You will be able to set up a TikTok campaign and adjust your approach to the platform.
Mei Ling's dinosaur cake clip, the one from lesson 5.1, Ads that look like the feed, not like ads, kept getting views on TikTok weeks after she posted it. Parents commented asking whether she delivered to Sengkang, how far ahead to order, whether she could do a different dinosaur. She wondered whether paying to show it to more people would bring orders, and whether TikTok ads would mean learning everything again from scratch after Meta.
The good news is that most of what you learned on Meta carries over. The differences are in emphasis, a few TikTok-specific features and the tracking setup. This lesson covers those.
TikTok Ads Manager uses the same three levels as Meta. A campaign holds the objective and can hold the budget. An ad group, TikTok's name for what Meta calls an ad set, holds the audience, placements, schedule, bidding and the event to optimise for. An ad holds the creative, text, call to action and destination. Lesson 2.2, Campaigns, ad sets and ads: who controls what, applies almost word for word.
TikTok groups its objectives into awareness, consideration and conversion, and the logic of lesson 2.1, The objective tells the platform what to find, still holds. Choose the deepest action you can measure. TikTok also offers its own automated campaign options that combine audiences and placements, similar in spirit to Meta's; check the current names in TikTok's business help centre, because they change.
Targeting works much as it does on Meta: location, age, language, interests and behaviours, custom audiences and lookalikes, plus increasingly broad options where the system finds people for you. Lesson 4.2, Broad targeting and why platforms now push it, applies here too.
The bigger difference is the weight carried by the creative. TikTok is almost entirely full-screen vertical video, and people move through it fast. An ad that looks like an advert from another platform stands out for the wrong reasons. TikTok's own guidance for advertisers stresses making ads that look and sound like TikTok content: filmed vertically, with sound on, using real people, and getting to the point quickly.
Sound matters more here than on most platforms, because many people watch with it on. A voice talking to camera, natural sound from the kitchen, or music that suits the moment all help. Check that any music you use is licensed for ads. TikTok offers a library of music cleared for commercial use, and using a popular track from your personal account in an ad may not be allowed.
Plan to refresh creative often. Because the feed moves quickly and people see a lot of content, an ad can tire sooner than you expect. Lesson 9.2, Scale what works without breaking it, returns to creative fatigue.
Spark Ads let you run an existing organic TikTok post as an ad, instead of uploading a separate ad video. The ad keeps the post's profile, likes and comments, and views and engagement from the ad count towards the original post.
You can promote your own posts, or a creator's post with their permission. The creator generates an authorisation code in the TikTok app and shares it with you, which gives you permission to run that post as an ad for a set period. Agree the terms with the creator in writing first, including how long you may run it and what you will pay.
For Mei Ling, Spark Ads are the obvious starting point. The dinosaur clip has already shown that people watch it to the end. Running it as a Spark Ad keeps the comments asking about delivery, which work as proof for new viewers. If a parent who ordered from her films their child seeing the cake, a Spark Ad from that post, with permission, could be even stronger.
TikTok's tracking follows the same pattern as Meta's, which you set up in module three. The TikTok Pixel records events in the browser. TikTok's Events API sends them from your server or your website platform, and the two should be deduplicated with a shared event ID, as lesson 3.2, Server-side events and first-party matching, explained. Many shop and website platforms offer a TikTok integration that sets both up.
Install and test them before you run a campaign that optimises for conversions. TikTok's Events Manager has testing tools that show events as they arrive, just like Meta's. Without working tracking, a conversion campaign has nothing to learn from.
Mei Ling has since added a short order request form to her website, alongside WhatsApp. She installed the TikTok Pixel through her website builder's integration, set the form submission as her conversion event and tested it with her own order request. Her plan is a Spark Ad of the dinosaur clip, optimised for that event, shown to parents in the north-east, with a link to the form.
Pick your own best-performing short video. In the activity below you will plan how to turn it into a TikTok ad, tracking included.
Pick one organic TikTok or Reel that did well and write how you would turn it into a TikTok ad, including tracking.
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