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Campaign Creation FAQs

Where will my ad appear?

Your ads may appear in one of the following locations based on the app:

Can I sign up for a TikTok Ads Manager account in my market?

TikTok Ads Manager is growing rapidly and is regularly expanding to new markets. To check the latest information about available placements, see placements and available locations.

Can I select other placements besides in-feed ads, such as Takeover, Topview, and Hashtag Challenges?

Currently there are 2 types of advertising solutions for TikTok For Business:

  • ​Self Serve Auction Ads

  • ​Reserved Media Placements

If you use TikTok Ads Manager, you are using the self-serve auction ads platform and will manage your own advertising campaigns, and create in-feed ads.

Takeover, Topview, and Hashtag Challenges are managed through reserved media placements and have certain location and budget requirements.

Why can't I target a specific market in the ad group section under targeting?

Based on where your business is registered and which placement you select, targeting locations may vary. Learn more about placements and locations for a list of available targeting based on your region.

Can i preview my ads before posting it?

Yes, you can preview ads within the TikTok Ads Manager as well as directly on your app.

Learn how to preview ads.

What's the typical process for creating ads?

Ads run on TikTok Ads Manager are structured into 3 parts: "Campaigns", "Ad Groups", and "Ads". Learn more about the TikTok ads structure.

After you create a campaign and ad group. Here are some basic steps for creating an ad:

  1. ​Try one of our simple and easy-to-use video creation tools

  2. ​Upload your images or videos

  3. ​Add text copy and call-to-action buttons

Learn more about how to set up an ad.

How often should I create a new Ad Group?

We recommend creating a new ad group every 1 to 2 weeks.

When Should I Edit My Campaign?

We do not recommend a customer edit their campaign until they have generated at least 20 conversions. If your campaign is not generating sufficient conversion, we recommend looking at your ad group's daily budget.

When the daily budget is too low, you will have trouble generating conversion.If this is the case, try adjusting your daily budget to be at least 5 times greater than your targeted CPA.

What should I do if I overbid for my CPA?

If you feel you overbid for your CPA, you can lower it at the ad group level. If you are new to TikTok For Business, try using bids that were competitive on other advertising platforms.

What's the difference between the red triangle alert and the orange one?

The red icon indicates that none of the ads in the ad group are delivering on any placements. The orange icon indicates that some of the ads have been disapproved or have stopped delivering, but can still be optimized. The reason for the rejection could be due to issues with the creative or due to insufficient balance.

I want to see the user comments of my ad, how can I find them?

Currently, we recommend utilizing the ad preview function to send the ad to your device and check the comments on your phone.

Learn how to preview ads on your mobile device.

How do I identify whether an ad group has passed the learning phase?

Achieving 50 conversions is the most significant indicator of passing the learning phase.

Learn more about Learning Phase.

Why has my ad group not passed the learning phase?

If an ad group finds it difficult to obtain at least 20 conversions within the first 10 days, there is a high chance that this group will not pass the learning phase.

If you did not pass the learning phase, try one of the following:

  • ​Optimize creative

  • ​Broaden target audience

  • ​Increase bid

  • ​Switch optimization preference to "optimize clicks at the learning phase"

  • ​Select an upper funnel event, like add to cart or product page view as you conversion event.

Learn more about Learning Phase.

How can I scale up my campaigns that are performing well?

The following suggestions are important to consider when trying to scale your campaigns.

Create more ad groups or upload more creatives. More creatives and ad groups can help prevent viewers from getting tired of your ad videos. Also, you may want to increase your bid and daily budget to keep your ads competitive.

If you target multiple markets, we would recommend you to create multiple ad groups and target only one country for each ad group. This is because the inventory, model or suggested bid of different markets may vary. Also, from ad policy perspective, the display currency or language of creatives (video, ad copy or landing page) should be consistent with the target market.

Why can I not spend all of my campaign and ad group budget?

One possible reason may be that your daily budget is too low compared to your target cost per action (CPA) bid. We recommend you set your budget to be at least 5 times the bid.

You could also try using "accelerated" delivery in order to spend your budget and get results as quickly as possible.

My Ad Creative Doesn't Seem Effective Anymore?

Try uploading new creative to your ad groups. This will help the system find the ad that is the most effective. If you need help developing new video content, try using some of TikTok Ads Manger's creative tools like Smart Video to quickly develop new creative content using your existing assets.

What can I do to improve the quality of my ad creative?

Something that many customers find helpful, is to build ad groups with many pieces of creative. Our system will then optimize delivery to show the most effective one. Having more creative units per ad group can help this.

If you need help developing ad creative, try using one of our creative tools, like Smart Video, Video Template, Quick Optimization, or Smart Soundtrack to make new ads using your existing assets.

Another tool that can improve the impact of your ad creative is to use Automated Creative Optimization. When you turn on ACO at the ad group level, the system will automatically test variations of your creative to find the most effective one.

And lastly, if you are using deep funnel behavior, like purchases, subscriptions and completed payments, try changing the learning phase optimization preference from conversions to click. Additionally try using shallow funnel goals like installs or page views instead, to better optimize ad delivery.

When using Automated Creative Optimization (ACO), why are some ads exploring and some ads are not being explored?

ACO combines your creatives and generates a variety of ads. The system will pick a certain number of ads to start "exploring" first. If there is an ad with poor performance, the system will stop it and select a new one to continue the campaign. If none of the ads need to be paused, the other remaining ones will not be used.

Learn more about Automated Creative Optimization (ACO).

Can I turn Automated Creative Optimization (ACO) off at the ad level?

The Automated Creative Optimization (ACO) function cannot be turned off at the ad group level. This is to ensure that it can continuously explore, optimize, and deliver the best combinations automatically.

If you want to turn off ACO, you will have to manually pause the ad group. Or, when creating the ad group, you can choose to create an ACO ad group and a regular ad group. This way, you can still manage the regular ad group without having to turn ACO on or off.

However, please note that a regular ad group and an ACO ad group cannot be changed from one to the other.

Learn more about Automated Creative Optimization (ACO).

How can I start reaching new consumers?

To help your campaign start reaching new consumers, broaden the targeting criteria at the ad group level. And try using lookalike custom audiences to try generating more qualified traffic.

Why is my estimated audience size narrow?

If you apply too many targeting criteria, at the ad group level, you will create a narrow audience. If you wish to broaden your audience, try adjusting your ad group's targeting criteria or using a custom audience to reach new consumers.

See Audience Estimate Overview.

Why can't I create my Custom Audience?

The minimum audience size needs to be 1,000 in order for advertisers to be able to use Custom Audiences in an ad group.

Learn more about Custom Audiences.

Why can't I upload my customer file when creating a Custom Audience?

For customer files, here are some things to keep in mind:

  • ​Currently only support uploading IDFA/GAID data.

  • ​Ensure that the file is in the .csv or .txt format and that each device identifier is on a new line or separated by commas.

  • ​.csv and .txt file sizes should not be larger than 1 GB.

  • ​Zip file is not supported.

  • ​MD5 encryption and SHA256 encryption is supported. The content of the file before encryption needs to be in all uppercase or lowercase.

  • ​IDFA and GAID can be combined in the same file, but you should keep the capitalization consistent.

  • ​If your campaign objective is about apps, we recommend using a custom audience to contain only IDFA or only GAID so that you can choose the operation system accordingly when setting up the campaign and avoid unnecessary data loss.

  • ​Your IDFA and GAID data should be from the same geographical location where your ad is targeting (for example, if you want to advertise in Japan, both types of data should come from Japan). This way, your data can make most of its value and avoid data loss when delivering.

  • ​Custom Audience created with Customer File do not auto refresh. You must add new IDFA/GAID in the existing Customer File Audience or create a new audience with your data.

Lean more about how to use customer files for Custom Audiences.

Why can't I create a Lookalike Audience based off of my existing audience?

For Lookalike Audiences, we recommend a size of 10,000 people for your source audience.

Learn more about Lookalike Audiences.

Can I retarget those who visited my website or added a certain product to cart?

Yes, this can be done through by first setting up the TikTok Pixel and defining the event you wish to track. You may then create a Custom Audience based off of Website Traffic. To create a Website Traffic Custom Audience, the audience size needs to be at least 1,000 under a specific event type.

To see if your attributed events meet this prerequisite, check them at the event manager level. Currently, we can only package audiences that are attributed to TikTok.

Learn more about how to use website traffic for custom audiences.

Alternatively, if you already had a customer list of people who visited your site and took a specific action, you could also upload this list directly as a Customer File Custom Audience. There are certain requirements for creating this type of audience.

Learn more about how to use customer files for Custom Audiences.

TikTok Ads Manager allows advertisers to auto-refresh certain Custom Audiences which is important to consider when deciding which type of audience to create.

Learn more about Custom Audience auto-refresh.

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