How To Use the TikTok Creative Center (Updated for 2024)

Apr 11, 2023

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George Howes

How to Use the TikTok Creative Center

Master the TikTok Creative Center to create impactful ads and discover trending content for your marketing strategy.

Your TikTok ad campaigns have to be creative, catchy, and engaging to capture your target audience's attention. But without great and original ad ideas, proper video editing tools, and a solid campaign strategy, your TikTok ads may sink faster than the Titanic.

Thankfully, the TikTok Creative Center offers marketers and businesses all the resources necessary to create impressive ads to drive results. In this guide, we'll cover each aspect of the TikTok Creative Center, including its newly updated features, and how to use them to your advantage.

Let’s start:

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What is The TikTok Creative Center?

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The TikTok Creative Center is a free digital marketing resource for businesses, social media influencers, and upcoming content creators to create, edit, and analyze TikTok videos and ads. It offers various features and tools to help you optimize and enhance your TikTok marketing campaign.

Some of the key features of the creative center include:

Inspiration Features: View and learn from TikTok's top-performing ads, products, creative strategies, and more to spark creativity.
Analytic insights: Get real-time data on your competitor's ad's performance, such as CTR, likes, comments, and conversion rates, to set campaign benchmarks.
Creative Tools: Utilize the center's video templates, editing tools, music library, and more to produce or improve your ad content.
Explore Trends: Learn which hashtags, songs, keywords, TikTok creators, and more are trending to stay relevant and increase your reach.
Optimization Guidance: Get tips from TikTok's creative experts to boost your campaign's performance, from initial creation to post-launch analysis.

Once you harness this platform's full potential, you'll create ad campaigns that will land your brand in the winning bracket, even if you're new to TikTok marketing. And with 1.5 billion active monthly users, there's never been a better time to grow and convert your audience.

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How to Access and Use the TikTok Creative Center

While anyone can use the TikTok Creative Center's inspiration and trends features, you must log in to access its creative tools. This can be done with your Google account, TikTok account, or email/phone number.

On the TikTok Creative Center's dashboard, you'll see the navigation bar at the top which allows you to access all features via tabs. These include 'Inspiration', 'Trends,' 'Creative Tools' and Education. Like many online resources, the TikTok Creative Center continues to add, update, and improve its features, which we'll cover throughout this guide:

Inspiration

The inspiration tab is for anyone needing help coming up with creative ideas for their TikTok ads. It includes the best-performing ads, keyword trends, and creative patterns currently trending on the platform:

Top Ads Dashboard

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The Top Ads Dashboard is a valuable resource for marketers seeking top-performing TikTok ads. It showcases the best ads and provides creative and strategic insights to help you build a successful campaign.

You can use various search filters, such as region, industry, objective, and ad format, to find relevant ads. You can also type in keywords or competitor brand names to refine your search.

Each TikTok video includes a 'See analytics' button that provides detailed performance analysis, including likes, comments, and shares. The 'Interactive time analysis' feature offers a performance graph highlighting keyframes with spikes in clicks and conversions.

Top Ads Spotlight

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The Tops Ads Spotlight section is one of the Center's latest and most exciting additions in 2024. Like the top ads dashboard, it provides access to top-performing ads, but with a twist—they've been handpicked by TikTok's creative experts.

Each ad has a short description of why it stands out. By clicking on' See analysis, ' you can view the ad's performance metrics, region, objective, and time interactive analysis. To get even more creative insights, select 'Video analysis' for a more in-depth explanation.

Overall, these beyond-the-numbers insights show how more nuanced creative tactics subtly persuade viewers. These tricks of the trade will help you stand out on TikTok and get your ads to perform at their best.

Keyword Insights

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This section lets you discover trending and relevant keywords most used in specific industries and regions. These can also be filtered by 'Objectives,' helping marketers with specific goals, such as app installs, traffic, or video views, to find ad related keywords. For example, if you're running an Australian e-commerce business, 'free shipping' could be a viable keyword worth including in your next ad campaign.

Viewers can also click ‘Details’ for more in-depth keyword data, such as their CTR, how it was incorporated into a video (voice-over or text), and recent changes in popularity.

Creative Insights

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Identify the top content strategies trending in the Gaming industry (ecommerence, soon to be included). For example, 'game play failed' highlights moments when players make mistakes or fail, often making viewers laugh or shake their heads in disbelief. For more information on creative patterns, click 'Related Videos' to see video examples.

Meanwhile, the 'Best Practices' tab offers tips and data-backed insights on improving video engagement and completion rates. For instance, TikTok advocates the creation of native content optimizing for mobile and vertical viewing experiences for better performance.

Top Products

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Another newly launched feature is 'Top Products'.

Here, businesses can filter specific categories and view their top-performing products based on CTR, Conversion Rate (CVR), and more. Each product listing offers an in-depth performance analysis via its 'Details' button, covering important metrics such as CTR and CVR to hashtags and any related videos.

This tool is especially useful for businesses promoting specific products or launching new ones. It’s so important, in fact, that we’ll discuss how to use this feature in more detail later on in the article.

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Trends

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Trends on TikTok are like waves; they come and go quickly. Since they're constantly changing, marketers must stay updated and ride the wave before it disappears. 'Trends' features TikTok’s top trending hashtags, songs, creators and videos, helping marketers quickly jump on trends and stay informed about popular content.

Let's go through each section within Trends in a little more detail:

Hashtags: Discover which industry-related hashtags are trending, complete with how many posts and views they have. You can also discover newer hashtags gaining traction to cater your content towards the current trend.

Songs: Find songs over the last 7-120 days that have been used on TikTok. These can be categorized by 'Popular' and 'Breakout', which include top and up-and-coming songs. Along each song is a graph that displays its recent popularity trend.

Creators: See TikTok users with the most followers and likes who actively promote products or services like yours. This allows you to identify commonalities and characteristics of successful content creators in your industry.

TikTok Videos: Watch the most popular videos trending on TikTok. These, however, cannot be filtered by industry and videos are limited to the United States. However, you can still analyse and identify their most premonient creative elements, i.e storytelling techniques, music, effects, etc to enhance your own ad videos.

Trend Perspective

‘Trend Perspectives’ is a newly added informational resource that helps marketers see the bigger picture of what's currently trending. It dives deeper into large-scale trends through engaging visual stories, helping you better see what's hot and why it matters.

In this section, you can learn the latest macro behaviors on TikTok, such as emerging content themes, viral challenges, and shifts in audience preferences. These can help businesses anticipate the next big trends and align their marketing strategies accordingly.

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Creative Tools

Many content creators aren't video editing wizards. Instead, they'll rely on video editing tools to simplify and enhance their content creation process. TikTok's "Creative Tools" section offers various features that help elevate your video ads without having to spend additional time or resources on external editing software.

Let's go through each tool and its functions:

Video Editor

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This tool provides a comprehensive yet easy-to-use interface for editing videos or images. After uploading your assets, you can add text, unique effects, transitions, and stickers. Its recently introduced 'Add Music' feature allows you to either upload your track or select from within the app's expansive library.

Video Templates

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These templates are customized video layouts that allow you to replace the placeholder text, stickers, and background tracks with your content. These can also be filtered by 'Most viewed,' 'industry,' 'video duration', and more, helping to make creating videos even more efficient.

Interactive Add on

One of the latest additions to 'Creative Tools', users can add interactive elements such as countdown stickers, sliding images, a multi-video screen, and more to their ads. These recommendations are backed by data insights, i.e., the 'Shake Surprise' feature increases Click-through Rate by 27%.

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Overall, Interactive add-ons are highly useful because they encourage two-way communication with viewers. By allowing users to engage with your ad, you can build a deeper connection and potentially drive higher conversions.

Script Generator

TikTok’s recently added 'Script Generator tool' helps you create compelling ads in split seconds. Using your preferred industry and a few product details, i.e a collar that stops cats catching birds, TikTok will automatically generate a customized ad script.

The script is also divided into parts, including a hook, scene, and call to action, and includes a description of how the video will look at each stage. This can help tremendously in the writing and conceptualization process, helping to create engaging and effective video content.

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Overall, it's a nifty tool for your creative team to brainstorm ad ideas and a testament to TikTok's commitment to introducing new creativity-focused features.

Commercial Music Library

The Commercial Music Library provides access to thousands of music clips and sound effects, perfect for enhancing specific parts or the entirety of your video. These tracks are cleared for commercial use, ensuring no copyright issues.

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Users can filter sounds and music by virality, new releases, emerging artists, and themes like 'Spring,' and 'Autumn.' For instance, if you're creating a food-related ad, browse use the food theme filter to browse the best background songs.

GENAI BETA CLUB

The GENAI Beta Club is an exclusive community for early adopters of TikTok's generative AI tools. By joining, marketers, businesses, and content creators gain early access to innovative AI features that can elevate their TikTok videos.

Members can test and offer feedback on these AI tools, ultimately helping TikTok improve and refine them for future releases. This also gives members a competitive advantage by being the first to utilize these cutting-edge tools in their campaigns.

The club is currently in beta testing, which means it's perhaps the best time to join and have a say in shaping TikTok's AI capabilities.

Education

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There's always room for marketers to learn and improve their advertising strategies. TikTok 'Education' section offers a variety of resources and support to help businesses and content creators thrive on the platform.

Creative Tips Finder: Offers tips and the best practices for creating effective TikTok ads. It can be filtered by industry and includes topics such as improving video formatting and incorporating trending hashtags.

Creative Strategies: Users can discover a variety of creative strategy how-to guides tailored to different industries. For example, the beauty playbook offers specific strategies for engaging with TikTok's beauty community.

Creative Expert Courses: A comprehensive resource for businesses looking to master TikTok advertising. This course offers in-depth training modules, guiding marketers on how to use the Ads Manager, target audiences, craft compelling ad scripts, and more.

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How do I use TikTok Creative Center to Find Winning Products?

If you want to know what's on every TikTok user's wishlist, you can use the 'Top Products' feature under 'Inspiration' in the Creative Centre. While we've already covered this tool, our step-by-step guide will help you make the most of it.

Go to the 'Top Products' dashboard

On the 'Inspiration' tab, select 'Top products', which will take you to its dashboard.

Filter Products Relevant to Your Brand

At the top, filter products by country, product category, and date. For example, if you're selling home appliances like refrigerators or ovens in the United States, select 'United States,' 'Household Appliances,' and a specific date range. This will show all products trending during that timeline.

You can even search for products by name if you have one in mind. However, we recommend filtering by product category to get broader search results.

Find Products that Apply to Your Brand

You'll see the top-performing products with the highest clicks, conversions, and other metrics on the search results page. Click 'Details' on any product for a comprehensive performance breakdown and audience insights.

Analyse Products and Apply Insights to Your Own Sales Strategy

Analyze the product's success metrics, including average CTR (Click-Through Rate), number of impressions, and Cost Per Action. These metrics will help you establish benchmarks when promoting similar products.

Additionally, take note of the audience insights. In our example, 'Vacuum Cleaners & Sweeping Robots' category ads are mostly watched by 25-34 year olds, with 'Combat Games' being the top related interest. However, other related interests such as 'Home Improvement,' 'Parenting,' or 'Safety & Security', in this scenario, may be suited to our ad campaign.

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Marketers can also watch the product's related advertisements and most used hashtags. For example, in 'Related hashtags,' opt for ones that make sense for your brand and product. So, in this case, you probably wouldn't go for '#studioghibli' for a vacuum cleaner video ad.

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How to Find Video Ad Trends Using the TikTok Creative Center

It's tough to come up with new video ad ideas. Instead, you can watch and learn from competitors' or industry-related ads, and even create better ones with the TikTok Creative Center. The 'Top Ads Dashboard' and 'Top Ads Spotlight' allow you to do just that.

Let's go through the steps to find winning video ad trends in your industry or product niche.

Select 'Top Ads Dashboard'

Go to 'Inspiration' and click on 'Top Ads Dashboard.' You'll then arrive on the dashboard page, where you can see various ads across industries.

Filter Trending Ads by Specific Parameters

To narrow down your search, you can filter ads by 'Industry,' 'Objective,' 'Ad format' and more. Alternatively, you can type a keyword in the search bar, such as 'cleaning' or 'vacuum,' to find product related competitor ads.

Analyze Top Ads

You'll now see all relevant ads with a general performance overview, including metrics such as likes, CTR (click-through rate), budget categorization (e.g., Medium, High, Low), and their specific performance rankings (e.g., Top 3%, Top 9%, Top 49%).

Select 'see analytics' and discover which parts of the video had the highest CTRs, CVRs, and more under ‘Interactive time analysis’. You can study what caused these performance spikes and implement these actionable insights into your own video ads.

Select 'Video Analysis' for Deeper Insights

While numbers reveal an ad's performance, they don't explain why and how an ad resonated with its target audience. By selecting 'Video Analysis,' you can see the ad's creative elements responsible for why people viewed, liked, or shared it.

In this VoltaLoop ad, the analysis highlights its hook – forgetting to bring a charger to the gym – and its creative concept that solves the problem with a wrist-worn charger. This approach addresses a common pain point and presents an innovative solution, making the ad both relatable and memorable.

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How To Use the TikTok Creative Center to Find Audio Trends

Our liking for music is subjective, but catchy tunes and sounds can appeal to many of us. To incorporate the right ad songs, you can use what's currently trending. These are proven tracks, effects, and popular sounds that engage users.

To stay updated and use the most trending sounds, follow these steps:

Go to 'Songs' under 'Trends'

This audio trends list offers you songs that are popular on TikTok.

Filter Songs Based on Your Criteria

Filter songs based on country and timeframe from their respective dropdown menus. If you need commercially viable tracks, ensure the 'Approved for business use' checkbox is ticked. For organic posts, you can untick this box.

You can also explore the 'Breakout Artists' tab for new talents. Although they may not offer the same engagement as popular artists, their unique and fresh style can help start a new trend. Alternatively, you can search for artists by name.

Browse and Analyse Top-performing Songs

These are the tracks that have gained maximum popularity over a specific timeframe, which you can see via a trend graph. For deeper insights, such as audience demographics, related interests, and region popularity, click 'See Analytics.'

In this example, the song ‘Enjoy the moment’ by Zeca Zilocchi has shown a substantial upward trend in the last seven days. This could be a good indicator that you could use this song for your ads, provided its alligns with your brand and message.

Incorporate Audio into Your Ads

After finding an appropriate song, click on 'Use Now'. The song will then be transferred to your video editor, ready to be used for your video ad.

Visit the 'Commercial Music Library' For Even More Audio Clips (Optional)

If you can't find the right song from the trends list, TikTok's commercial music library has a broader range of songs and sound effects available for commercial use. This library includes diverse music genres and styles, curated playlists, and music clips that can be filtered by theme, genre, and mood.

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How to Save and Download Ads From the TikTok Creative Center

Browsing and analyzing through an endless amount of ads is time-consuming. To streamliness this process, you can use the MagicBrief Chrome extension to save, organize, and download ads directly from the TikTok Creative Center. This way, you won't lose track of any potential ads you may want to review.

To do so, install our Chrome Extension and sign up to create a free MagicBrief account. From there, you'll be able to save any ad from the TikTok Creative Centre, aswell as the TikTok Ad Library, and Facebook Ad Library.

Ads will then be stored in your MagicBrief ads older, which can be filtered and organized according to your preferences. You can also download the ads straight to your computer for further analysis.

For more information, read our guide on how to save and download ads from the TikTok Creative Center and TikTok Ads Library:

TikTok Ads Download Guide

TikTok Creative Center FAQ

What is the TikTok Creative Center?

The TikTok Creative Center is a comprehensive digital marketing platform for advertisers, businesses, and content creators. It offers tools and resources for creating, editing, and publishing ads on the TikTok app. Key features include a commercial music library, audio trends list, creative guides, and detailed ad analytics. These provide valuable insights and inspiration, helping advertisers enhance their ad campaigns and maximize their reach on TikTok.

How Do You Access the TikTok Creative Center?

To access the TikTok Creative Center, click here.

You can now log in with Google, TikTok, or an email or phone number. However, logging in is not necessary to use most of the center's features.

How to Use the TikTok Creative Center?

Marketers, social media influencers, and businesses can maximize the TikTok Creative Center by exploring its diverse features and tools.

You can click on the 'Trends' tab to discover audio, video, and creator trends or browse the 'Top Ads Dashboard' under 'Inspiration' to find top-performing ads in your industry. Video templates, editors, and other creative resources are available under 'Creative Tools' to help you craft engaging and effective content.

Why is the TikTok Creative Center Important?

The TikTok Creative Center is a powerful tool for businesses and advertisers to reach their target audience on TikTok. With tools and features ranging from trend analysis to video editing, the center offers an all-in-one solution to creating successful ad campaigns. Furthermore, its detailed analytics and performance metrics allow advertisers to track and learn from competitors, leading to continuous improvement and better results.

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How To Use the TikTok Creative Center (Updated for 2024)

How to Use the TikTok Creative Center

What is The TikTok Creative Center?