How to advertise on TikTok: a beginner's guide

How does TikTok advertising work?

TikTok ads appear full screen and with sound among organic videos in the user's For You feed. Because distribution depends more on how much interest content attracts than on follower count, even a new account can reach a wide audience with the right video. For the same reason, a classic advert is quickly scrolled past in the feed. If you plan to advertise on TikTok, you need to start by planning your video production routine before touching campaign settings. Users watch many videos in a short time and skip anything that does not interest them straight away; the ad needs to be as engaging as the other videos in the feed.

We explain which businesses TikTok suits and our campaign approach on our TikTok platform page. Here we focus on taking an ad live step by step.

How do you open an account in TikTok Ads Manager?

1. 1.Open a TikTok Ads Manager account in your business's name through TikTok for Business; choose the country, currency and time zone correctly.
2. 2.Add your business details and payment method. The platform may ask for business verification; keep your documents to hand.
3. 3.Bring your ad accounts together under Business Center, and give team members and the agency role-based permissions.
4. 4.Link the brand's TikTok account to the ad account. This link is needed for Spark Ads and comment management.
5. 5.Add the TikTok Pixel to your site and set up the Events API connection.

Which campaign objective and ad format should you choose?

Ads Manager is structured in campaign, ad group and ad layers. The campaign objective is chosen according to your business goal from options such as reach, traffic, video views, community interaction, lead generation, app promotion or website conversions. The main ad formats are:

• In-Feed ads: The core format, which looks like organic videos in the feed and is bought through an auction. Most campaigns start here.
• Spark Ads: Use an organic post published by the brand or a creator as an ad. The ad appears under the account's name, and engagement builds up on the original post.
• TopView: A full-screen video shown when the app is opened. Bought on a reservation basis; suitable for moments that need wide reach, such as a launch.

TikTok opens new formats in different countries at different times. Before planning around a format, check that it is available in your account and target market.

How do you prepare an ad video for TikTok?

On TikTok, creative is the most decisive part of a campaign. Videos that do not look like ads and speak the platform's language are watched for longer. Keep these principles in mind when preparing them:

• Shoot vertical and full screen; place text and the logo in the safe zone so they are not hidden under the app interface.
• Hook the viewer in the opening seconds: open with a question, a result or the moment the product is used.
• Sound is part of TikTok; use speech, music or ambient sound, and add captions.
• Choose music from TikTok's library cleared for commercial use; popular songs cannot always be used in ads.
• Instead of a single perfect video, prepare several variations with different openings and messages.
• Natural footage shot on a phone can easily compete with high-production films.

How do you work with creators?

Creators present the product in the language the platform is used to, with a face their own audience trusts. With the creator's permission, their video can run as a Spark Ad, so the ad appears from the creator's account. TikTok's creator discovery and collaboration tools make it easier to search for suitable creators by audience and content type. Giving the creator a framework with the main message, phrases to avoid and brand boundaries, rather than a word-for-word script, produces more natural results. Ad content should be labelled as commercial communication, and the usage period and channels should be written clearly into the contract. We explain creator selection and contracting on our influencer management page.

How do you set targeting and automation?

TikTok supports targeting by age, location, language, interests and behaviour; you can build custom audiences from site visitors, customer lists and video viewers, and lookalike audiences from those. Even so, narrow targeting makes delivery harder. In most accounts it works better to start with a broad audience and let the creative decide who responds. Automated campaign options such as TikTok's Smart+ hand targeting, budget and creative delivery over to the system. These options are worth testing in accounts with solid measurement and enough conversion data.

How do you plan your first TikTok campaign?

Keeping the first campaign in a new account simple makes it easier to see what works. This order is a good start for most businesses:

1. 1.Choose a single clear objective; do not aim for awareness and sales at the same time in the first campaign.
2. 2.Put several videos with different openings into the same ad group so the system can compare them.
3. 3.Do not change budget and targeting frequently during the learning period.
4. 4.Follow the comments while the ad is live; questions under the videos are valuable feedback that reveals the objections on customers' minds.
5. 5.After a few weeks, identify the openings and messages that work well and plan the next round of production around them.

What is ad fatigue, and how do you prevent it?

Ad fatigue is the drop in views and engagement, and the rise in cost, that comes from showing the same video to the same people again and again. Because the feed on TikTok is consumed quickly, fatigue can appear sooner than on other platforms. When watch time, click-through rate and cost per result start to worsen together, the video is fatigued. The way to prevent it is to set up a regular production schedule and keep versions of well-performing videos ready with new openings, different sound or different creators.

How do you measure TikTok ads?

Measurement starts with setting up events from the browser through the TikTok Pixel and from the server through the Events API together. Deduplication with an event ID is needed so the same event is not counted twice. Many users watch a video and move on without clicking, then find the brand days later on Google or directly on the site. A last-click report does not see this path. So assess post-view conversions, brand searches during the campaign and, if your budget allows, the platform's brand lift or conversion lift studies together. When comparing campaigns, make sure you use the same attribution setting.

What determines the cost of TikTok ads?

In-Feed ads and Spark Ads are sold through an auction; premium formats such as TopView are sold by reservation. In the auction, your bidding strategy, the size of the target audience, the advertisers competing for that audience and the season affect cost. At least as important is the video's viewing and engagement performance: a video that attracts interest is delivered more efficiently by the system. There are minimum budgets for campaigns and ad groups, and TikTok changes them from time to time; check current conditions in Ads Manager. Concentrating the budget in a small number of ad groups, rather than splitting it across many small ones, speeds up the system's learning.

When should you get agency support for TikTok ads?

A brand that can produce its own videos regularly can run its first TikTok tests with its own team. Specialist support helps when creative production can no longer keep up, when large-scale collaboration with creators is needed, when technical setups such as the Events API and catalogues come up, or when you want to assess TikTok in the same measurement framework as Meta and Google. If you want to test the same creative idea on Instagram Reels, see our Meta platform page.

We explain our way of working on TikTok, LinkedIn and YouTube on our service page. If you would like to discuss whether TikTok is a suitable channel for your brand, you can reach us via our contact page.