The Anatomy of Viral TikTok Ads: Sentiment and Semantic Analysis of Top-Performing Keywords

Authors

  • Asep Koswara IKOPIN University Author

Keywords:

TikTok advertising, viral marketing, sentiment analysis, semantic analysis, Indonesian market

Abstract

This study analyzed the anatomy of viral TikTok advertisements by examining the sentiment and semantic characteristics of top-performing keywords in the Indonesian market. The research utilized data from TikTok’s Keyword Insights platform, focusing on metrics such as popularity, click-through rate, conversion rate, and cost per acquisition. The analysis revealed that viral keywords predominantly exhibited neutral sentiment and were closely linked to culturally relevant terms reflecting local consumer interests. The dataset included over 700 million impressions and revealed that keywords such as pria (man), diskon 50% (50% discount), and sepatu (shoes) dominated virality with popularity scores reaching up to 40,000 and engagement rates exceeding 25%. Sentiment analysis showed that all top viral keywords carried a neutral sentiment. Correlation analysis indicated a strong positive relationship (r = 0.94) between engagement metrics and virality, while click-through rates negatively correlated with virality (r = -0.54). Cultural factors, including keywords related to modest fashion like hijab (headscarf) and gamis (muslim dress), were significant in shaping consumer behavior. The study demonstrates that viral success on TikTok in Indonesia relies on a combination of semantic relevance, cultural context, and interactive engagement, providing strategic insights for data-driven and culturally tailored marketing campaigns.

 

References

Agrawal, E. (2023). Going viral: An analysis of advertising of technology products on TikTok (arXiv preprint arXiv:2402.00010). https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.00010

Barac, K. (2023). The perception of advertisements on the social media platform TikTok [Master’s thesis of Business Administration - Digital Economics, Berlin University of Applied Sciences]. University Repository. http://dx.doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.26623.59049/1

Barajas Jr, P. (2024). Followers to fortune: Building your social media empire. eBookIt.com.

Brennan, M. (2020). Attention factory: The story of TikTok and China's ByteDance. China Channel.

DataReportal. (2024). Digital 2024: Global TikTok User Engagement Report. https://datareportal.com/

Duah, C. (2023). The influence of TikTok videos on consumer behaviour [Master’s thesis, Theseus University]. University Repository. https://www.theseus.fi/handle/10024/792956

Gopal, Y., & Yagnik, A. (2021). Why do ads go viral? Advertising & Society Quarterly 22 (2), https://doi.org/10.1353/asr.2021.0029

Guerrero, K. J. (2023). An analysis of TikTok's digital marketing capabilities and its effectiveness for brands and businesses across different industries [Doctoral dissertation, University Name]. University Repository. https://digitalcommons.lindenwood.edu/theses/532/

Heikkonen, A. (2024). Viral video marketing on TikTok: Effects on brands beyond views, likes and shares (Master’s thesis, University of Tampere). https://oulurepo.oulu.fi/bitstream/10024/50127/1/nbnfioulu-202405304095.pdf

Kamaldeen, I. O. (2024). The impact of content marketing on consumer's attitudes and purchase intention on fashion brands: A case study of Instagram and TikTok video (Doctoral dissertation, Vytautas Magnus University). University Repository or Database. https://www.vdu.lt/cris/bitstreams/5f1c469c-a20c-4a66-bf7a-f13cbe1b693b/

Lim, J. C. H., Tjhia, R. A., & Raharja, S. J. (2023). Fine-Tuning BERT for Multilingual Sentiment Analysis in Southeast Asian Social Media. Journal of Computational Linguistics and AI, 4(2), 55–68.

Quesenberry, K. A., & Coolsen, M. K. (2019). Drama goes viral: Effects of story development on shares and views of online advertising videos. Journal of Interactive Marketing, 48(1), 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intmar.2019.05.001

Sari, R. F., Pramudito, A., & Nugroho, Y. (2023). IndoNLP: A Natural Language Toolkit for Indonesian Social Media Text. Proceedings of the 2023 Conference on Language and Social Media Technologies, 112–120.

Statista. (2024). Number of monthly active TikTok users worldwide from 2020 to 2025. https://www.statista.com/

TikTok. (2025). Keyword Insights Tool. TikTok Creative Center. Retrieved May 10, 2025, from https://ads.tiktok.com/business/creativecenter/keyword-insights

Virji, P. (2023). High-impact content marketing: Strategies to make your content intentional, engaging and effective. Kogan Page Publishers.

Wang, Y., Salim, N. A. M., Subri, S., Zhang, X., & Zhu, M. (2023, November). The features of TikTok viral video advertising: A systematic review. In 2023 International Conference on Informatics, Multimedia, Cyber and Informations System (ICIMCIS) (pp. 267–272). IEEE. http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/ICIMCIS60089.2023.10349038

Yang, J., Zhang, J., & Zhang, Y. (2025). Engagement that sells: Influencer video advertising on TikTok. Marketing Science, 44(2), 247–267. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3815124

Downloads

Published

2025-05-31

How to Cite

Koswara, A. (2025). The Anatomy of Viral TikTok Ads: Sentiment and Semantic Analysis of Top-Performing Keywords. Journal of Economics, Management and Accounting (JEMA) , 2(01), 20-30. https://jurnal.devitara.or.id/index.php/ekonomi/article/view/188