TikTok Promote: how to boost a post and what it costs

What TikTok Promote is

TikTok Promote is an in-app advertising tool to help you amplify your TikTok videos and LIVEs. In practice you pay to show a post you have already published to more people, for a budget and a length of time you choose.

Promote works on all short and long video and photo-mode posts, but not Stories. You can promote the same post more than one time, through the Promote again option, and you can run it from a browser at tiktok.com/promote/web/main as well as from the app.

TikTok says Promote serves creators who want more visibility and followers, businesses that want awareness and leads, and TikTok Shop sellers who want more sales. For a small shop, that means one tool can grow the account, collect messages from buyers or send viewers to a product page.

How to promote my TikTok video with Promote

These steps follow TikTok's support page for the mobile app. Your account and the post must also meet the rules in the eligibility section below.

1. Open Promote

   Tap the ... button on the video, then Promote (a fire icon). You can also open it through TikTok Studio or Business suite, reached from the Menu button on your profile.

2. Choose a goal

   Pick what you want more of: Boost account, Get leads, Get sales or Boost LIVE. Depending on the goal you choose, you may have to follow additional steps. For website visits, for example, you enter your website URL and choose your Call to action.

3. Pick a pack or go custom

   A promotion pack comes with pre-set budget, duration, and audience. A custom promotion lets you set your own duration, budget, and audience.

4. Set the audience

   In a custom promotion, keep the default audience that Promote suggests or create your own. Promote can target by location, interest, age, and gender.

5. Pay

   Tap Pay. The promotion starts after your campaign is approved and ends when the duration you chose is over.

6. Watch the results

   Open your Promote dashboard in TikTok Studio or Business suite to see views, followers and clicks while your campaign is running and after it's ended.

Who can use TikTok Promote, and which posts qualify

TikTok's rules cover the person, the account, the post and the sound on it. Check all of them before you try to pay.

• Age: you must be at least 18 years old.
• Account: you need a creator account or a Business Account. Government, Politician, and Political Party Accounts cannot use Promote.
• Visibility: you can promote only content that is public on TikTok.
• Format: Promote covers all short and long video and photo-mode posts, but not Stories.
• Sound: the post must use original sound or sounds that can be used for commercial purposes.
• LIVE: to promote a LIVE, your account needs at least 1,000 followers.
• Lead goals: lead generation goals need a Business Account, and those campaigns only reach users who are 18 years old or older.
• Policy: a promotion can be rejected if it violates TikTok's Community Guidelines or ads policy.

Sound is the rule business accounts most need to watch, because verified Business Accounts have no access to the general music library. Promote needs sounds that are allowed for commercial use or sounds that you fully own. If the sound does not meet that rule, Promote may ask you to change it before you can start or continue your campaign. TikTok's Commercial Music Library holds songs and sounds that are pre-cleared for commercial use.

If the Promote icon is grey, tap it to view details via a notification.

TikTok Promote goals and when to use each

Promote groups its goals by what you want more of. Pick the one that matches the action you want from a viewer, because that is what the promotion is set up to get.

For a small online store, the website visits option under Get sales is the simplest way to send viewers to a product page. Linking Ads Manager and installing the Pixel is not required for using website visits as your goal.

If you sell on TikTok Shop, you can use the product purchase options under Get sales and pay for the promotion with your TikTok Shop earnings through GMV Pay.

TikTok Promote budget, cost and payment

TikTok's Promote help pages list no fixed price. The total cost depends on the duration and budget you set, and it may change over time with market demand. Prices show in local currency or rechargeable Coins.

A promotion pack gives a suggested budget and an estimated result. Those numbers are estimates based on past performance, not guaranteed results, so treat the estimate as a guide and judge the result in the dashboard.

Example: you want to know which of two posts brings more profile visits. Run one custom promotion per post with the same budget, duration and audience, then compare the cost of each visit before you spend more on either.

TikTok warns that additional mobile fees may apply when you pay inside the app. Its payment table shows no additional mobile fees for web payments, so paying on the web at tiktok.com/promote/web/main avoids the app store fee.

You can end a promotion at any time, and the remaining budget is returned to your Promote balance. Keep in mind that a coupon used in an order that has started running can't be returned, and that you can't delete the post while the promotion is active.

Getting money back out of the Promote balance has limits too: you cannot withdraw from your Promote Balance if you paid directly with Apple Pay.

TikTok Promote vs Ads Manager vs Spark Ads

Here is how Promote, Ads Manager and Spark Ads compare when you want to pay for reach on a video. Promote lets you quickly boost content with a few taps inside the app. Ads Manager is a platform of tools to create ad campaigns, manage ad resources, monitor data, and optimize your advertising. Spark Ads are an ad format inside Ads Manager that uses organic TikTok posts as ads.

Spark Ads are the closest thing to Promote inside Ads Manager: they run an existing post, and videos up to 10 minutes can be sparked.

Promote can also boost another creator's post. TikTok says the Share option allows you to promote another creator's content, though the option may not be available for all posts or LIVE videos. In Ads Manager, the same idea is a Spark Ad that uses organic posts made by other creators, with their authorization.

Linking Promote to TikTok Ads Manager

You can link Promote to a TikTok Ads Manager account. TikTok lists these changes once the two are linked.

• Targeting by interest, location, demographics, behavior, and more.
• Budget control: manage your budget in ad groups and use Campaign Budget Optimization.
• One pool of money: shared fund pools, so Ads Manager funds can pay for Promote.
• Goals: deep conversion objectives like website conversion with Pixel tracking.
• Reporting: Promote order details can be seen and managed on TikTok Ads Manager.

Campaign details only flow one way: TikTok Ads Manager campaign details won't be shown in the in-app Promote. Your Promote balance also cannot be withdrawn once Promote is integrated with TikTok Ads Manager. After linking, you can only use your balance in Promote for a future campaign or close your Promote account to withdraw your balance.

How to read your Promote results

The Promote dashboard shows post and profile views, new followers, likes, comments, clicks to your website, plus audience insights by gender, age, regions and more. It also shows each promotion's status: pending review, active, paused, or rejected.

Judge a promotion on the number that matches its goal. Compare a Boost account promotion on new followers for the money spent, and a website visits promotion on clicks to your website. A high view count says little if the goal was traffic.

If a promotion is rejected, check the post against TikTok's Community Guidelines, its ads policy and the sound rule, then fix the post or promote a different one.

When Promote is worth using

Promote fits small, quick tests on posts you already have. It is less useful when you need to track sales on your own site or run many ads at once.

• Boost a post that already does well without paid reach, because Promote only improves your content's visibility on TikTok and a promoted video still has to hold attention.
• Match the goal to the next step you want: followers for a new account, website visits for a store, messages or leads for a service.
• Use a custom promotion when you know who buys from you, so you control the audience. Use a pack when you want TikTok's suggested budget.
• Move to Ads Manager when you need conversion tracking, several ad groups, or Spark Ads with other creators' posts.

Where Nation fits

Questions about TikTok Promote