Have you wanted to advertise your wedding photography business on social media but just didn’t how? In this article, we will go through a step-by-step guide on how you can set up your TikTok ads for wedding photographers to help you gain more new clients for your business, and increase brand visibility and revenue.
1. What are TikTok Ads?
TikTok is one of the most popular social media platforms, securing its second spot in March 2023 as one of the most downloaded apps in the US, and it was also the most downloaded app globally during the first quarter of 2023. This makes TikTok one of the best online platforms to choose from, to promote your products and services, and help your wedding photography business grow.
TikTok Ads are usually full-screen videos organized in a 3-level organization which makes the ad structure: the Ad, the Tiktok Ad Group, and the TikTok Campaign.
To fully take advantage of the benefits of advertising through TikTok Ads for wedding photographers, it’s important to identify which tiktok ad type will help you achieve your advertising goals.
1.1 Different Types of TikTok Ads
- In-Feed Ads are perfect for promoting your products or services and will increase brand visibility and encourage engagement.
- Spark Ads are great for boosting organic content. This can also be done for content created through partnerships or collaborations with influencers or content creators.
- Branded Hashtag Challenges are great at generating buzz for your brand or products. It can be highly engaging but it will need to be user-generated content.
- Brand Takeover is similar to Topview ads where it allows your ad to show full screen for 5 whole seconds. When users tap or swipe left, they will go where you want them to, and this can be inside TikTok or an external link.
- TopView Ads are perfect if you want to make a strong initial impact on users, which is ideal for product launches and events. This type of ad can be seen once the user opens the app and it uses a similar format to PPC.
- Collection Ads is the perfect ad type for e-commerce businesses. This type of ad will enable users to discover and browse your products in full-screen mode without leaving the app.
- Dynamic Showcase Ads can help you advertise products you want users to browse and purchase within the ad. These would have to be visually pleasing and interactive although not available to all users yet.
- Shopping Ads is a 3-in-1 solution that allows brands to enhance the shopping experience for users, by including the format types: Video Shopping Ads, Catalog Listing Ads, and Live Shopping Ads.
- Carousel Ads are TikTok ad types that showcase a series of images or videos in a single ad, each containing a link to a product or service.
- Branded Effects can be used to enhance brand engagement. This can be done by allowing users to interact with branded effects to create an immersive experience.
Now that you are familiar with the different types of ads available on TikTok Ads, these can also be split into three segments depending on the method of buying ads for your business:
- Reservation: TopView, Branded Hashtag Challenge, Branded Effect
- Bidding: In-Feed, TikTok Shopping, Deeplink, Collection, Dynamic showcase, TikTok Lead Generation
- Reach & Frequency: Top Feed
2. Why TikTok Ads for Wedding Photographers?
As mentioned earlier, TikTok is one of the most popular social media apps globally, hence why so many businesses have transitioned to advertising through TikTok Ads.
By creating TikTok Ads for wedding photographers, you will see your business gain an increase in brand awareness, traffic, and conversions, which will maximize your business’s exposure potential. You can customize your TikTok ads to have focused targeting based on elements like age, ad placement, demographics, gender, and location. It is also one of the most afordable ways to advertise your wedding photography business and gain more new clients.
TikTok ads for wedding photographers will allow you to create impressions, boosting engagement and conversions, and helping your business grow and increase revenue.
Not sure what type of TikTok ad to choose for your wedding photography business?
3. TikTok Business Account
For wedding photographers who already have an existing account on TikTok, you will want to get started by logging in.
For those without a TikTok account, you can download the app from the Apple Store for iOS users, or the Google Play Store for Android devices, and then you will need to sign up and create an account. You can also sign up online through TikTok’s desktop website.
Once logged in to your TikTok account, go to your account settings, then select “Switch to Business Account”. This is a necessary step to create your TikTok ads for wedding photographers with TikTok Ads Manager.
Go to TikTok Ads Manager and click “Get Started”.
Select “Log in with TikTok”.
Click “Authorize” to allow your TikTok for Business account access to your TikTok account.
Then, select “Confirm” to link your TikTok for Business with your account. Don’t forget to click the box and agree to TikTok’s commercial terms of service.
Next, enter your wedding photography business information.
Lastly, select “Automatic payment” as your billing information then click on “Go to Ads Manager”.
If you’d prefer to select manual payment instead, you mustn’t forget to add a balance amount to your account. Forgetting to do so will cause your TikTok ads for wedding photographers to automatically stop running.
Too busy to create your TikTok ads for wedding photographers campaign?
4. Campaign for TikTok Ads for Wedding Photographers
On your Ads Manager dashboard, go to “Campaign” then select “Create“.
Select “Advance create” as your campaign format.
4.1 Campaign Settings
To gain more new clients for your wedding photography business, select “Lead Generation” as your advertising objective.
Next, enter your campaign name and leave the settings for split test, budget optimization, and campaign budget as they are.
For this example, we will name this campaign as “Wedding Photography NY Campaign”.
Then, enter your ad group name. We strongly recommend creating multiple ad groups if you want to advertise different types of wedding photography styles or different wedding photography packages. You can also create different ad groups based on price points or locations that will require more travel expenses for your business.
Example ideas for ad groups for wedding photography styles:
- “Traditional Wedding Photography”
- “Photojournalistic Wedding Photography”
- “Vintage Wedding Photography”
- “Black and White Wedding Photography”
- “Editorial Wedding Photography”
Example ideas for ad groups for wedding photography packages:
- “Engagement Photography Package”
- “Basic Wedding Photography Package”
- “Standard Wedding Photography Package”
- “Deluxe Wedding Photography Package”
- “Luxury Wedding Photography Package”
- “Pre-Wedding and Post-Wedding Photography Package”
For this guide, we will focus on a general name for the ad group, and you can always choose to enter your wedding photography business name and location, for instance, “Wedding Photography New York”.
For your optimization location settings, select “Instant Form“. This setting will allow your TikTok ads for wedding photographers to directly collect leads straight from your ads.
If one of your main advertising objectives is to drive traffic to your wedding photography website and have potential leads fill out a form on your website, consider changing your campaign advertising objective from “Lead Generation” to “Website Conversions” instead.
In your placement settings for TikTok ads for wedding photographers, ensure all settings in this section are enabled just like in the example below. This will make sure that your ads will maximize impressions and conversions.
Skip the audience targeting settings and go straight to your demographics. Enter the location or main address of your wedding photography business storefront, and enter the location where your wedding photography business offers its services so that users will find your business when they search “wedding photography in New York”, “wedding photographer near me” or “engagement photography near me ny”.
After your demographic settings, select “All” for your gender, age, and spending power settings, then choose the language you want your TikTok ads for wedding photographers to appear in.
For this guide, we will select “English”.
In your device or operating system settings, select “All” for these settings just like in the example below. This will ensure that all devices of any models, connection types, and internet providers will be able to see your TikTok ads for wedding photographers.
Not sure if your business should be focusing on lead generation or website conversions?
4.2 Budget and Schedule
In your budget settings for TikTok ads for wedding photographers, your budget will depend on several factors like your local competitors and your industry, so conduct a bit of research before deciding on your starting budget for this campaign.
For beginners, you can start with “30 USD” for your campaign’s daily budget, and then increase or decrease this once you gain enough data on the performance of your TikTok ads for wedding photographers.
Note: Don’t stretch your starting daily budget too thin to avoid negatively affecting the performance of your campaign. Potential negative effects could be getting very few leads during the duration of your campaign, or taking a longer time to produce impactful results.
If the bidding price for your keywords in your target location is fairly low because of the competition level, select “All Day” as your dayparting settings, to run your TikTok ads for wedding photographers to run all day, 7 days a week.
4.3 Bidding and Optimization
Since Leads was set up as the optimization goal in your campaign settings section, skip the target CPA settings.
Entering a target CPA amount won’t allow your TikTok ads for wedding photographers to maximize getting as many leads as possible based on your ad budget.
5. TikTok Ad Text for Wedding Photographers
After setting up all your campaign settings, you can start focusing on the creative aspects of your TikTok ads for wedding photographers.
Enter a creative ad name. For this guide example, we will use “Wedding Photography Services”.
Next, you need to create a custom identity. This is what users on the platform will most likely remember your account by, so make it creative, simple & easy to read, but also straightforward. You can also choose to enter your wedding photography business name instead.
For this guide example, we will use “@WeddingPhotographerNYC”. Click “Create“.
After entering your ad name, upload your TikTok video ad for your wedding photography business by selecting “+Upload”.
You can also select “+Create” so you can film your TikTok video ad at that specific moment if you don’t have a video ready to upload for your campaign.
We strongly recommend having a TikTok video ready before setting up your TikTok ads for wedding photographers. This way you can fully optimize your video ad to help make your TikTok ads more attractive to your target audience and encourage conversion.
Once you have uploaded your TikTok video, you can enter your ad text. This should grab the attention of your target audience, which you can do by triggering a personal response or by addressing the user’s problems and solutions. Most importantly, your ad text should encourage a user to take a conversion action, for example, booking an online consultation or requesting a customized quote.
Examples:
- “Exceptionally captured moments that illustrate the best day of your life!”
- “Capturing your love story the way you envision it”
- “NYC Wedding Photography & Videography”
- “Capturing joy, emotions, and timeless moments so you can relive the best day of your life”
After entering your creative custom identity and your creative ad text to your tiktok ads for wedding photographers settings, you will see a preview of what your ad will look like in-feed and on search query results.
Need help creating effective ad text for your campaign?
5.1 Call To Action Settings
Next is your CTA or Call To Action settings. Don’t forget to edit your CTA text since this is the button leads will click on from your ad to avail of your products and services.
You can choose between using 2 different CTA options:
- Dynamic CTA – Choose multiple text options. Each user on the platform will be shown a different CTA text to help your tiktok ads for wedding photographers achieve optimal results.
- Standard CTA – Choose only one text option.
If you select Dynamic CTA, click on “View selected text”.
Then, choose your dynamic CTA options. Only select the text options that apply to your TikTok ads for wedding photographers, for example, “Learn more”, “Contact us” and “Book now”.
If your choice of CTA is the standard version, click on the drop-down bar, then select one text option, like “Contact us“.
5.2 Interactive Add-Ons
One of the features we recommend taking advantage of when creating your TikTok ads for wedding photographers is Interactive Add-Ons.
Implementing this feature will help your campaign maximize its impressions and conversions, which can highlight important messages or information you want your target audience to know about your wedding photography business. Interactive add-ons can also be used to offer exclusive promos or discounts that potential leads from your TikTok ads for wedding photographers can avail of.
Select “+Create” to add an interactive add-on.
Then choose your preferred display card. For this example, we will use the first display card option and you can replace the template with your own image or company logo.
When entering your display card details, you will need to enter a discount amount, a discount description, and a call to action. Don’t forget to increase your display time. Ultimately, your display card should encourage users to convert.
Example:
- Discount: “25 % off”
- Discount description: “Limited Time Only”
- Call to action: “Book Now”
- Display time: “5 seconds”
Click “Confirm” to save your display card settings.
5.3 Instant Form Settings
The other feature we strongly recommend taking advantage of when creating your TikTok ads for wedding photographers is Instant Forms.
Adding instant forms to your campaign will allow you to collect personal information from potential leads straight from your TikTok ads. These instant forms will also allow leads to book or schedule an appointment with your wedding photography business, without leaving the app.
Click “+Create” to add an instant form to your campaign.
Then, select the “Classic form” version.
Rename your form, for example, “Wedding Photography Contact Form”, then disable your introduction settings.
In the Questions tab settings, enter the purpose statement of why you are collecting information, then select the personal information you will need, such as “name”, “phone number”, and “email”.
You can also include custom questions, like “Appointment Scheduling” or “Multiple Choice” to find out more information about your leads, when they are available for a discovery call, and the type of wedding photography style they are considering.
Next, enter your company name and provide the privacy policy link under the privacy tab settings. You won’t be able to add an instant form to your TikTok ads for wedding photographers without providing your privacy policy information.
Next, enter your “Final page” information. This will be shown to leads that fill out your instant form as a thank you screen. You will need to enter a headline, a description, your button text, and your website URL.
Note: Enter a description that will encourage the user to convert by clicking on the text button.
Example:
- Headline: “Thanks for your response!”
- Description: “Tap the button below to learn more about our wedding packages and request a free online consultation to get a customized quote!”
- Button text: “Free Online Quote”
- Website URL: “https://weddingphotographynyc.com”
To finish your instant form settings, select “More volume” as your form type, to ensure the form in your TikTok ads for wedding photographers will prioritize getting as many leads as possible for your campaign.
If you want to target higher-intent leads instead of volume, we recommend changing your advertising strategy to Google Ads for Wedding Photographers. Google Ads will cost more per click, but it is the ideal advertising platform for guaranteed higher-intent leads for your wedding photography business.
Skip the field names and tracking parameters settings, then click “Confirm” to save your instant form settings.
After your instant form settings, you can add your tracking information if you use your own or a third-party tracking software. If not, simply skip this step.
Does creating and optimizing your TikTok ads for wedding photographers sound like too much work for you? We make it easy for our clients!
5.4 Payment Setting
For your payment settings, add a balance amount to your account, for example, “30 USD”, then click “Next“.
Then choose your payment method and enter the necessary details before clicking “Make Payment“.
Lastly, enter all your wedding photography business information in the certificates and account info settings, and then you are done! Congratulations on creating your first TikTok ads for wedding photographers!
6. How to make an effective TikTok Ad Video?
Just like you want to ensure your TikTok ads for wedding photographers is optimized to maximize conversions and impressions, you want to ensure your videos are also optimized the same way.
You will need to implement key elements that make an effective tiktok video ad, to encourage users to convert. If your TikTok video and your campaign settings are fully optimized, both will work seamlessly to give you the best results for your advertising goals.
To optimize your TikTok ads for wedding photographers, you need to make sure that your ads can grab the attention of your target audience within the first 3 seconds, or else you risk being scrolled down and losing potential new clients for your business. Consider using hooks at the beginning of your ad videos, and create attention-grabbing visuals and captions to support your tiktok ad efforts. You can also opt to trigger a personal response to make your ad more memorable.
Once your TikTok ads for wedding photographers are successful at grabbing the attention of your target audience within 3 seconds, the next challenge is retaining the attention of potential leads. This can be achieved by including positive feedback from previous clients, before and after photos, and by creating visually entertaining, engaging, and informative content.
6.1 Key elements to make an effective TikTok Ad Video
To ensure that your videos are approved for TikTok Ads and are effective in bringing your wedding photography business more leads, consider implementing more of the following elements in your videos:
- Add CTAs throughout the whole video. You can add this in your script, as graphics, or through your interactive add-ons.
- Abide by TikTok’s image and video specs, to ensure your video gets approved.
- Use TikTok’s Creative Center to find background music or trending sounds.
- Include auto-captions on the video to help hit more keywords.
- Have a title in the video thumbnail. It should include your primary keyword.
- Center all important elements in your video.
- Video resolution needs to be a minimum of 720p.
- Avoid ad fatigue by switching your ads every 7 days.
- Don’t create a video ad longer than 34 seconds.
- The first 3 seconds should be optimized to grab the attention of the viewer.
- Use the right keywords for an effective copy.
- Add trending keywords, and top hashtags relevant to your ad.
- Create different variations of hooks to use at the beginning of your video ads.
7. TikTok Video Examples for Wedding Photographers
This first video is a very good example of what a well-planned and executed video ad for wedding photographers can look like. It is a visually pleasing video that uses trending background music and smooth transitions. It also showcases the wedding photo results, which makes it an ideal example to promote products and services from a wedding photography business.
@ivash_photography Wedding photographer in NY #nyphotographer #ivash #weddingnyc #losangeles
This second example is another video that effectively uses trending music to make the video more visually pleasing and entertaining to watch. It showcases that the wedding photographer delivered the client’s visual wants for the engagement photoshoot, and it also includes centered text in the video itself, along with the use of hashtags in the caption. Adding all these key elements has helped the video achieve high views and high engagement levels, including likes, comments, and saves.
@natashacoylephotography #engagementphotoshoot #engagementphotos #editorialphotography #bridetobe #bridetok #bridaltok #downtownengagementphotos #weddingtok #photoinspo #weddingtiktok #charlestonweddingphotographer #weddingphotography #charlestonphotographer charlestonwedding. @Getintrigued
The third video example is a BTS or behind-the-scenes style video, which uses a voice-over as the main audio, supported by auto-captions placed and centered in the video. The video’s editing style is not complex at all, and the post itself includes the target keywords in the captions, hashtags, and title, which have helped the video gain over 28k views, along with high levels of engagement.
@lizzieburgerphoto WEDDING DAY BEHIND THE SCENES: Catholic Ceremony #weddingday #weddingtiktok #weddingtips #2023bride #churchwedding
8. Best Practices for TikTok Ads for Wedding Photographers
8.1 Ad Groups
As mentioned earlier, ad groups are one of the components that make up your TikTok ads for wedding photographers and one of the best practices we suggest implementing to your campaign is creating multiple ad groups.
Creating ad groups will allow you to switch your ads every 7 days to avoid ad fatigue. When rotating your ad groups, you will be able to better understand the search intent of your target audience, and find out which specific products or services from your wedding photography business are performing the best.
When creating ad groups, make sure that each ad group is set on a specific theme, and some of these themes could be for wedding photography packages, wedding photography styles, engagement shoots, and pre-wedding and post-wedding packages.
8.2 Content Planning
Creating an effective and well-thought-out content plan will help your TikTok ads for wedding photographers bring you optimal results from your campaign.
In your content planning stage, you want to envision how you imagine your video ads to look, which you can do by drafting storyboards. This stage should also include any transitions, elements, and editing styles you want for your videos, along with the information that you want to showcase or highlight to encourage users to convert from potential leads to new clients, and how often you will need to post.
Keyword research should also be a part of your content plan, to be able to create effective scripts and hook variations. Keyword research will also help you find out what your target audience is actively searching for, for instance, “wedding photographer near me”, wedding photography in New York, and “documentary-style wedding photography”. Once you have all your keywords, don’t forget to include these in your video captions as text in the video, as hashtags, and in the thumbnail of your TikTok ad video.
Lastly, you should have CTAs throughout your TikTok ads for wedding photographers, to encourage an act of conversion.
Does content planning sound like too much work for you?
8.3 Video Footage and Editing
If this is your first time creating an ad video, remember that one of the advantages of advertising through TikTok ads is that it is not a complicated process. This also means that you don’t necessarily need to film your videos with professional or expensive filming equipment because using your smartphone will suffice.
When filming your tiktok ads for wedding photographers, focus on highlighting any unique selling points you offer as a wedding photographer and the products and services you provide. Consider including feedback or testimonials from previous clients, or even showcasing the moment vs the photo, to indicate to leads that they can trust your business with their wedding photos.
When editing, you won’t need to invest in advanced editing software since basic editing tools like the TikTok app itself or CapCut will suffice for basic editing needs. Don’t forget to follow the guidelines and the image and video specs required to ensure that your TikTok ads will be approved.
Remember, creating a TikTok ads for wedding photographers videos that will leave an impactful or lasting impression on your target audience will encourage engagement, which will increase your audience reach, and bring you more new clients for your wedding photography business.
8.4 Collaborate with Creators
If you get the opportunity to partner up or collaborate with a content creator, it will help boost brand credibility and exposure for your wedding photography business. You will also be able to reach a different audience that is specific to the influencer’s following, which can increase your social media following and attract more opportunities for conversions.
For content that was created by previous clients or from collaborations with content creators showcasing your wedding photography results, you also have the opportunity to use these as Spark Ads.
If you will be considering partnering up with content creators to help promote your wedding photography business, you will need to take into account the following factors:
- Develop a detailed campaign plan.
- Identify the right content creators for your wedding photography business. These could be UGC creators, content creators, or influencers whose main content revolves around topics like lifestyle, or is focused on vlogging content.
- Reach out to UGC (user-generated) content creators if you want to promote specific products or services from your wedding photography business, like wedding pictures, albums, canvas prints, and more.
- Give the creator artistic freedom but provide guidelines on what their deliverables are, and what they can’t do.
- Set KPIs or Key Performance Indicators.
8.5 Email Sequences
To further support your TikTok Ads for wedding photographers, consider email sequences as part of your marketing strategy. Email sequences can be used to increase engagement and drive traffic to your wedding photography website.
There are many email sequences you can choose from, for example, onboarding emails, feedback emails, and re-engagement emails, but the email sequence you choose will also depend on your niche or industry.
Consider any of the following email sequences for your tiktok ads for wedding photographers:
- Welcome email sequences are perfect for introducing your wedding photography business to new subscribers,
- Lead nurturing email sequences will be essential to nurture and convert leads from your tiktok ads for wedding photographers.
- Cross-sell email sequences are ideal if you want to promote other types of products or services your wedding photography business offers, especially the more expensive ones, like upgrading from a standard wedding photography package to a deluxe wedding photography package or adding products to their packages like canvas prints or rehearsal dinner coverage.
- Feedback emails are also another type of email sequence you can consider, to find out how satisfied your clients are with the results, and if it’s positive feedback, you can continue to add these to your campaign.
8.6 Customer Relationship Management Process
A customer relationship management process (CRM) will be critical to support your TikTok ads efforts, and to ensure your business is actually helping to convert leads. If you have a wedding photography business with a receptionist or front desk, they will need to listen, track, and audit any calls coming from your TikTok ads for wedding photographers to ensure that your leads are being called back. Remember, even if your TikTok ads for wedding photographers is successful at bringing you more new leads, if these leads are not being called back, then all your optimization efforts will go to waste.
Consider Google Ads for Wedding Photographers instead of TikTok ads, only if your wedding photography business lacks a CRM process. Using Google Ads will help you find higher-intent (which are also high-quality leads) users who are actively searching for a wedding photographer.
At YoYoFuMedia, we have successfully helped more than a thousand clients reach their advertising goals with both Google Ads and TikTok Ads. If your wedding photography business currently doesn’t have a CRM process to support your TikTok ads campaign, learn more on YoYoFuMedia’s page and how we can help you with Google Ads.
9. Key Takeaways
Advertising through TikTok ads is one of the most affordable ways you can promote your wedding photography business in the digital landscape. Although it is one of the most affordable ways, it’s also important to remember that there are several factors needed to make your TikTok ads for wedding photographers effective in delivering your desired results.
- You will need to implement the key elements and best practices discussed in this blog post to fully optimize your campaign.
- Your Ad video will need to grab the attention of your target audience within 3 seconds and be able to retain their attention for a higher chance at conversion.
- A CRM process is critical to nurture and convert leads that come from your TikTok ads for wedding photographers.
- Consider collaborating with content creators to increase your audience reach and gain more new clients.
If creating and optimizing your TikTok ads for wedding photographers sounds like too much work for you, we can help you with your campaign! Book a free consultation and let us help you reach your advertising goals with TikTok Ads!
