How to create a TikTok catalog for Catalog Ads

A catalog stores the products you want to advertise: names, descriptions, prices, images, videos and more. TikTok uses it to build Catalog Ads that show each person the products they're most likely to want. It suits any business with several products to promote, such as an online shop.

• Group products into product sets and use rules to tidy product data automatically.
• Generate videos for every product with TikTok's Video Template and Dynamic Video Generator tools.
• Create catalogs through partners including BigCommerce, Ecwid, Shopify, Square, PrestaShop, WooCommerce and OpenCart.
• Manage a catalog in Business Center to share it with team members and partners and use it across several ad accounts.

Sources: TikTok Business Help Center: About catalogs, checked 15 October 2026; TikTok Business Help Center: About managing Catalogs in Business Center, checked 15 October 2026

TikTok notes that catalogs are only available in markets where Video Shopping Ads (Catalog) have launched. The steps:

1. Click Assets, select Catalog and click Create.
2. Enter a catalog name.
3. Choose a default currency. It must match the currency of your products.
4. Choose a targeting location. It's the only location you can target with ads for this catalog.
5. Click Create.
6. Open the catalog, click Manage, then Products, then Add Products, and click Download Template to see the format.
7. Fill in your products and add them using one of the methods below.

Source: TikTok Business Help Center: How to create a Catalog, checked 15 October 2026

Each product needs 9 required fields, with 27 more optional. Choose a method:

• Data feeds can be CSV, XML (RSS), XML (Atom), ZIP or GZ. GZ files compressed with tar aren't supported.
• A feed file must be under 50GB and hold fewer than 20 million products.

Sources: TikTok Business Help Center: How to create a Catalog, checked 15 October 2026; TikTok Business Help Center: How to import your product catalog from Google Merchant Center, checked 15 October 2026; TikTok Business Help Center: How to use auto-generated catalogs for commerce, checked 15 October 2026

Product sets let you promote a group of products, such as one category, in a campaign.

1. Choose Use Filters to build a set from rules, or Manually Select Products to pick them.
2. Name the set, add your filters or products and click Confirm.
3. To clean up product data, open the catalog, click Product Sources, choose a source and open Settings.
4. Click Add Rules and choose Value Replacement, Set Default Value, Mapping, Change Capitalization or Regex Replace.
5. Click Apply and choose whether the rule applies now, to future uploads, or both.

Source: TikTok Business Help Center: How to create a Catalog, checked 15 October 2026

Catalog Ads work with the Sales objective (website and app), the Traffic objective in the upgraded Smart+ experience, and Smart+. People can tap through to your website or an Instant Page.

• Carousel: product images pulled straight from your catalog.
• Single video: your own video with interactive add-ons for catalog products.
• Catalog video: videos matched to each viewer's interests using product signals.
• Image Catalog Carousel: 2 to 10 swipeable cards from your catalog, for Traffic in the upgraded Smart+ experience.

Source: TikTok Business Help Center: About Catalog Ads in TikTok Ads Manager, checked 15 October 2026

Check these:

• Your market isn't supported yet. TikTok says catalogs need Video Shopping Ads (Catalog) to have launched there, and suggests asking your sales representative.
• You're looking in the wrong menu. TikTok's create guide says Assets, then Catalog. Its Google Merchant Center guide says Tools, then Catalog. Check both.
• Product prices don't match the catalog's default currency.
• Your Google Merchant Center feed uses manual, file or API uploads rather than Scheduled Fetch.
• Auto-generated catalogs need a Pixel passing content_id, at least 2 products on your website, and a site not built on Shopify.

Sources: TikTok Business Help Center: How to create a Catalog, checked 15 October 2026; TikTok Business Help Center: How to import your product catalog from Google Merchant Center, checked 15 October 2026; TikTok Business Help Center: How to use auto-generated catalogs for commerce, 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 manage ad catalogs. Organic posts about individual products can sit alongside your Catalog Ads.