q1 goals | Q2 goals | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brand monitoring | +50,000 followers | +120,000 followers | Measure new appeal via TikTok channel |
| Organic interaction | 201% engagement rate growth | 281% growth | Focus on viral content, challenges |
| Conversion rate to potential customers | 2.5% | 4% | Connect sales/CRM platform |
Emphasizing the "cross-industry" mindset when building long-term KPIs
When consulting for a packaged food business, DPS.MEDIA applied a combination of “brand love” (emotional) and “conversion” (shopping behavior) metrics, instead of siloing each department. This allows the brand to measure TikTok ad effectiveness not only by leads or orders, but also by looking further at maintaining & expanding a loyal customer community – a factor often overlooked in traditional measurement models (according to Harvard Business Review, 2022).
Note: KPIs must be reviewed and adjusted quarterly to optimize based on practical insights, not rigidly follow initial metrics.
Budget allocation strategy and continuous optimization of advertising performance
Budget allocation principles: Avoid "overlapping", prioritize experimental cycles
Effective budget allocation for TikTok Ads requires a combination of flexible thinking and quantitative statistics. DPS.MEDIA always prioritizes experimenting with various small ad groups in parallel, then maintains resources for the groups with optimal performance. According to a report by Harvard Business Review (2022), major brands increased ROI by 231% when rotating budgets based on actual weekly performance metrics, not fixed rigidly.
- Budget segmentation: At DPS.MEDIA, at least 15-20% of the budget is allocated for A/B Testing, 60-70% focuses on proven campaign groups, and the remainder is reserved for seasonal spikes.
- Flexible timing: It is recommended to prioritize testing by cycle (weekly or quarterly), instead of locking the budget for the whole year.
- Automation coordination: Apply AI automation and machine learning to shift budgets between ad groups based on CTR, CPA, and ROAS metrics at each point in time.
Case Study: Smart budget allocation helps increase performance for a cosmetics brand
| Time | Campaign group | Budget ratio (1%) | Performance metrics |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | Creative A/B Testing | 20 | CPA decreased by 15% |
| February | Optimize Lookalike audience | 60 | ROAS increased by 38% |
| March | Push Sale during holidays | 20 | Sales increased by 50% |
The key is continuously monitor, measure, and be ready to shift budgets according to market fluctuations and actual performance – something DPS.MEDIA has successfully applied for F&B, cosmetics, and education brands in Vietnam.
Optimizing creative advertising content: Combining data and inspiration
How to let data lead effective content creativity?
Data and inspiration are no longer two separate extremes. According to a Harvard Business Review study (2023), major brands succeeding on TikTok all use user behavior data to determine suitable content types, then creatively transform the message by telling compelling stories that connect real emotions. DPS.MEDIA often finds that many campaigns achieve CPM performance beyond expectations when the content production process follows three factors:
- Real-time data analysis: Continuously track and A/B test ideas with insights from TikTok Analytics.
- Inspired by community feedback: Leverage topics, memetic trends, and create continuous interaction loops with users.
- Evaluate & adjust: Based on ROAS and CPA metrics, reallocate budget to content with high viral potential.
The role of data analysis in advertising idea creation
At DPS.MEDIA, we realize that many marketers still struggle to balance trends and Brand DNA! Real-life lesson from the project “Beauty Every Day with LANEIGE”: Data shows that short videos collaborating with KOC, using the “Get ready with me” trend, generate 7 times higher engagement than traditional review ads. After adding local humor and emphasizing the scientific key ingredient, shares increased by 210% compared to expectations.
| Exploited factor | Actual results | Suggestions for big brands |
|---|---|---|
| Use trends combined with scientific insights | Increase shares & saves of videos by +210% | Choose topics related to lifestyle, emotional impact, and lead with data |
| Collaborate with local KOCs and influencers | CPM is 57% lower | Create flexible formats for diverse KOC groups |
Summary: The boundary between data-driven creativity and emotional resources
A successful long-term TikTok Ads campaign needs to maximize the flexibility of dataDo not rigidly follow creative templates, but always expand with the ability to test new insights, while leveraging inspiration from the target community itself. DPS.MEDIA proposes the “data-inspire-Create” framework: Connect data – refine ideas – develop content – optimize daily, helping big brands keep creative fire alive and control media costs effectively on TikTok.
Monitoring, measuring, and updating campaigns: Proactively transforming changes
Innovating effectiveness measurement criteria on TikTok for large enterprises
When advertising on TikTok, many big brands still maintain traditional metrics such as reach and impressions. However, according to HubSpot research (2023), these metrics only reflect the surface.DPS.MEDIA recommends that businesses flexibly monitor deeper behavioral metrics such as: video retention rate, number of saves, or the completion rate of hashtag challenges initiated by the brand.
| Traditional metrics | Newly proposed metrics | Main benefits |
|---|---|---|
| Impressions | Video Retention Rate | Assess the true appeal of the content |
| CTR | Number of saves/shares | Measure the level of message virality |
| View | Challenge completion rate | Reflects the engagement of actions with the brand |
Proactive update mindset: Learning from practical case studies
DPS.MEDIA once ran a TikTok Ads campaign for a Vietnamese personal care brand. Initially focused on CPL (cost per lead), but after two weeks of monitoring, the team realized that night skincare content had an outstandingly high save and comment rate. By updating the KPI and shifting focus to content sharing minimalist tips, the campaign doubled conversions.
- regularly update measurement objectives to match audience insights, instead of fixing KPIs from the start of the campaign.
- Combine multi-source analysis (TikTok Analytics, Social Listening) to detect shifts in viewer behavior trends.
- Continuously test new metrics to help the brand promptly identify opportunities to adjust creative and media buying.
DPS.MEDIA's perspective: Flexible transformation in measurement is a vital factor when running long-term TikTok ads for large businesses – because the “success metrics” always change at the same speed as customer behavior on the platform.
Connecting TikTok Ads with the company's digital marketing ecosystem
Integrating TikTok Ads into a multi-channel Digital strategy
DPS.MEDIA recognizes that, when TikTok Ads are intelligently connected with the digital marketing ecosystem as a whole, businesses will optimize budget efficiency and build sustainable long-term branding. Instead of operating in isolation, TikTok needs to be closely linked with other channels such as Facebook, Google Display, email marketing, CRM… to create a seamless data flow and customer experience throughout the conversion funnel.
- Synchronize customer data between TikTok Pixel and the CRM system to personalize retargeting.
- Optimize creative by analyzing TikTok performance, then using those insights to develop other social campaigns.
- Coordinate remarketing: When users have interacted with TikTok, you can leverage the multi-platform information ecosystem to accelerate purchasing actions.
Illustration: Connection points between TikTok Ads & main platforms – Suggested by DPS.MEDIA
| Platform | Connection point with TikTok Ads |
|---|---|
| Coordinate remarketing, compare creatives, lookalike audiences | |
| Google Ads | Measure cross-channel conversions, leverage search intent |
| email/CRM | convert TikTok leads into email leads, personalize sent content |
Case study: FMCG "explosion" thanks to ecosystem integration
According to DPS.MEDIA, a recent FMCG campaign succeeded when integrating TikTok Ads with the entire digital environment.. The team used TikTok Ads to “activate” awareness, create hashtag challenge waves, then transferred this user group to remarketing audiences on Facebook as well as loyalty programs from the brand’s CRM. Thanks to seamless data and flexible creatives, the conversion rate increased 2.5 times compared to single-channel campaigns. A study by Harvard Business Review (2023) also emphasized: Multi-channel connection helps increase brand recall and drives near-commerce conversions 30% more effectively than businesses operating in isolation.
Sharing from personal experience
Building a long-term TikTok Ads plan for major brands is not just a matter of budget or technology, but a whole journey of shaping the brand in the minds of consumers, through sensitivity in content, distribution strategy, and continuous adaptability. when big brands understand and leverage the balance between content creativity and user behavior data, they will open the door to sustainability in brand recognition and engagement.
At DPS.MEDIA, we believe that every business – regardless of size – can reap sustainable value from TikTok if they clearly define their goals, put people at the center, and commit to a long-term partnership with the platform. We have been and are closely collaborating with many SMEs to personalize communication plans, leveraging local market insights to create effective and in-depth campaigns.
Whether you are a brand builder, marketer, or just starting to explore TikTok Ads, we encourage you to step out of your comfort zone, experiment with new ideas, and always measure every action. Flexibility and perseverance are the two most crucial factors in this long journey.
Additionally, if you are interested in integrating TikTok with other digital channels such as Facebook Ads, Google Ads, or omnichannel strategies, stay tuned for upcoming articles from the DPS.MEDIA team. We always strive to share the most practical and applicable strategic perspectives for the Vietnamese market.
What do you think about the long-term potential of TikTok for major brands? Don’t hesitate to share your perspective in the comments below or join us for further discussions in upcoming events!
