KNewsTicker is started like every other Kicker applet, you just have to add it to the panel (or any child panel of the main one). To do so, just choose News Ticker from the Applet submenu of Kicker.
Another good way to use KNewsTicker is to put it into it's own child panel. Just add a new child panel by choosing Add->Extension->Child Panel from the context menu of Kicker. Now you can simply load KNewsTicker into the child panel as described above.