• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, January 20, 2025

A memo to advertisers published by TikTok on Sunday warned of some limitations to live campaigns, despite the company reinforcing its infrastructure to minimize any disruptions that might affect ad serving in the U.S.

The note was published by TikTok President Shou Zi Chew. It's not clear whether TikTok will reimburse advertisers for the lost time.

In October, TikTok introduced performance-based advertising solutions to help brands achieve results.

The automated performance tools, additional measurement capabilities and privacy technologies were intended to show advertisers they were in the media game for the long haul, despite the possibility that the U.S. government could shut them down in January 2025.

One of the biggest performance announcements was centered on Smart+, which automates the performance advertising process across targeting, bidding, and creative. Advertisers put assets, budget, and targeting goals into the system, and Smart+ automatically creates or selects the best creative asset — similar to Google Ads.

TikTok Symphony is an AI-powered tool that helps brands create videos quickly, then chooses the correct audience and puts the best ad in front of the right customer.

It's really beyond my comprehension why Google has not tried to duplicate what TikTok has created. 

The number of companies that advertised on TikTok in 2024 fell 18% to 24,300 compared with the prior year, when 29,800 thousand companies advertised.

Brand and product lines advertised on the platform declined 16% to 30,000 YoY -- down from 35,600 during 2023.

Overall across social, that was not the trend. In 2024, 91,800 companies advertised on one of the four biggest social media platforms — Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and X. This was 19% more than the 77,000 companies tracked in 2023. Some 74,000 of them advertised exclusively on one platform, with 16,000 of them only on TikTok.

MediaRadar data also also estimates that advertisers spent $4.8 billion running TikTok ads in 2024, up 27% year-over-year (YoY), compared with 2023 when $3.8 billion was spent.

Even in the midst of concerns over a platform shutdown, end-of-year spend in 2024 rose 45% in November and 77% in December compared with 2023.

The list of top-ten advertisers on TikTok was led by The Walt Disney Company. Combined, these companies spent $690 million, or 14% of their ad budget on the platform. Each advertiser spent at least $45 million in 2024.

Each of the top 10 advertisers spent at least $45 million in 2024. Procter & Gamble spent 159%, while Target spent 173%, Walmart spent 168%, and Uber Technologies spent 135%. Even Alphabet spent 78%, and Amazon spent 52%. 

Electronics & Software led all categories in the amount spent on advertising, with $876 million in 2024, up 15% YoY. Media & Entertainment ranked No. 2 with $708 million spent, up 22% YoY. Retailers and wholesalers ranked No. 3 spending $626 million, up 51% YoY.