Opening a TikTok ad account
You start in TikTok Ads Manager. TikTok's getting-started guide says you enter basic business information there: country or region, time zone, billing currency, legal business name and industry. It advises double-checking the time zone, because some account settings may be difficult to change later. You then register the ad account, add a payment method and complete verification if TikTok asks for it.
If you run several ad accounts, for example as an agency, TikTok recommends setting up a Business Center to create and manage them. TikTok publishes the countries where users can create a Business Center, and ad accounts inside it, without going through a TikTok representative. Turkey is on both lists.
How a TikTok campaign is built
- Campaign: you choose the objective and can set a campaign budget, daily, lifetime or with no limit.
- Ad group: you set placements, audience, budget, schedule, optimization goal and bid.
- Ad: you choose the format, upload the creative, set the display name and profile image, and add the ad text, the call-to-action button and tracking.
Objectives
TikTok groups its objectives into three categories: Awareness, Consideration and Conversion. The objective tells the system which result to optimize for, so choose the one result you want most from the campaign.
| Category | Objective | What TikTok says it does |
|---|---|---|
| Awareness | Reach | Shows your ad to the maximum number of people. |
| Consideration | Traffic | Sends more people to a destination on your website or app. |
| Consideration | Video views | Gets more views and engagement from the audience most likely to pay attention. |
| Consideration | Community interaction | Gets more followers, profile visits or page visits, or promotes your livestream. |
| Consideration | Branded Mission | Gets more engagement through collaborative solutions. |
| Conversion | App promotion | Gets more people to install your app and take actions in it. |
| Conversion | Lead generation | Collects leads for your business. |
| Conversion | Sales | Sells products from your TikTok Shop, website and app. |
Ad formats: In-Feed ads and Spark Ads
Auction ads in the feed come in two kinds in TikTok's In-Feed specification: Spark Ads and non-Spark ads. For non-Spark video TikTok recommends a vertical 9:16 frame and also accepts horizontal and square video. The full file rules are on our TikTok ad specs page.
- Non-Spark ads: you upload the creative, and the ad shows the display name and profile image you set in Ads Manager.
- Spark Ads: you promote organic TikTok posts, either from your own account or from creators who authorize you. Views, likes, comments, shares and follows from the promotion count on the original post.
Placements and Automatic Search Placement
Placements are a required choice in every ad group and decide where the ads run. When you select the TikTok placement, ads can appear across TikTok, starting with the For You feed.
Automatic Search Placement, formerly called Search Ads Toggle, extends in-feed ads to the TikTok search results page. It is on by default when you create a new campaign. TikTok creates the keywords automatically and offers no keyword-level control, but you can add negative keywords to keep the ad away from irrelevant searches. Delivery in search is not guaranteed, and TikTok's page lists English under language support.
Targeting
Targeting is set per ad group. TikTok's options cover demographics, audience targeting, advanced targeting, device type and smart targeting. Choices inside one dimension work as OR, while choices across dimensions work as AND, so every extra dimension narrows the audience.
- Location: countries, regions, states, cities, postal codes and more, where available. TikTok does not support excluding locations or postal codes.
- Reach by country: the locations you can target depend on the country or region your ad account was registered in.
- Availability: some targeting options are not offered in every country, and some products carry age limits that depend on the product and the region.
Budget and bidding
TikTok offers two budget types, daily and lifetime. You can change the amount after launch, but you cannot switch between the two types once a campaign or ad group is live. TikTok also sets minimum budgets at campaign and ad group level; Ads Manager shows the amount that applies to your account. The TikTok placement supports CPM, oCPM and CPC bidding, and the video views objective is billed per focused view.
Measurement: TikTok Pixel and Events API
The TikTok Pixel is code on your website that shares website events with TikTok. TikTok recommends events that follow the whole customer journey, from viewing a product page to adding to cart and buying. The Events API sends similar data from your web, app or offline sources through a direct connection. For websites, TikTok recommends running both together with event deduplication, and it says a Pixel or Events API setup is required for its web conversions objective.
Ad review and common rejections
TikTok reviews ads and accounts against its policies. Most ads are reviewed within 24 hours, although some take longer. An ad group can be rejected when one of its ads breaks a policy, and the exact reason is shown in the rejection prompt in the ad group and ad lists of the Campaign tab. The common causes TikTok names are:
- The product or service is prohibited, or restricted in the country you target; each country or region has its own list.
- Misleading claims, false information, or sensational and shocking content.
- Text, image, caption, audio, video, landing page and language that do not fit together.
- Infringement of someone else's intellectual property.
- Political, religious or culturally sensitive content.
Advertising from Türkiye
Both of TikTok's self-serve lists include Turkey: the countries where users can create a Business Center, and the countries where users can create ad accounts in Business Center, without a TikTok representative. Which countries you can then reach depends on the registration country of the ad account. TikTok also notes that a country missing from its location list may not be available for ad delivery.
Running TikTok campaigns with Mecrio
- You connect your TikTok ad account through TikTok's own sign-in screen. Mecrio then creates the campaign, ad group and ad in that account, all paused, so nothing spends until you start the campaign.
- On TikTok, Mecrio sets up single-video ads. You can upload your own video or create one in Mecrio's Creative Studio.
- Before anything is created on TikTok, Mecrio checks your countries against the ad account, the video and identity, the readiness of the ad account and ad text over 100 characters.
- With the website traffic, lead generation and sales objectives, Mecrio tells you during setup that TikTok may also show the ad in search results.
- After publishing you can change budget, dates, audience, bid, ad text, video and identity from Mecrio. Where the ad runs cannot be changed once the ad group exists, because TikTok does not allow it.
- Ad spend is paid to TikTok from your own ad account. Mecrio takes no cut of your spend.