How to get started with advertising on TikTok Shop?
02/09/2026
Why place ads on TikTok Shop and when to start?
TikTok Shop ads help new sellers reach highly engaged, intent-driven shoppers within the app, reducing friction by keeping users in a native checkout flow. We observed sellers gaining +30% GMV uplift after using GMV Max.When to start depends on your ad budget:
- If you are a new seller with a sufficient ad budget, we suggest testing ads immediately using high-quality videos with clear product links.
- If your budget is limited, we suggest starting with organic efforts first to build initial sales and find winning content. Use your best-performing organic videos to start small with ads, then scale your spend gradually based on proven results.
Overview of Ad Types and recommended starting point
TikTok Shop offers a variety of ad formats designed to meet different seller goals and marketing needs. For new sellers just getting started, we recommend beginning with Product GMV Max campaigns. This ad type focuses on maximizing your overall shop GMV, making it ideal for sellers looking to quickly grow total revenue. Below, you'll find a table summarizing the key features of Product GMV Max & Live GMV Max to help you choose the best option for your business.| Product GMV Max | Live GMV Max | |
| Target Sellers | Ideal for sellers aiming to increase sales by promoting products through in-feed short videos, product cards on the shop tab, and search results.As Product GMV Max requires a high volume of creative assets, it is recommended that sellers consistently produce high-quality video assets and product images to enhance their GMV Max campaign effectiveness. | Ideal for sellers focused on increasing Live GMV specifically, rather than total TikTok Shop GMV. This means that only sellers who are running livestreams are suitable to utilize this ad product.The recommended threshold is sellers who livestream regularly with Live GMV > 1000 USD per week. |
| Usability | Automated Ad Product: Product GMV Max automatically retrieves videos with product anchor links from available TikTok accounts, as well as Spark Ads posts from Affiliates with product anchor links that are uploaded into the ad account to be used as ad creatives.Campaign Settings: Select which products to add, the budget, and the ROI target.Recommended to break out campaigns by product maturity: While sellers can add unlimited products, it's recommended to break out campaigns based on product maturity for better performance:Hero/Best Sellers: Separate campaigns with tailored Target ROI.New/Other Products: Can be grouped together in a separate campaign. | Automated Ad Product: Live GMV Max automatically uses the livestream itself as the ad creative to maximize liveroom GMV. Additionally, sellers can upload short videos to help promote the live, with a particular focus on content that features the same products and host as the actual liveroom.Campaign Settings: Select the LIVE source followed by the budget and target ROI recommendations.Scheduling Best Practice: Be mindful when scheduling the Live GMV Max campaign to go live, with consideration for time zone and the planned time for the livestream. |
| Traffic Sources | Seamless Traffic Expansion: Product GMV Max integrates paid promotion across In-Feed, Search, Shop Tab, and Product Cards to increase existing organic reach, effectively treating organic and paid traffic as a single, holistic pool for maximum GMV. | Seamless Live Traffic Expansion: Live GMV Max integrates paid promotion directly with your livestream, enhancing the reach of your existing organic audience for the event. This approach effectively treats organic viewers and paid traffic as a single, holistic pool to maximize Live GMV. |
| ROI Definition | ROI = Total non-Live GMV of selected products / Ads Cost | ROI = Total Liveroom Gross Revenue / Ads Cost |
| Attribution | Product GMV Max Ads incorporate total paid & organic orders from promoted products when a campaign is active. Product GMV Max counts if a user views or clicks on an ad for Product A and on the same day places an order for Product A.If a user doesn't click an ad or view an ad, but he places an order for products promoted by GMV Max, that is also attributed to GMV Max. | User enters liveroom -> buys product in liveroom -> attributed to LIVE GMV MaxAll conversions that occur within the liveroom while the LIVE GMV Max campaign is active will be counted towards gross revenue. |
Getting Started with GMV Max and Key Strategies to increase Performance
GMV Max is a powerful ad format on TikTok Shop designed to help new sellers maximize total sales value quickly and effectively. To set you up for success and continuous improvement, we'll walk through three essential steps: campaign setup, enabling cold-start Logic, and tracking & optimization.- Campaign setup
| Step by Step | |
| AccountSet Up | Bind the Primary Ad Account, Business Center, and TikTok Account.Access Seller CenterLog into the Seller Center of the TikTok Shop.Navigate to the Shop Ads tab on the left sidebar.Manage Ad AccountClick Manage Account next to the ad account name.Select Add GMV Max Account to initiate setup.Business Center PermissionsEnsure the user has full permissions in the Business Center.Go to Accounts in Business Center and verify the GMV Max ad account is linked.Connect TikTok ShopIn TikTok Ads Manager (TTAM), click "Choose a TikTok Shop".Select the TikTok Shop to promote via GMV Max.Note: Only Shop Admin or Business Center Admin can perform these steps. |
| Creative Supply and Authorization | If your shop or products have little to no GMV and you want to get a head start with ads, you can use the GMV Max campaign type.While not strictly required, starting with five different videos is recommended as it generally leads to better initial results. GMV Max can only capture videos with one single product anchor link, which are:Posts in TikTok Official Account of the shopPosts in Tiktok Business Accounts of the shopPosts in Authorized TikTok Accounts in the shop's TikTok Business CenterSpark ads posts (authorized code videos) in the TTAM creative library from the ad account which has been selected to run Product GMV MaxEnsure all creatives under the Primary Ad Account have obtained the Video Code and are properly authorized. |
| Product Selection | We recommend selecting all products to truly maximize performance. GMV Max automatically promotes your highest-performing products by default. This is ideal for sellers with limited manpower or similar ROI targets across products.Alternatively, if you don't want to enroll all your products for GMV Max, toggle off "Promote all products in TikTok Shop" and click "Add product" to select specific items.We recommend selecting products with more than $1,500 GMV in the last 7 days or products that have a substantial volume of creatives in the TikTok Shop ecosystem.If you're brand new to TikTok Shop, we suggest choosing 3-7 best sellers on TikTok Shop or from other channels like your website.We recommend breaking out each best selling product into its own campaign. |
| Creative selection | Use auto-select creatives and keep Affiliate posts enabled to leverage all authorized videos for maximum reach.For products that you are cold starting with, prioritize those with 5 or more videos to improve ad relevance. |
| ROI TargetAnd bidding | Cold start phase:If you are a new seller or launching new products/live rooms:We suggest you use Max Delivery (prioritizes GMV over ROI). This maximizes initial traffic, tests market fit, and automates ad formats (e.g., product shopping ads) if creative resources are limited. Set a daily budget and run Max Delivery for 5-7 days to allow the system to optimize, especially when ROI targets are uncertain.If you prefer not to use Max Delivery, start with a low ROI target (around 1.5–2.0). This helps to maximize ad delivery volume to test the market response, as the system's ROI recommendations may be unreliable without historical data.For sellers with stable historical data (e.g., consistent GMV and ad spend):We suggest going with the System-Suggested ROI, as it is specifically tailored to your shop's performance data and generally reliable.If you are scaling aggressively in the early stages, you may test setting an ROI slightly lower than the system's recommendation.Crucially, avoid setting your ROI target too high. This often limits traffic and prevents scaling (i.e., getting your content recommended to bigger & broader audiences). Remember that scaling traffic is key: prioritize bringing traffic in first, then optimize your bid and ROI. |
| Budget | When setting your ad spend, we suggest you always adhere to the in-platform recommended budgets. For GMV Max campaigns, you have the flexibility to set a higher budget. This is because GMV Max is designed to prioritize achieving your ROI goals and efficiently runs multiple creative assets under a single ad campaign. To effectively evaluate your campaign's performance, we suggest allowing it to run continuously for a minimum of 3 days before making any evaluations.Frequent changes to Target ROI are not recommended as the system takes time to adjust. It's best to give time between ROI changes to see results.Ensure your budget is set higher than your Historical GMV divided by your Target ROI (Budget > Historical GMV / Target ROI).For example, your Historical GMV is $10,000, and your Target ROI is 3Historical GMV / Target ROI = $10,000 / 3 = $3,333Therefore, your budget should be higher than $3,333Note: Insufficient budget may cause the system to hit delivery limits quickly when scaling rapidly. Recharge funds promptly if your ad balance runs low. |
- Enabling cold-start logic
| Week 1 | Week 2-5 | |
| Products | Enroll your top 3-7 best selling products into a GMV Max campaign | Keep at least 3 products active on GMV Max through week 5 |
| Bidding | Enable Maximum Delivery after the campaign has been created for each product | Suggest keeping Maximum Delivery enabled until you graduate from the cold start phase and see at least $1500 in GMV in L7D for a product.If cost control bidding is preferred, consider switching to ‘Target ROI’ after 7 days. Follow the system's ROI recommendation. |
| Budget | Set a minimum budget of $150/day. | Target ROI budget: 10 * AOV as the initial budget |
| Creative | Continue to add creatives to your campaign either through affiliate authorized content or branded content | Continue to add creatives to your campaign either through affiliate authorized content or branded content |
- Tracking & optimization
| Common issues | Solutions |
| Budget Pacing | Slow Spending: Decrease ROI target slightly and...Lower ROI Target:If spending is too slow after monitoring for a full day, decrease the ROI target slightly to encourage more ad spend.Example: If the system suggests an ROI of 3, start with 2.5.Increase BudgetMax Delivery Campaigns: Increase the daily budget by 30-50% if consumption rate is >80%.ROI-Target Campaigns: Gradually scale budgets to maximize volume while maintaining ROI.Add High-Quality Creatives:Ensure a minimum of 50+ videos with product links are available for the system to use.Continuously produce and post new creatives with product anchor links. It's recommended that you add 5–10 new creatives per week per product.Use Affiliate Creatives for Ads (ACA) to leverage influencer videos.Suggest enabling Promotion Days if your budget allowsWhen creating campaigns, activate Promotion Days to automatically increase daily budget by 50% and prioritize GMV over ROI.If resource & budget permits, a Campaign Splitting approach is recommendedCreate separate campaigns for hero products and bundle others into an “Others” campaign to focus resources.Fast Spending: Increase budget or ROI target if it's not aligned with actual goals.Increase Budget: Only when consumption rate is >80% (system has room to spend). Incremental increases should be 30-50% at a time, with 2-3 days between adjustments.Holiday Campaigns: Increase budget by 10–30% if utilization exceeds 80%. |
| Low ROI Performance | Adjust ROI Target:Initial sales often require a higher ad spend, so don't be alarmed if your ROI goes lower than usual at first. Temporarily reduce your ROI target within your means to build momentum.Example: If the system suggests an ROI of 3, start with 2.5.Increase Budget:If your current budget is < $150/day, increase budget to support optimization.Optimize Creatives:Ensure 50+ videos with product links are available for the system to use.Continuously produce and post new creatives with product anchor links. It's recommended that you add 5–10 new creatives/week.Use Affiliate Creatives for Ads (ACA) to leverage influencer videos.Note:For those with Max Delivery activated, please be mindful that Max Delivery ignores ROI and simply aims to spend your full budget to maximize exposure. Expect your campaign's ROI to drop because the system is no longer optimizing for profit, just for delivery speed.Given that your products are still new to the platform, daily sales may be sparse and inconsistent. Therefore ROI will also be inconsistent and you should measure ROI on a weekly basis, not a daily basis. Weekly ROI attainment should be between 80-120% of your target ROI. |
| Further uplift Incremental GMV Despite Achieved ROI | Enable Promotion Days:Activate Promotion Days when you first create the campaign to automatically increase your daily budget by 50% and prioritize GMV over ROI.Alternatively, it will be automatically turned on during sales moments and holidays.Split Campaigns:Create separate campaigns for hero products and bundle others into an “Others” campaign.Scale Hero Products:Focus on collectibles or high-demand items with strong traction.Use Target ROI mode for long-term efficiency once traction is established. |