TikTok Smart+ campaigns: what they are and how to set one up

Smart+ automates most of a campaign. TikTok says you only need to provide your KPIs, creative assets, and target location and language, and the system handles targeting, optimisation and creative delivery, shifting budget towards the best performing creative and pausing weak ones.

TikTok has merged manual and Smart+ setup into one flow, so you can choose full automation, partial automation or fully manual settings. TikTok notes the upgraded flow may not be available to every account yet.

• Optional AI creative features can remix music, hooks, formats and scripts into new ad variations. You can turn off Smart+ generated creatives in Ads Manager at any time.
• Smart+ can add an organic anchor link to selected posts. Anchor links are only shown to users aged 18 and over.

Sources: TikTok Business Help Center: About Smart+ Campaigns, checked 15 October 2026; TikTok Business Help Center: How to create manual and automated campaigns in the upgraded Smart+ experience, checked 15 October 2026

TikTok's steps for the upgraded experience:

1. Log in to TikTok Ads Manager, click Create ad and select a supported objective.
2. At campaign level, turn on the catalogue toggle if you sell from a product catalogue.
3. Choose Automatic campaign budget, enter the budget and pick daily or lifetime.
4. At ad group level, set optimisation and bidding. In a fully automated campaign the optimisation goal, event and budget settings must match across ad groups.
5. Leave automatic targeting on, or add audience controls and audience suggestions to guide it.
6. Keep automatic placement and choose any brand safety options.
7. At ad level, enter the destination URL or Instant Page, add your videos and ad text, and click Publish all.

• TikTok generates ads from combinations of your videos and texts and delivers the best performing ones. To force one creative and text pair, add only one of each to the ad.
• Automatic placement can include partner apps through TikTok Pangle, depending on your region.

Sources: TikTok Business Help Center: How to create manual and automated campaigns in the upgraded Smart+ experience, checked 15 October 2026; TikTok Business Help Center: How to create ads for Smart+ campaigns, checked 15 October 2026

The same flow lets you build a manual campaign instead:

1. At campaign level, choose Ad group budget so each ad group can have its own budget and bidding.
2. Set different optimisation goals, events and bid strategies per ad group if you need to.
3. In Audience targeting, click Switch to custom targeting for the full manual options.
4. In placements, choose Select placement and pick the placements you want.
5. Add ads, then click Publish all.

Source: TikTok Business Help Center: How to create manual and automated campaigns in the upgraded Smart+ experience, checked 15 October 2026

TikTok's two most relevant types for a website are Smart+ Web and Smart+ Traffic:

• TikTok recommends Smart+ Web if you want to optimise for actions like add to cart or purchase, and Smart+ Traffic if you just want quality visits.
• You can't mix Spark Ads and non-Spark ads in one Smart+ campaign.

Sources: TikTok Business Help Center: About Smart+ Web Campaigns, checked 15 October 2026; TikTok Business Help Center: About Smart+ Traffic Campaigns, checked 15 October 2026; TikTok Business Help Center: Best practices for Smart+ Web Campaigns, checked 15 October 2026

TikTok's best practices for Smart+ Web Campaigns:

• Add at least six creative assets when you create the campaign.
• Run it for at least seven days, starting with at least 10 times your historical cost per action for similar objectives.
• With a target CPA or minimum ROAS, TikTok suggests a daily campaign budget of 30 times your historical CPA, and no less than 10 times.
• Avoid big edits to bid, audience or creative in the first 7 days. After that, change the bid by up to 15% every 2 days.
• If the campaign regularly spends 90% or more of its daily budget, try raising the budget by up to 30%.

Source: TikTok Business Help Center: Best practices for Smart+ Web Campaigns, checked 15 October 2026

Common reasons, from TikTok's Smart+ pages:

• The upgraded flow isn't on your account yet. TikTok says to contact your account manager or customer support.
• Placements can't be picked manually in Smart+ Web or Traffic campaigns. To exclude TikTok or TikTok Pangle, create a non-Smart+ campaign.
• With a campaign-level budget, every ad group must share the same optimisation location, goal, event and target CPA.
• Budget not spending: if you use view-through attribution, TikTok suggests trying it switched off, as that may increase delivery.

Sources: TikTok Business Help Center: How to create manual and automated campaigns in the upgraded Smart+ experience, checked 15 October 2026; TikTok Business Help Center: About Smart+ Web Campaigns, checked 15 October 2026; TikTok Business Help Center: Best practices for Smart+ Web Campaigns, 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 Smart+ campaigns. A steady supply of fresh organic videos gives you more creative to choose from, and TikTok recommends at least six assets per Smart+ Web campaign.