From Scroll to Sale: Exploring the Impact of Interaction Type and Device Price on TikTok Advertisements
Companies and brands increasingly use dynamic pricing, including targeting social media ads to users based on their income. In this work we audit TikTok's feed using 56 automated accounts, which collect data on over 80,000 videos, across two studies. We test the impact of device price on ad load and ad types, using 12 phones of low ($0-$250), medium ($400-$650), and high ($750-$1,000+) price as a proxy for income. We also test the impact of interaction type (i.e., like, comment, share), age, and gender on the frequency and content of ads. Overall, the ad load was 29.4%, but liking and sharing content increased ad load significantly. We also found that as accounts spend more time on TikTok, the ad load steadily increases. We found some evidence that device price impacts both ad load and content -- more expensive devices were targeted with fewer ads, while the least expensive devices received more discounts.