In 2019, TikTok spent close to 80 per cent of its US ad spend on Snapchat advertising, according to MediaRadar, an advertising intelligence and sales enablement platform. MediaRadar tracked TikTok’s ad spend from January 2019 to December 2019 and found that the video sharing app spent four times more on US advertising than it did in 2018.

While TikTok was the number one Snapchat advertiser in 2019, the app was followed by Coca Cola, Comcast, Disney, Mars, AT&T, State Farm, Pepsi, Hersey, and Amazon, in that order.

“TikTok and Snapchat both draw large crowds of active users,” said Todd Krizelman, co-founder and CEO of MediaRadar. “TikTok’s owner, ByteDance, has about 700m daily active users across all of its apps, while Snapchat has 218m daily active users. However, TikTok provides more entertainment to users, via public, talent-based videos. Snapchat is designed for real-life friends to connect in a private manner. But, the two share similar goals — getting young people on their phones more.”

In 2019, TikTok also invested in other forms of mobile advertising, including display, video, and native, as well as purchasing an exhibition space at CES. Krizelman went on to say that MediaRadar found that TikTok was mainly targeting Gen-Z-friendly sites, such as Tastemade, Buzzfeed, and The Dodo.

“The two platforms offer young people different experiences on their phones,” commented Krizelman. “And, at the end of the day, they’re competing for the same screen time and advertising dollars. For now, though, its clear that TikTok is pouring money into its advertisements on Snapchat. Although some have found it questionable whether this strategy will benefit Snap in the long run, the company currently sees Tik Tok as a friend.”