TikTok Rolls Out AI-Driven Ad Solutions to Rival Meta’s Dominance

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Key Takeaways

  • TikTok launched the Smart+ suite, automating ad performance through AI-driven targeting, creative selection, and bidding.
  • Smart+ features Web Campaigns, Catalog Ads, App Campaigns, and Lead Generation Campaigns.
  • These tools aim to attract marketers wary of TikTok due to concerns over quick results.

TikTok has introduced AI-driven ad solutions at Advertising Week, including the Smart+ suite that automates targeting, bidding, and creative selection.

Launched on October 7, the Smart+ suite utilizes TikTok Symphony AI to manage these processes for performance advertising. Advertisers provide their assets, budgets, and goals, and Smart+ chooses the most effective creative and identifies the optimal audience to serve ads to users likely to convert.

Smart+ includes four objectives: Web Campaigns to drive traffic and sales, Catalog Ads for relevant product recommendations, App Campaigns for app installs, and Lead Generation Campaigns to convert interested users into high-value customers.

Merchants on TikTok Shop can use GMV Max to automate campaign creation, including audience targeting and bidding, optimizing traffic across organic content, paid ads, and affiliate posts.

Caption: A screenshot from TikTok’s seller center page | Source: Adweek
A screenshot from TikTok’s seller center page | Source: Adweek

Additionally, TikTok now offers Conversion Lift Studies to brands of all sizes, measuring campaign impact beyond the last click and evaluating sales that wouldn’t occur without ad exposure.

The Smart+ Strategy on TikTok

Marketers on TikTok can now use AI for ad creation focused on conversions, leads, or app downloads while choosing to manage campaigns themselves or let the AI take over. This flexibility highlights a key issue with tools like Smart+: while these “black box” models promise improved performance through machine learning, they require marketers to trust them without the usual insight and control.

Still, many may be willing to sacrifice some oversight for faster results and better ad performance, which TikTok is likely hoping to achieve with Smart+. These new features seek to attract marketers hesitant to use TikTok due to doubts about quick results or investment concerns. If effective, Smart+ could reshape TikTok’s ad business by making smaller advertisers central to its growth, similar to strategies used by Meta and Google.