TikTok isn't just for viral dances anymore — it's also a marketing powerhouse that can skyrocket your ecommerce brand's online presence.

Data from Statista shows that TikTok ad revenue is on track to hit over $53 billion in 2027. That's a massive jump from last year's $23.58 billion and the currently projected $33.12 billion for 2025. 

And if you've ever used TikTok, it's easy to see why the platform is super effective for advertising. 

It's a high-energy community that proliferates engagement everywhere you look. Ad fatigue is low, watch times are up, and TikTok's integrated shopping features continue to get better over time. 

We don't want you to miss out. 

That's why we created this comprehensive guide on how ecommerce brands can leverage TikTok ads to ramp up sales and brand awareness. 

Note: Although TikTok was temporarily banned earlier in 2025, for now, US brands are now able to resume advertising on the platform after the app's reactivation. 

Why TikTok Advertising is a Game-Changer for Ecommerce

Skeptical about TikTok's marketing potential? 

Let's kick things off with a few must-know facts about TikTok:

• Massive audience reach — TikTok currently has over 2 billion users worldwide, which is expected to grow to 2.14 billion by the end of 2025. It's right up there with Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram as one of the largest social media networks in the U.S.
• Hyper-engaged users — In 2024, TikTok saw a huge 71% increase in user watch time even for branded content. Remember that the platform's user base is largely Gen Z and Millennial viewers who spend hours scrolling through tons of video content. 
• TikTok's algorithm advantage — On TikTok, sponsored content and ads blend seamlessly with organic, user-submitted posts. You also have several tools at your disposal for analytics, advanced audience targeting, and creative purposes. 
• Built-in shopping features — TikTok also offers easy-to-use tools to enable ecommerce brands to create engaging, in-app shopping experiences. This includes LIVE shopping, shoppable videos, and custom shop pages.

Types of TikTok Ad Campaigns for Ecommerce

Before we get to the nitty-gritty of launching TikTok ads, let's take a quick look at the different types of campaigns you can use:

1. Non-Spark In-Feed Ads

Useful for: 

• Raising brand awareness
• Taking full control of your messaging
• Generating product sales

TikTok in-feed ads can help you reach users as they scroll through their "For You" page and "Following" feed. 

This is the standard way of running ad campaigns on TikTok. You can fine-tune your audience targeting, manage your budget, enable or disable certain user interactions, and more.

Take note that you can also set in-feed ads to appear in TikTok's search results. This is useful for targeting users with specific intent. 

2. Spark Ads

Useful for:

• Utilizing existing TikTok content
• Leveraging influencer marketing
• Generating sales and more followers

Spark Ads pertain to a specific type of campaign that amplifies the reach of existing content. 

Say you already have a post that does a great job of converting viewers into paying customers. With Spark Ads, you're essentially just promoting the same post to a wider audience.

Spark Ads can also be used to push posts from other partner creators, making this campaign extremely valuable if you also rely on influencer marketing.

3. TopView Ads

Useful for:

• Raising brand awareness
• Ensuring brand visibility
• Promoting a new product or special offer

TopView Ads are an elaborate campaign that requires you to work with a TikTok sales representative. It shows a full-screen video ad with all UI elements hidden for three seconds — perfect for making a strong and impactful first impression. 

However, it's worth noting that TopView ads are only available to eligible accounts. When qualified, TopView ad inventory can be purchased on a CPM basis. 

4. Branded hashtag Challenges

Useful for: 

• Building your community
• Maximizing brand reach and engagement
• Acquiring User-Generated Content

While not exactly an ad, branded hashtag challenges let you leverage word-of-mouth marketing to generate some buzz around your business. 

Put simply; you need to think of a challenge as well as a unique, branded hashtag tied to your ecommerce business.

These campaigns work best if you come up with a fun challenge or contest mechanic. Of course, you can also drive up participation by offering incentives or rewards.

5. Branded Effects & Filters

Useful for: 

• Promoting products with AR (i.e., "try-on" feature for fashion brands)
• Acquiring User-Generated Content
• Gaining more followers

Similar to branded hashtag challenges, branded effects or filters aren't exactly ads — but they still work extremely well in expanding your social media reach.

Ecommerce businesses can work with other creators or external agencies to develop their own branded effects. Of course, you're free to learn how to use Effect House and design your own effects yourself. 

How to Create High-Performing TikTok Ads

Here's a quick tip: You're more likely to succeed with TikTok ads if you have firsthand experience with the community. 

This will give you a deeper understanding of how users behave and interact on the platform. More importantly, it'll help sharpen your sense of what can be considered high-quality and engaging content. 

Regardless, TikTok ads can be lucrative to any ecommerce brand that knows what they're doing. 

If you don't know where to even begin, here are five must-know tips to create profitable TikTok ads:

• Focus on native, authentic content. One of the biggest advantages of TikTok for ecommerce is its ability to connect brands with potential customers on a personal level. That said, aim to create organic ad content through trending sounds and video formats — not overproduced, high-definition video content you'd publish on your official website.
• Hook viewers in the first three seconds. While Gen Z and Millennial audiences love consuming video content, they also lose interest quickly, especially if they realize they're watching an ad. That's why it's important to be direct and use captivating elements (e.g., bold text overlays, mind-blowing facts, and questions) to grab their attention. 
• Leverage User-Generated Content. Incorporate user-generated content, such as reviews, comments, and unboxing videos, to make your ad more relatable and authentic. Consider using social media listening tools like Brand24 and Hootsuite to discover UGC from customers and influencers. 
• Use clear CTAs & TikTok's shopping features. Clickable CTA links and convenient in-app shopping experiences will definitely allow you to attract more potential customers. Remember to instill urgency with CTAs like "hurry while stocks last" or "limited time only." 
• Optimize for mobile viewing. TikTok is optimized from top-to-bottom for mobile users. Whatever you do, stick to vertical videos and use large fonts for text overlays. 

How to Set Up a TikTok Ad Campaign

Ready to roll up your sleeves and create your first TikTok ad campaign?

Set up your campaign in minutes by following the steps below:

Step 1: Create a TikTok Business Account

Before you can launch your money-making TikTok ad campaigns, you must first create a business account. 

Click here to get to the TikTok for Business account creation page. Just fill in the requested information and follow the on-screen instructions.

You'll also be required to fill in some legal and payment information about your ecommerce business. Just provide accurate and up-to-date answers to finish this step. 

Step 2: Choose Your Campaign Objective

The next order of business is to specify your primary advertising objective. 

To help you choose, TikTok categorizes objectives based on your target audience's funnel stage: 

• Awareness — Aim to maximize your campaign's reach and generate as many views as possible.
• Consideration — Encourage a specific action for audiences who are already thinking about buying from you (e.g., views, page traffic, or in-app interaction).
• Conversion — Give purchase-ready customers a firm nudge into a transaction.

Step 3: Set Your Desired Budget

In the "Settings" section just below the campaign name field, choose whether or not to enable budget optimization (enabled by default). This enables TikTok's algorithm to automatically allocate and optimize your ad spend.

Just remember that you need a minimum budget of $50 either per day or throughout your campaign's lifetime.

Take note that disabling campaign budget optimization lets you manually set a specific lifetime budget. You'll also be able to make fine adjustments to your campaign budget right before launch. 

When done, click 'Continue' to proceed to the ad group settings page. 

Step 4: Define Your Target Audience and Placements

In this step, you can enter a custom name for your new ad group, choose from the available placement options, and fine-tune your audience targeting settings.

Whenever you feel unsure, remember to check the estimates panel on the right. This will help you understand how tweaking certain aspects of your audience targeting can impact campaign results. 

Here's an overview of the key audience targeting settings you can modify:

• Demographics — Specify your target audience's location, age group(s), and spending power. 
• Interests & behavior — Dig deeper by selecting the interests and user behavior types to target (e.g., niche engagement, hashtag interactions, and previous video interactions).
• Custom audiences — Decide to include or exclude custom audience groups, including lookalike audiences from first-party customer data. 

Step 5: Launch & Monitor Performance

Keep in mind that the real work only begins after you launch your TikTok ads campaign.

While TikTok's algorithm does a good job with predictive analytics and modeling techniques, it's not 100% reliable. It's your responsibility to track your own performance data, identify improvement opportunities, and implement the necessary changes. 

The good news is, TikTok Ads Manager has all the reporting tools you need to stay on top of your campaign metrics. Within seconds, you can organize performance data into a scannable pivot table or trend line, including your clicks, in-app ad impressions, and cost per conversion

Best Practices for TikTok Ad Success

Great — you're now ready to create a successful TikTok ads campaign that can generate a steady stream of customers to your ecommerce website.

Reap the full benefits of TikTok ads with the best practices below:

• Split-test multiple versions of each ad. TikTok comes with built-in A/B testing tools, allowing you to experiment with different formats, copy, creatives, and audiences.
• Leverage influencer partnerships to maximize your reach. Aside from amplifying your reach, working with influencers also lets you leverage their influence to build buyer confidence.
• Use retargeting & lookalike audiences. Similar to more mainstream advertising platforms like Facebook ads, TikTok lets you target custom and lookalike audiences to reach more users who fit your ideal customer profile. 
• Engage in the comments. User engagement in the form of comments is fuel to a thriving TikTok community, but you still need to light the fire by responding to them. 
• Monitor trends and adapt quickly. Take advantage of TikTok's many ways to use trends, like sounds, effects, or formats.

While launching a successful TikTok ad campaign is definitely a win, you shouldn't relax yet — you still have work to do. 

To make the most out of the incoming traffic from TikTok, make sure to optimize your actual ecommerce website for conversions. 

If you're looking for a quick, high-impact solution, check out Nostra AI's cutting-edge Edge Delivery Engine, which can supercharge your ecommerce website's loading speed and stability. 

Lastly, don't forget that there's no one-size-fits-all strategy in TikTok advertising. 

Former Warby Parker VP of Performance Marketing Brian Magida mentioned how brands should experiment with UGC and high-production videos for different channels — but ultimately focus on the experience of their customers. 

"The core value prop for your website is creating the easiest, most painless way for customers to get started. So, you need to keep testing to see what resonates best on your landing page." — Brian Magida, former VP of Growth & Performance Marketing @ Warby Parker

Conclusion

Advertising on TikTok is a fairly new growth opportunity for plenty of ecommerce businesses. While it’s unclear what the future holds for the platform, especially in the US, it’s clear that most brands should still have a strategy for the platform. Whether TikTok winds up under new ownership, or if a new platform takes their market share in the US, brands will want to have a strategy in place to take advantage of bit sized video platforms. 

If you want to be next in line, remember that successful advertising on TikTok takes creativity, precise targeting, and — most importantly — authenticity. Hopefully, the guide above helped you carve a clear and actionable plan toward this goal. 

Just remember that your ecommerce website's performance also plays a big role. If you're looking for a strategy that's easy to implement and impactful, consider letting Nostra AI handle performance optimization for you. 

Click here to book a demo and witness the Nostra AI advantage!