TikTok pushes deeper into AI-powered ads amid uncertainty over U.S. ban

A big part of that roadmap includes evolving their eight-month-old AI-campaign tool, Smart+, so marketers have more control over how it buys their ads.

“They said they’re going to improve the Smart+ platform by providing advertisers with more control around bidding, targeting and creative, which makes sense, and then the automation sets in after that,” said the exec.

In fact, some of those rollouts are slowly starting to materialize. Last week, (June 23), TikTok introduced a goal-based bidding feature called Smart+ target ROAS (tROAS). 

“The solution offers additional input from the advertiser and more control over bidding, with the intention of driving greater performance and scalability,” said Olivia Picard, director of paid social at Dept, a digital services agency.

Plus, it looks as though targeting via the tool is already in the works behind the scenes as TikTok refines its account level targeting by updating its demographics targeting, and introducing device level targeting, and advanced targeting, which enables reaching audiences based on their likes and behavior.

Another exec, who exchanged anonymity for candor, talked about TikTok’s audience suggestion tool — currently in beta and requires getting listed from account reps — which automatically identifies and prioritizes a brand’s target audience. Though they said they haven’t seen a date when this will be officially launched.

“Advertisers can provide age, gender and custom audience suggestions, and then TikTok will match those profiles first before expanding, giving advertisers increased control over the signals used for audience targeting,” they said.

The same exec pointed to another product being introduced soon: TikTok’s offline event tracking for Smart+ web and catalog campaigns, which lets marketers increase their visibility into TikTok’s impact on driving offline sales.

Taken together, and its clear TikTik’s Smart+ is borrowing its platform peers’ AI-campaign tool equivalents by giving advertisers more options: they can either use it through a set up that lets them establish their objectives and then Smart+ does the actually heavy lifting in terms of campaign management. Or they can opt for a more customized set up where they can pick and choose where they want to leverage Smart+ tools in their campaigns.

“Meta’s Advantage+, Google’s Performance Max, TikTok’s Smart+ — all these platforms are moving towards this AI based approach, with very minimal upfront audience tailoring,” said Chris Matheson, media director at Markacy. “Advertisers really need to ensure they’re doing more analysis on the back end as to how the algorithm is steering to find their customers. That’s something that should be looked into and monitored and corrected primarily through the use of creative.”

That’s especially relevant on TikTok, where more and more inventory — including search — is being funneled into Smart+. 

According to another exec who met with TikTok in Cannes, the platform currently lets marketers exclude search inventory from Smart+ campaigns, but they’ll soon require all advertisers to opt into it by default — akin to how Google operates. In other words, search ads will be bundled into Smart+ campaigns eventually. 

“So it seems like they will do away with this altogether, and advertisers won’t be able to opt out of this placement specifically,” said Matheson. 

In some ways, it’s a double-edged sword: it’s great for TikTok because it forces advertisers to embrace their search ads. But for advertisers, it almost puts them at the mercy of Smart+.

“As an advertiser, I of course always want more control!,” said Jeremy Hull, chief product officer, North America at Brainlabs. “But from TikTok’s perspective, it’s a smart move that will accelerate the adoption of search ads on the platform. It’ll encourage advertisers to focus on the audience, creative and how they use the platform, rather than artificially splitting management / strategy into legacy channel structures.”

These updates come as TikTok’s future in the U.S. remains shrouded in uncertainty. Its U.S. ban extension deadline now rests on Sept. 17. TikTok’s second extension deadline came and went during Cannes Lions, and (unsurprisingly) led to a third extension — this time for 90 days — ordered by President Trump, as he aims to resolve trade deals with China. Still, unphased by any of the will-it-won’t-it back and forth, the longer this continues, the more ingrained TikTok is becoming in U.S. soil.