What is a MMT (Matched Market Test)?
Matched Market Tests measure a media experiment at the geographic level, which reveal a more complete picture
It is the most common and simple way to measure the incremental impact of media on a client’s business
There are two different types of MMTs: Growth & Holdout
Growth MMTs: Spend is increased in the test market(s) - all MMTs we’ve ran for TikTok clients have been Growth MMTs
Holdout MMTs: Spend is decreased in the test market(s) - TikTok recently released the ability to exclude DMAs, so we are now able to run Holdout MMTs in the future
TikTok Growth MMTs
Running a Growth MMT
The first step is making sure your client is aligned with running a Growth MMT - this is the AM’s responsibility
Since Growth MMTs are ran in an Awareness campaign type, you will not see Revenue or ROAS in-engine - it is very important that the client is aware that they will not see Revenue or ROAS in-engine
Once the client is onboard with running an MMT, the AM is responsible for working with the media planning/data science teams to get the test markets & recommended budget
The AM should share the budget with you to ensure it is enough to run the Growth MMT - if they don’t reach out with the budget, make sure you ask them for review
Once the budget and test markets are finalized, build out the Growth MMT campaign
Growth MMT Campaign Build
Growth MMTs should run in an Awareness campaign type
Most often, the MMT budget is enough to support only one campaign. In this case, you would run the below campaign structure for your Growth MMT:
Run a Reach campaign or Video Views campaign
MMT daily budget would go entirely towards one ad group
This one ad group should target only the test markets provided by the PDM team and include interest/behavior targeting that aligns with the brand’s audience demographic
If your MMT budget is sufficient enough to support more than one campaign, you could run the below campaign structure consisting of two campaign types for your Growth MMT:
Budget that is sufficient for this approach: Greater than or equal to ~$35k over an 8-week test
Campaign #1: Reach campaign (~70% of total MMT budget)
% of MMT daily budget would go towards one ad group in the reach campaign
This one ad group should target only the test markets provided by the PDM team and include interest/behavior targeting that aligns with the brand’s audience demographic
Campaign #2: Video Views (~30% of total MMT budget)
% of MMT daily budget would go towards one ad group in the reach campaign
This one ad group should target only the test markets provided by the PDM team and include interest/behavior targeting that aligns with the brand’s audience demographic
TikTok Holdout MMTs
Running a Holdout MMT
Make sure your client’s ad account is allowlisted for the Premium Audience feature when creating a Custom Audience - instructions on how to check below:
In the ads manager, navigate to Assets > Audiences
Once you’re in the Audiences section, click “Create Audience” > “Custom Audience”
Check that “Premium Audience” is an option when creating a Custom Audience
If the Premium Audience feature is not available in your client’s ad account, share the ad account ID with our reps (Justin and Ed) in the shared Slack channel and ask them to allowlist the account for the Premium Audience feature
Make sure your client is aligned with running a Holdout MMT - this is the AM’s responsibility
If you run a Holdout MMT in an Awareness campaign, you will not see Revenue or ROAS in-engine - it is very important that the client is aware that they will not see Revenue or ROAS in-engine
Once the client is onboard with running an MMT, the AM is responsible for working with the media planning/data science teams to get the test markets & recommended budget
The AM should share the budget with you to ensure it is enough to run the Holdout MMT - if they don’t reach out with the budget, make sure you ask them for review
Once the budget and test markets are finalized, build out the Holdout MMT campaign
Holdout MMT Campaign Build
Depending on budget, Holdout MMTs can run in an Awareness campaign OR Conversion campaign
If budget is less than ~$35k, run the Holdout MMT in an Awareness campaign
If budget is greater than ~$35k, you can run the Holdout MMT in either an Awareness campaign OR Conversion campaign
MMT daily budget would go entirely towards one ad group
This one ad group should target all DMAS except for the Holdout market(s) and include interest/behavior targeting that aligns with the brand’s audience demographic
For the ad group in your MMT campaign, you need to create a Custom Audience using the Premium Audience feature
In the ads manager, navigate to Assets > Audiences
Click “Create Audience” and then click “Custom Audience”
After clicking “Custom Audience”, select the “Premium Audience” feature
Create a Premium Audience where the identified Holdout DMAs are included - even though the Premium audience includes the Holdout DMAs, this audience will be excluded from the ad group