Dive Brief:

• David’s Bridal released shoppable content on TikTok that has seen a click-through rate (CTR) that’s twice the average benchmark, per an announcement. The campaign has reached over 16 million viewers since launching last month.

• The effort integrates video content into TikTok’s collection ads format, displaying products like party dresses, shoes and accessories. Collection ads help to drive product discovery on mobile devices and are still in the testing phase, according to TikTok.

• David’s Bridal worked with advertising agency January Digital and digital ad platform Kerv Interactive on the social commerce campaign. The bridal retailer will study campaign performance as it weighs expanding product availability in TikTok’s collection ads.

Dive Insight:

David’s Bridal aims to engage a new generation of consumers who are familiar with the video-sharing app and now reaching the age when they start families or attend more weddings and special events. The pandemic delayed the marriage plans for many couples in the past couple of years, leading to a surge in weddings in 2022. About 2.5 million weddings will take place in the U.S. this year, which is about 250,000 to 300,000 more than average, according to Wedding Report data cited by The Wall Street Journal.

The bridal retailer’s campaign on TikTok is notable for using the app’s collection ads that make content shoppable, allowing users to view and purchase items within the app. TikTok in the past year has added more social commerce features to engage mobile users at lower parts of the purchase funnel.

Almost three-quarters (71%) of TikTok users worldwide said they shop when they stumble across something in their video feed, stories or other content, while 58% use TikTok for shopping inspiration, software company Bazaarvoice found in a survey. Those kinds of activities are helping to drive commerce for social media companies as they confront slowing growth in advertising revenue. Retail social commerce sales in the U.S. this year will rise 24% to $45.7 billion and hit $79.6 billion by 2025, Insider Intelligence estimated.

In the past couple of years, David’s Bridal has sought to engage shoppers who either were prevented from visiting stores because of lockdowns or avoided in-store shopping over concerns about COVID-19. The retailer last year launched a 24-hour channel on YouTube Live to provide content and wedding planning resources to consumers. Before that, it created a virtual bridal shopping experience that featured augmented reality visualizations of its best-selling dresses. Its other enhancements to the digital experience included the launch of a chatbot named Zoey to help shoppers get answers to common questions.

David’s Bridal’s latest shopping content on TikTok marks another step in its digital development as social commerce grows.