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It’s the Friday Before the TikTok ban - Do You Know What Your Contingency Plan is?

Matt Duffy
Matt Duffy
January 28, 2025

As has been reported at nauseam, TikTok faces a possible ban in two days that would come as a result of the bipartisan measure, The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which requires TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, to sell the platform to an American company by January 19th. With two of TikTok’s highest-ranking US sales executives recently resigning, and no clear path to a TikTok sale, a ban is feeling likely – whether it comes next week or not. Some news hit yesterday that President Biden may take steps to help delay the ban. However, there is  also always the chance that President-elect Trump would reverse any ban later regardless of what happens in the short-term. In addition, it looks like TikTok will be pausing ad campaigns, regardless of whether TikTok goes away fully this weekend. In any case, there are tons of unanswered questions and possibilities for disruption.

 The biggest question for advertisers is, “What should I be doing right now with only days left before the possible ban?” The short answer is – act as if there will be a ban, and if it doesn’t happen, you would’ve been prepared for the storm anyway. Weeks ago, Adweek’s newsletter encouraged advertisers to get their act together saying “those who aren’t preparing for the likelihood that the app will cease or sell its U.S. operations on Jan. 19 are already a step behind.” So, are we behind? Advertisers we’re talking to are fairly evenly distributed across these three camps:

  1. Proactive: Already stopped TikTok campaigns and moved TikTok spend over to YouTube Shorts, Instagram and other places with the idea they’d see how long the storm lasts.
  2. Preparing: Paused TikTok campaigns and haven’t moved TikTok spend yet to Shorts or Insta, but are somewhat ready to.
  3. Not budging: Don’t have a plan for what to do if TikTok is banned, so are waiting to see what happens. These are the ones that could be caught flat-footed.

Regardless of where advertisers fall in terms of readiness, many are asking which short-form platform can fill the shoes of TikTok for advertisers? With Meta’s history of battling privacy issues and recent news regarding doing away with fact-checkers, many are turning to YouTube Shorts to play a major role. But, is it ready?

When YouTube Shorts launched in 2021, some, including myself, doubted whether it could compete with short-form giants TikTok and Insta. But Google’s integration of Shorts into every aspect of YouTube has allowed the platform to grow exponentially over the past few years – jumping from 30 billion daily views in 2021, up to over 70 billion daily views today. Also, while advertising on Shorts didn’t start in earnest until December 2023, when advertisers were first able to isolate Shorts in their targeting, it has grown exponentially since, and proven itself able to outperform other short-form platforms – TikTok included. One agency exec who sees the value of YouTube Shorts in a time like this is Melissa Sierra, EVP Media Integration at USIM. Sierra says that half or more of client TikTok spend is being moved over to YouTube Shorts, depending on each client’s goals and needs.

So how are Shorts campaigns different from TikTok campaigns? The short answer is that they are very similar in that both generally use the same creative to reach a similar audience and achieve the same goals. There are a lot of “devil in the details” points to consider however, like slightly different ad creative length maximums, differences in targeting capabilities (since Shorts has all of the Google capabilities like targeting based on audience search that TikTok doesn’t have), and the difference in what each platform considers a “view” – on TikTok you’re charged for a view at  6 seconds  vs. 10 seconds on Shorts.

The biggest difference, and why Shorts are a unique alternative to TikTok is that advertisers have the option of running a YouTube campaign on both Shorts, and simultaneously on horizontal, long-form video in a more holistic way across TV screens and other devices. This presents new opportunities to optimize across ad type (vertical vs. horizontal), content length, and where to watch. It’s for these reasons that Shorts presents not just a viable, but an extremely effective alternative to TikTok if and when the upcoming ban is put into effect. 

While we don’t know exactly how things will play out next week, it’s safe to say that TikTok will experience some changes in the near future. And while in the long-term TikTok may find a way to become present in the US “for good,” in the short-term, agencies should move forward as if TikTok will not be available for at least some portion of Q1 2025. But talk to me next week…