In 2025, TikTok has become much more than an entertainment app: it’s a true marketing lever for brands looking to reach a young, engaged and mobile audience. With over 35% of screen time captured among 15-35 year-olds, TikTok offers advertisers a powerful platform for generating awareness, engagement and conversions. But how does advertising work on TikTok? How do you exploit its algorithmic and creative specificities to achieve concrete results?
In this article, we explain how advertising works on TikTok, the formats available, the keys to the algorithm, and the best practices for successful advertising campaigns.
Understanding the TikTok algorithm: the basis of any strategy
The TikTok algorithm is central to its appeal. It gives every piece of content, even those without followers, a real chance of being shared on a massive scale. It powers the famous “For You” (FYP) page, personalizing the user experience to a level never achieved by other social networks.
The three pillars of the algorithm
TikTok classifies and distributes videos according to three main data sets:
- User interaction: likes, shares, comments, viewing time, registrations… This is the most decisive factor.
- Video data: keywords, hashtags, sounds, effects and content themes. This enables TikTok to match a video to popular trends or searches.
- Account settings: language, location, smartphone type, declared preferences. This enables fine-tuned personalization of the FYP.
Exploiting the TikTok algorithm as an advertiser
Even in an advertising context, respecting TikTok’s codes is essential to maximize organic reach and performance:
- Take care of the first 3 seconds (hook): a good start attracts attention and increases viewing time.
- Work on your TikTok SEO: insert keywords in the description, captions and visuals. TikTok is used as a search engine by Gen Z.
- Focus on interaction: respond to comments, use social features (duets, collages), ask questions.
- Follow trends: adapt music, challenges and popular effects to your brand universe.
- Publish regularly, without sacrificing quality: TikTok rewards consistency.
- Test, measure, adjust: formats, durations, publication times, everything needs to be continuously optimized.
Why TikTok Ads is an essential lever for brands
TikTok has established itself as an advertising playground as effective as it is innovative. In 2025, it’s one of the few networks where creativity can generate exceptional performance, provided you understand the mechanisms involved.
An organic, immersive advertising format
TikTok Ads integrate natively into the user’s feed, making them far less intrusive than traditional formats. As a result, they’re perceived as content, not as an interruption.
Creative content is king: the challenge is to capture attention in 2 seconds while entertaining.
Major advertising trends in 2025
- Hashtag Challenges: encourage users to create content around your brand.
- Musical ads: use popular sounds to create a familiar atmosphere.
- Partnerships with creators: Spark Ads directly sponsor a video posted by an influencer.
- Original content: storytelling, humor and authenticity are the keys to performance.
A measurable impact on the public
TikTok promotes engagement, memorization and conversion:
- Up to 20% higher engagement rate with a well thought-out call-to-action.
- 52 minutes a day on average on the app: an ideal space to install a brand story.
- Interactive video format that boosts awareness and purchase intent.
TikTok advertising formats: a range of options for every purpose
TikTok Ads Manager lets you design campaigns according to a classic tunnel: Attention – Consideration – Conversion. Here are the main formats available.
In-Feed Ads
- Distribution: in the “Pour Toi” self-service feed.
- Objectives: awareness, traffic, conversions.
- Cost: from €0.50 to €2 per click, recommended minimum budget: €1,500/month.
Spark Ads
- Broadcast: sponsorship of an existing video posted by a creator.
- Advantage: very authentic and less perceived as advertising.
- Cost: often 30% less than a conventional In-Feed.
Top View
- Broadcast: full-screen video as soon as the app opens.
- Objective: massive brand awareness.
- Cost: between €12,000 and €50,000 per day.
Hashtag Challenge
- Distribution: via a sponsored hashtag.
- Objective: virality and UGC engagement.
- Conditions: to be negotiated directly with TikTok.
TikTok Shopping Ads (new in 2025)
- Formats: Video Shopping, Live Shopping, Catalog Listing.
- The aim is to make it easier to buy directly from the application.
- Performance: 70% of conversions now come from the TikTok Shop.
TikTok Ads Manager: create and manage your campaigns efficiently
TikTok Ads Manager is an intuitive, AI-assisted platform. It allows you to create, test and adjust your ads in just a few steps:
- Choose a marketing objective (awareness, traffic, conversions).
- Structuring the campaign: name, category, A/B test, budget.
- Create ad groups with targeting (demographics, interests, devices).
- Define formats and creatives.
- Launch and optimize your campaign using real-time data.
Tip: allocate 20% of the budget to tests to identify the best-performing formats.
Measuring the performance of a TikTok Ads campaign
To evaluate the success of your ads, several key performance indicators (KPIs) need to be tracked:
- Click-through rate (CTR): reflects the attractiveness of the content.
- Cost-per-click (CPC) and cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM): to monitor costs.
- Engagement rate: likes, comments, shares.
- Conversions: sales, registrations, downloads.
- ROAS (Return On Ad Spend): TikTok announces a ROI 5x higher than 2023, thanks to the TikTok Shop and AI.
- Demographic analysis: refine targeting according to actual performance.
- Competitive benchmarks: compare your results with the market.
Budgeting, mistakes to avoid and optimization
How much does a TikTok campaign cost?
Understanding the cost of advertising on TikTok in 2025 allows you to better adapt your targeting to budgetary realities.
- The cost of advertising on TikTok Ads starts at around €1,000/month: ideal for testing.
- 3,000/month: recommended for significant performance.
- Average CPC: €0.50 to €3.
What drives up costs
- Targeting too broadly can increase CPCs by +45%.
- Weak hooks or uninviting thumbnails can lead to a drop in CTR.
- Unclear call-to-actions can result in up to 50% fewer conversions.
- Lack of TikTok SEO can result in 60% lost visibility.
Continuous monitoring and optimization
- Analyze performance after 72 hours: don’t draw conclusions too soon.
- Compare formats: some convert better than others, depending on the audience.
- Adjust according to publication times and content types.
- Test creative additions: stickers, filters, polls, questions.
TikTok Ads, a marketing lever to activate right now
Advertising on TikTok in 2025 combines the best of short-form video, organic creativity and artificial intelligence. Its algorithm offers fair visibility to all advertisers, as long as they respect its rules and cultural codes.
By integrating TikTok into your media strategy, you invest in an agile, powerful and scalable acquisition channel, where engagement, virality and conversions can exceed your expectations, provided you focus on creativity and continuous analysis. Once the foundations have been laid, it’s possible to build a complete TikTok Ads strategy, aligning marketing objectives, formats and targeting. And if you want to go further, consider couplingyour campaigns with influencer partnerships on TikTok, to boost your impact.
Ready to launch your first TikTok Ads campaign? Call on our experts.
