Advertising on TikTok can be a great way to grow your TikTok account, promote your products, and generate sales. Here’s how to create your first TikTok ad.
TikTok, the hottest video entertainment platform, has quickly become one of the top hotspots for social media marketing. With more than one billion monthly active users, TikTok ads are a great way to showcase your brand to countless potential customers. And with the average adult spending 58 minutes on the platform per day, you’ll be talking to a highly engaged audience.
Advertising on TikTok takes a slightly different approach than other social media platforms. It’s all video content here, and TikTok has tons of features not found on other sites. Knowing your TikTok ad options will help to drive your campaign forward, so let’s dive into the specifics!
Contents
Types of TikTok Ads
Ad Specs for TikTok
Costs of TikTok Ads in 2024
How to Set Up a TikTok Ad Campaign
TikTok Advertising Best Practices
The Best TikTok Ads Examples
How to Advertise on TikTok: Getting Started
Types of TikTok Ads
TikTok advertising comes in many shapes and sizes. Here’s a rundown of the types of TikTok ads you can leverage.
Image ads
Despite video being TikTok’s schtick, you can run image-only ads that appear in TikTok’s news feed apps, such as BuzzVideo or TopBuzz. Image ads consist of your brand name, the image, and ad text.
Video ads
Video ads can be shown in the TikTok app or its family of news feed apps. Videos can be anywhere between 5 and 60 seconds long and include an ad display image, your brand name, and ad copy.
Branded hashtag challenge ads
These multi-day campaigns are designed to encourage user engagement. Along with the challenge advertisement, any user-generated content that comes as a result of the campaign will also appear alongside the hashtag challenge page.
Spark ads
Spark Ads is a native ad format where you can use your own TikTok posts or posts from other users’ accounts. This is a great way to leverage user-generated content as part of your ad campaigns.
Pangle ads
Pangle is the ad network of TikTok for Business. It enables ad developers to maximize earnings and reach more users via TikTok for Business.
Carousel ads
Another option just for TikTok’s news feed apps, carousel ads are a collection of images. Each image features its own caption. Users can scroll through the carousel to experience the full ad campaign.
TopView ads
Managed brands can take advantage of TopView Ads on TikTok. These ads are video ads that take over the user’s whole screen for the duration of the ad. Videos can range between five and sixty seconds and appear when the user launches TikTok.
Branded effects
TikTok is well known for its branded stickers and video effects. Brands can leverage these branded effects as part of their TikTok advertising strategy to encourage users to interact with your brand.
TIP: Is your brand's TikTok account struggling to grow in followers? Check out our blog with 37 tips to get more followers this year!
Ad Specs for TikTok
TikTok ads specs ensure your images and videos fit within the screen and that your video doesn’t cut off mid-roll due to file size. Best practices for TikTok ads specs include:
- Max file size of 500 MB
- Aspect ratio of 9:16, 1:1, or 16:9
- Ideal resolution is 720px (minimum resolution of 540 x 960 px or 640 x 640 px is required)
- Ad description max characters 100 (no emojis)
- Acceptable file types include mp4, .mov, .mpeg, .3gp, or .avi
- Brand name 2-20 characters
- App name 4-40 characters
- Video duration of 5-60 seconds (recommended 21-34 seconds)
Spark Ads offer more lenient TikTok ad specs. There are no limitations or recommendations on aspect ratio, minimum resolution, video duration, or file size. You can also use emojis in the ad description.
Costs of TikTok Ads in 2025
How much do TikTok ads cost? It’s a fair question whose answer will vary depending on your campaign goals and budget. However, TikTok advertising has minimum budget requirements to get started.
At the Ad Group level, plan on setting aside at least $20 per day.
At the Campaign level, ad cost is at least $50 per day.
Advertising on TikTok follows a bidding model, meaning your ad costs may vary depending on the type of ad format you’re using and your bid limits.
TikTok recommends choosing the daily budget option instead of the lifetime budget. It also suggests leaving the budget open so that you have a better chance of winning your bid.
If using Bid Cap or Cost Cap bidding, Tiktok suggests setting your initial budget to 20x your target CPA.
For an App Installs campaign, TikTok recommends a budget of no less than $100 per day and 20x your target CPA. The same goes for Conversions campaigns.
TIP: Don't miss our article about TikTok hashtags to get more views for your account, complete with an AI chatbot that can generate campaign-ready hashtags instantly!
How to Set Up a TikTok Ad Campaign
To set up a TikTok ad campaign, log into the TikTok Ads Manager and click Campaign. From there, follow these steps to launch your ad:
1. Set your objective
Like other social media marketing opportunities, TikTok ads can cater to each stage of your sales funnel. TikTok offers seven options for your campaigns, including:
- Reach to drive brand awareness
- Traffic to a specific URL
- App installs
- Video views
- Lead generation using a pre-populated form
- Conversions for specific actions on your website
- Catalog sales (only available to those with a managed ad account)
2. Set your campaign budget
You’ll choose a budget for your overall campaign. Later, you’ll divide your budget between various ad groups, so think about the scope of your whole campaign when setting budgets. You also have the option to choose No Limit and set specific ad group budgets later.
You’ll also name your campaign in this step. The campaign name can contain up to 512 characters.
3. Choose your ad placements
Each campaign can be broken down into separate ad groups (up to 999). From there, you can assign a unique name to each ad group.
For each ad group, you can choose where the ads will appear, including:
- TikTok placement (in-feed ads)
- News feed app placement (ads within TikTok’s other apps)
- Pangle ad network
- Automatic placement (TikTok optimizes ad placement)
4. Activate automated creative optimization (optional)
TikTok can automatically generate different combinations of your images, videos, and text. The ad system will automatically show the best-performing ads. For now, just choose whether you want to activate this feature or handle it on your own.
5. Set up your target audience
You can choose audience characteristics to target your audience (and maximize your ad spend). Characteristics include:
- Age
- Gender
- Language
- Location
- Interests (e.g., technology, automotive, baby, kids, and maternity)
- Behaviors
- Devices
6. Set your ad group budget
Next, you’ll set individual ad budgets for your various groups along with the schedule for each group. You can assign a daily or lifetime budget for each group. The Dayparting feature also lets you choose to run your ads at certain times in specific time zones.
7. Choose your bidding strategy
TikTok advertisers can choose between three bidding strategies:
- Bid Cap: Set a maximum bid per click (CPC), per view, or per 1,000 impressions (CPM).
- Cost Cap: Average cost per 1,000 impressions (CPM), which may fluctuate above or below the cost cap amount but will average out to the predetermined cost.
- Lowest Cost: Automatically optimize the campaign ad spend to achieve the maximum results possible at the lowest cost.
You’ll also choose how to divide your budget. Standard delivery will split your ad spend evenly throughout the campaign. Accelerated will spend your ad budget as quickly as possible.
8. Create the advertisement(s)
You can include up to 20 ads within each ad group. Choose your ad format, then add your own photos or videos OR create a video within the ads manager using TikTok’s templates and tools.
Choose a default thumbnail or create your own, then add your text and link. You can preview your ad on the screen as you develop it. Once you’ve added all elements, click Submit.
TikTok reviews all ads before they go live.
9. Boost your campaign (optional)
As an alternative to the above process, you can boost existing posts on TikTok for a small fee. Similar to Facebook Boost, you can promote an existing video in a few short steps:
- Go to your creator profile, then tap Creator Tools.
- Choose Promote.
- Select the video you want to boost.
- Set your TikTok advertising goal: More followers, more views, or more website visits.
- Select your audience, campaign duration, and budget.
- Enter your payment information.
- Click Start Promotion.
TikTok Advertising Best Practices
Advertising on TikTok can fulfill a wide range of purposes and goals. To get the most from your TikTok adverts, apply the following best practices:
Keep it short
TikTok users love discovering new content in-feed, but they also don’t want to spend too much time on just one video. Keep your video ad short and to the point.
TikTok suggests a total play length of 21-34 seconds and front-loading your most eye-catching content.
Include an original sound
An original sound is a sound created and uploaded by TikTok users. It can be anything, from sound effects to voice-overs to song lyrics or music. Ads with captions and audio do well on TikTok and can encourage users to “stop the scroll.”
Work with an influencer
A shortcut to advertise on TikTok is to work with an influencer who will do the heavy lifting for you. They handle all aspects of choosing the ad format (TikTok video ad, image, etc.), ad specs, creative, budgets, and more. Social media influencers take the lead in influencer marketing to get you the best possible results. It can be less to manage on your end, plus you can tap into audiences that you might not have otherwise been able to access.
The Best TikTok Ads Examples
These brands are using TikTok to advertise and provide great inspiration for the rest of us:
Kung Fu Tea
Kung Fu Tea launched the Boba Challenge to build its brand identity. The concept was simple: Try to punch a boba straw through the plastic lid without looking. It encouraged TikTok users to give genuine reactions, plus the challenge directly connected with Kung Fu Tea’s brand and product.
Mercedes-Benz
With predictions that Millennials will make up 40% of car owners, renowned brand Mercedes-Benz took to TikTok to get in front of this massive audience. It launched the #MBStarChallenge, which encouraged participants to create their own version of the brand’s logo. The challenge also included multiple influencer partners along with a custom soundtrack (an “original sound” in a major way). The campaign garnered 180 million video views and 30,000 new followers.
Guess Jeans
The #InMyDenim hashtag challenge was one of the first of its kind. It showcased TikTok users in old clothes, then flipped to an image of them in their favorite Guess-branded wearables. This before-and-after snapshot helped the brand to highlight personalities, styles, and the magic of a fresh change of clothes.
How to Advertise on TikTok: Getting Started
Our best advice on getting started with TikTok advertising is to first spend some time on the platform. It offers a range of fun features to create content and connect with your audience. Spending time learning about your options and getting a feel for what makes TikTok tick can help to drive your TikTok advertising goals forward.
Meltwater can help — our social media management platform makes it easy to schedule and post new content and track its performance.
Learn more when you request a demo by filling out the form below!
