Marketers' guide to TikTok ad specs

TikTok is among the fastest-growing social platforms. With millions of short, high-quality videos, TikTok draws thousands of content creators and app users. TikTok for Business opens the doors for advertisers and marketers to elevate the brand value to a more engaged audience. Here are the ad formats and specs available on the TikTok ad platform.

Advertisers should know the essentials and details of how TikTok advertising works will help you get the most out of your advertising campaigns.

To kick-start your marketing journey on one of the most dynamic social platforms, we’ve mapped the lines for you. Below are the various advertising formats, specifications, and dimensions you should know before planning your next advertising campaign.

Related: 10 tools of Advertisers

Ad Position and Format

Image credit: TikTok For Business

In-feed ads are being placed in the “For You” feed on TikTok and Tiktok Lite. TikTok enables advertisers to display in-feed ads on full screen to present a more meaningful user engagement. After the nine-second mark of the video ad, a download card will appear that allows app users to engage with the ads.

1. TikTok TopView ad

Image credit: TikTok For Business

TopView ads have been advertisers’ top choice for TikTok ad formats. A video-based ad structure that initially appears once users launch the app. Marketers can customize these ads as they are fully clickable and capable of internal and external landing page conversions.

TopView ad specs

Video upload supported types: MP4, MOV, MPEG, 3GP or AVI
Recommended video ratios: higher or equal to 540 pixels by 960 pixels, 640 pixels by 640 pixels, or 960 pixels by 540 pixels
Image upload maximum weight: equal or not greater than 500 MB
Bitrate should be higher or equal to 516 KBPS

2. TikTok Infeed ads

Image credit: TikTok For Business

In-feed ads are ad formats inserted between user-generated ‘For You’ content. By utilizing the right creative and ad specs, this ad format can help generate good engagement as TikTok seamlessly delivers this ad to platform users. For advertisers who are cautious of the cost of media, In-feed ads are considered to be the inexpensive option.

In-feed ad specs

Video upload supported types: MP4, MOV, MPEG, 3GP or AVI
Recommended aspect ratios: 9:16, 1:1, or 16:9
Recommended video dimensions should be higher or equal to 540 pixels by 960 pixels, 640 pixels by 640 pixels, or 960 pixels by 540 pixels
Image upload maximum weight: equal or not greater than 500 MB
Minimum of 5 seconds but should not exceed by 60 seconds. Short videos of 9 to 15 seconds perform best.

3. TikTok hashtag challenge ads

Image credit: TikTok For Business

Branded hashtag ads make TikTok stand out from the rest of the video-based advertising platforms. Advertisers can create a trend for the community, allowing users to respond to the challenge. Branded hashtag ads enable marketers to invite users and to integrate their music. In addition, this ad format is more dynamic and creates a more extended ad recall.

Hashtag challenge ad specs

Video upload supported types: MP4, MOV, MPEG, 3GP or AVI
Recommended aspect ratios: 9:16
Recommended video dimensions should be higher or equal to 720 pixels by 1280 pixels
Image upload maximum weight: equal or not greater than 100 MB
Minimum of 5 seconds but should not exceed by 60 seconds. Short videos of 9 to 15 seconds perform best.
Hashtag challenge related in-feeds are strongly suggested to be a native ad
Bitrate should be above 2,500 KBPS
For video caption, 150 character maximum (including spaces and punctuation), and emojis are subject to approval

4. Branded effects ads

Image credit: TikTok For Business

Branded effects ads bring advertising to life. TikTok’s creative team designs a unique visual experience through different filters and stickers. Users will gain access to these assets allowing them to express their creativity using branded special effects.

Branded effect ad specs

For 2D & Gamified:
- Asset upload should not exceed 3 MB
- File upload support types: PNG
- Recommended image dimension, 540 pixels by 960 pixels
3D&Branded Scan
- File upload size should not exceed 3 MB
- File upload support types are 3D project files: MAX, MA, C4D, FBX or OBJ
For icons, file upload should not exceed 60 KB
- File upload support type: PNG
- Design area size is 144 pixels by 144 pixels, 18 pixels round angle and exported size are 162 pixels by 162 pixels.

5. News feed app ads

Image credit: TikTok For Business

Ad Position

Here are the different ad placements for TikTok news feed apps:

Ads may display in the following positions within our news feed apps:

BuzzVideo allows in-feed, details page, and post-video ad placement
TopBuzz allows in-feed, details page, and post-video ad placement
News Republic allows in-feed, details page, and post-video ad placement
Babe allows in-feed, and details page ad placement

News Feed App Series Image Ad

Image credit: TikTok For Business

Image upload supported types: JPEG, PNG
Recommended image ratios: higher or equal to 1200 pixels by 628 pixels
Image upload maximum weight: equal or not greater than 500 KB
Display names: 40 half-width characters maximum (including spaces and punctuation)
- Emojis will not appear in the app name or brand name
- A longer display name will have a higher possibility of concatenation
Ad description: 100 character maximum (including spaces and punctuation) including Latin, while 50 character maximum (including spaces and punctuation) for Asian characters
- Emojis,”{}” and ”#” will not appear in the description section

Video ads specifications

Video ad placement:
- TikTok in-feed ad
- BuzzVideo placements:
  - BuzzVideo in-feed ad
  - BuzzVideo details page ad
  - BuzzVideo story ad

TopBuzz placements:
- TopBuzz in-feed ad
- TopBuzz details page ad
Babe:
- Babe in-feed ad
- Babe details page ad

Video upload supported types:
- For TikTok in-feed ads: MP4, MOV, MPEG, 3GP, or AVI
- For news feed app series video ads: MP4, MOV, MPEG, 3GP, or GIF
Recommended video ratios:
- For TikTok in-feed ads, higher or equal to:
  - 540 by 960 pixels, 640 by 640 pixels, or 960 by 540 pixels.
- For news feed app series:
  - 720 by 1280 pixels, 640 by 640 pixels, or 1280 by 720 pixels.
Video upload maximum weight: equal or not greater than 500 MB
Suggested video duration:
- For TikTok on-feed ads:
  - Minimum of 5 seconds but should not exceed by 60 seconds. Short videos of 9 to 15 seconds perform best.
- For news feed app series:
  - There are no limitations but short videos of 9 to 15 seconds perform best.
Image upload supported types for profile image: JPG, JPEG, and PNG
- Aspect image ratio for a profile image is 1:1 and image weight upload is not greater than 50 KB
Display names: 40 half-width characters maximum (including spaces and punctuation)
- Emojis will not appear in the app name or brand name
- A longer display name will have a higher possibility of concatenation
Ad description: 100 character maximum (including spaces and punctuation) including Latin, while 50 character maximum (including spaces and punctuation) for Asian characters
- Emojis,”{}” and ”#” will not appear in the description section

6. TikTok Spark Ads

Image credit: TikTok For Busines

TikTok Spark Ads is an ad format where brands can reach out to creators and boost an existing post. However, the content of this native ad format must initially be published on the platform before activating it. Like Facebook and Instagram sponsored ads, Sparks Ads format can leverage product awareness through auction ads — Reach, Video View, Engagement(Beta), Traffic, Conversion and App Install objectives.

Ad creative should be native content
For reach, video view, reach and frequency (beta) objectives, ad caption can be blank. While campaign objective for engagement (beta), traffic, and app install should include ad caption.
Spark ads caption may include account mention and emojis.
TikTok ads manager doesn’t allow modification on existing ad display name and text.

7. TikTok Carousel ad

TikTok carousel ad allows advertisers to upload ten images and craft unique captions in every single ad. Ad placement for this ad format will appear on the News Feed app series.

Image credit: TikTok For Busines

Image upload supported types: JPEG, PNG
Recommended image ratios: for the square format, higher or equal to 640 pixels by 640 pixels. For the horizontal format 1200 pixels by 628 pixels
Image upload maximum weight: equal or not greater than 500 KB
Ad text should be more than 12 characters and not greater than 40 characters (including spaces and punctuation)
- Emojis will not appear in the app name or brand name
- A longer display name will have a higher possibility of concatenation
Advertisers can upload a minimum of 2 images but not more than 20 images
Each ad image may have a unique ad caption and URL page

Tap on the creative side of TikTok advertising

TikTok offers a more dynamic approach when it comes to advertising on its platform. Advertisers have an option to produce their own creative or leverage on organic content. Regardless of the preferred ad format, following the specified ad specification will lead to a more desirable output. Planning to advertise on different platforms? Check out more of our guides below.

If you want to bring more value to your advertising costs check our proprietary tool, Campaign Lab.

by strikesocial