Shopping on TikTok has become an essential growth lever in social commerce for many brands and sellers. With the rise of live shopping and TikTok Shop, the question is no longer “should you be there?”, but “how can you optimize your sales on TikTok Shop?”.
Part of the answer undoubtedly lies in the proper use of GMV Max campaigns. These automated campaigns, offered in TikTok Ads Manager and the TikTok Shop Seller Center, help to increase your gross revenue (GMV) while simplifying the creation and management of your ads.
Before launching or upgrading your GMV Max campaigns, make sure your store’s fundamentals are solid. Advertising performance cannot compensate for a store whose reputation or reliability is deemed weak by the platform. There are two key indicators to keep a close eye on: theAccount Health Rating (AHR ), which measures your account’s compliance with TikTok Shop policies, and the Shop Performance Score (SPS), which evaluates your store’s overall quality (logistics, return rates, customer satisfaction, etc.). A degraded AHR or a low SPS can limit the distribution of your ads, or even restrict access to certain advanced features. Think about optimizing them in parallel with your advertising efforts.
Let’s find out what GMV Max is, its variants, its benefits and above all how to use it to boost your sales on TikTok Shop. But first, let’s define what GMV is and why it’s an indicator worth tracking.
What is GMV (Gross Merchandise Value) on marketplaces?
GMV, or gross merchandise value, refers to the total amount of sales made on a platform, before deduction of fees, returns or cancellations. Clearly, if you sell 100 products at €20, your GMV is €2,000, even if you don’t receive the full amount. GMV is a key performance indicator on marketplaces like TikTok Shop. It measures the overall sales activity of a seller or a campaign, independently of the margin or advertising cost.
Why is GMV an essential indicator to monitor?
GMV (Gross Merchandise Value) is a key indicator for assessing overall sales performance on a marketplace like TikTok Shop. It provides a comprehensive view of sales by measuring the total value of transactions, whether from advertising campaigns, organic traffic or affiliation.
Independent of margins, it shows the “gross potential” of your business, before costs or commissions are taken into account. In particular, it enables you to steer your campaigns by identifying the products that generate the most sales.
By linking GMV to your advertising spend (via ROI), you can optimize your investments by fine-tuning your strategy to maximize revenue with a given budget. In this way, GMV doesn’t tell the whole story about profitability, but it is the basis for measuring and growing your sales.
What is a GMV Max campaign on TikTok Shop?
A GMV Max campaign is an automated advertising format available on TikTok Ads, which is also suitable for TikTok Shop. Its objective? Maximize the gross revenue generated by your sales (GMV) while optimizing your TikTok Shop ROI.
In practice, GMV Max automatically selects :
- Products to promote
- Top-performing advertising content (including organic and affiliate videos)
- The most effective investments
All based on signals from your paid and organic traffic.
So you define your target ROI and the platform automatically adjusts spending and distribution to stay within that target. For example, if you choose an ROI of 2, you’ll spend €200 on advertising to get €400 from GMV.
Keep in mind that all sales generated, whether from advertising, organic sales or affiliate content integrated into the campaign, are taken into account when calculating the ROI of GMV Max.
The two main variants of GMV Max TikTok Shop campaigns
TikTok Shop offers two types of GMV Max campaigns, for products and for Lives.
GMV Max for products
Objective: boost direct sales of non-live products
How it works :
- Automatic selection of products and advertising assets most likely to generate conversions
- Integration of existing videos: Spark Ads publications, organic content, affiliate videos
- Joint optimization of paid and organic traffic
- Precise order allocation in the Seller Center
GMV Max for live events
Objective: maximize the revenue generated by your Live sessions
How it works :
- Optimizing traffic to your Live room
- Automated parameters: target ROI, budget, schedule
- Two types of creations are possible:
- Video-to-Live: uses existing videos to attract people to Live
- Live-to-Live: highlighting other Live content
- Detailed tracking of indicators (views, engagement, conversions)
Key benefits of GMV Max campaigns on TikTok Shop
Advanced automation
- Intelligent audience and placement management
- Automatically adjust budgets to meet your target ROI
Simple configuration
- Create campaigns in just a few clicks via TikTok Ads Manager or the Seller Center
- Unified, intuitive interface
Maximum coverage
- Simultaneous exploitation of organic and advertising signals
- Promotion on all available pitches
Affiliate integration
- Use of videos created by affiliate partners
- Commission management via Open Collaboration
GMV Max best practices and optimization tips
To get the most out of GMV Max campaigns, it’s important to follow a few best practices.
Choosing the right target ROI
To determine the ROI of your GMV Max campaigns, you can base yourself on your historical performance
For Lives: adjust according to the pace of spending. If the pace is too slow, lower the target ROI; if it’s too fast, increase the budget or target ROI.
Careful advertising content
- Using Spark Ads videos
- Authorized affiliate content
- Optimized organic publications with “commercial content” label
Controlling budgets intelligently
- For Lives, the recommended budget is 2 to 3 times higher than for a standard campaign.
- Make gradual adjustments (avoid changing the target ROI more than once a day)
Measuring the right indicators
- Gross income (GMV) as primary measure
- ROI and cost per order to be interpreted in context (paid + organic traffic)
GMV Max campaign performance tracking and analysis
After launch, access the TikTok Ads Manager or Seller Center dashboard
Monitor key indicators
- Video commitment
- Impressions
- Clicks
- Live Conversions
- Controls and generated GMV
Video tracking in GMV Max Live
Monitor status (Queued, Broadcast, Unbroadcast, Excluded) and metrics: click-through rate, views (25%, 50%, 75%, 100%), average duration of Live views, subscribers won, etc.
Adjust your campaigns according to performance
- Replace or optimize underperforming creatives
- Adjust target ROI or budget according to trends
What our TikTok Shop experts have to say about GMV Max
GMV Max campaigns are a useful lever for TikTok Shop sellers. They automate ad delivery while optimizing ROI and sales. Whether you sell products via the store or live via live shopping, GMV Max helps you increase your gross revenues by harnessing the full power of organic and paid content.
When you launch a GMV Max campaign, it’s important to remember that there’s an initial learning phase. For several days, the algorithm needs data to identify what works (placements, creatives, audience). So don’t expect optimum performance from day one.
To facilitate this ramp-up, we recommend activating the Max Deliverability mode for at least 5 days. This allows the system to broadcast widely, gather signals and build up a reliable performance base.
Another key point is the volume of creatives. GMV Max works best with 10 to 50 ad contents in rotation. If you don’t yet have this volume, rely temporarily on static product visuals to flesh out your assets.
Once the campaign has passed this initial learning phase and you have more creatives, you’ll be in a better position to move on to an ROI-optimized strategy.
Finally, never forget the context: if your TikTok Shop is new, nobody knows about it yet. Open affiliation with numerous creators is a good starting point for generating discovery. But it’s not enough. You need to couple this approach with awareness-oriented Ads campaigns, to feed the top of the funnel and lay the foundations for a lasting brand presence.
Ready to get started? TikTok Shop partner agency Effinity can help you create your first GMV Max campaign on TikTok Ads Manager or the Seller Center!
