How to advertise on TikTok with Ads Manager

These are TikTok's steps for self-serve advertisers. Have your business documents ready, because TikTok verifies your business.

1. Go to the Advertising on TikTok sign-up page.
2. Create a login with an email address or phone number and a password.
3. Agree to the terms, click Sign Up, and enter the verification code TikTok sends you.
4. Create an advertiser account: country or region, industry, legal business name, time zone, phone number and currency.
5. Agree to the terms and click Register.
6. Add your billing and payment information and choose a payment method.
7. Click Go to Ads Manager.

• Your legal business name must match your actual business, or the account may not be approved.
• The account is submitted for approval automatically. You can build campaigns straight away, but ads won't run until it's approved. TikTok says most reviews take less than 24 hours.

Source: TikTok Business Help Center: Set up a TikTok Ads Manager account, checked 15 October 2026

Ads Manager has three levels. Each campaign can hold several ad groups, and each ad group one or more ads, which lets you compare what works.

Source: TikTok Business Help Center: About TikTok ads structure, checked 15 October 2026

Decide first what you want people to do. TikTok groups objectives into awareness, consideration and conversion. For website visits, for example, it suggests Traffic.

1. Log in to TikTok Ads Manager and click Create ad on your Dashboard.
2. Choose an objective.
3. Under Campaign setup, choose Manual campaign, Search campaign or Smart+ campaign.
4. Set a campaign name and optimisation goal, then select Continue.
5. Select a TikTok account or authorised post, log in to it, and select Continue.
6. Declare a special ad category if one applies.
7. Set the campaign budget, then go on to build the ad group and ad.

• Manual gives you the most control. Search serves ads on TikTok's search results page, based on keywords. Smart+ automates more of the setup.
• Your campaign saves as a draft automatically. Find drafts on your Campaign list and click Edit draft to continue.

Source: TikTok Business Help Center: How to set up a campaign, checked 15 October 2026

TikTok's budget page states these minimums, in US dollars. Your campaign stops running when it reaches its budget.

• TikTok suggests starting with a daily budget to watch performance before committing to a lifetime budget.
• You can change the amount after launch, but not switch between daily and lifetime once live.
• Keep the campaign budget no lower than the ad group budget, or delivery can suffer.
• When raising budgets, TikTok advises no more than 40% at a time during the learning phase, 30% after it, and no more often than every two days.

Sources: TikTok Business Help Center: About budget, checked 15 October 2026; TikTok Business Help Center: How to set up a campaign, checked 15 October 2026

Promote is TikTok's in-app tool for boosting your own videos and LIVEs, with preset packs and a few goals. Ads Manager is the full platform: campaigns, ad groups, audiences, placements, bidding and tracking. Start with Promote to test whether paid reach helps at all, and move to Ads Manager when you want more control or want to run creators' posts as Spark Ads.

Sources: TikTok Business Help Center: About Promote on TikTok, checked 15 October 2026; TikTok Business Help Center: About TikTok ads structure, checked 15 October 2026; TikTok Business Help Center: About Spark Ads, checked 15 October 2026

Before launch, review your settings once more. TikTok's help centre explains how to view ad settings for quality assurance.

• The ad account isn't approved yet: check under Tools, Settings, Account setup, My account, then Basic information. If it was rejected, TikTok lets you request a review or appeal.
• The budget ran out: delivery pauses automatically. Raise the budget or extend the schedule.
• The campaign budget is lower than the ad group budget: fix this, as TikTok says it can cause delivery issues.
• The ad is switched off: a draft can be published with the ad turned off, so check the toggle.

Sources: TikTok Business Help Center: Set up a TikTok Ads Manager account, checked 15 October 2026; TikTok Business Help Center: About budget, checked 15 October 2026; TikTok Business Help Center: How to set up a campaign, checked 15 October 2026

Zolyp, which publishes this guide, is an AI social media manager: it plans, writes, designs and schedules posts for Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Business, X, TikTok, YouTube, Pinterest, and Threads, and you approve the week before anything goes out. It doesn't buy or manage ads. Use it for the organic posting, then put ad budget behind the posts its weekly report shows are already working.