• by Laurie Sullivan , 11 hours ago

TikTok this week released search ad-campaign data to demonstrate its worth as its extended deadline -- September 17, 2025 -- to be sold to a U.S. owner or face a ban in the United States quickly approaches.

The data touts its search advertising strategy, and how the company has redefined performance and intent for advertisers.

The company reported a 40% year-over-year increase in searches, with users performing billions of daily searches and coming to the site to search and support advertisers' search ad campaign strategies, based on data from January and February 2025.

Company data pulled from campaigns running across the U.S. and Canada found that dedicated search ads campaigns drove significantly more incremental purchases than mid-funnel initiatives without these campaigns.

TikTok activations that included dedicated search ads campaigns drove 2.0x higher purchase lift compared with initiatives without these campaigns, the company noted in a blog post this week.

For enterprise advertisers, the impact of dedicated search campaigns resulted in a 2.2x purchase lift compared to the initiatives without these search campaigns.

For enterprise retailers, dedicated search campaigns delivered a 1.9x purchase lift versus initiatives without these campaigns, TikTok said, adding that they returned higher incremental return on ad spend (ROAS) compared with the non-search counterparts.

TikTok also reported that 86% of Gen Z internet users search on TikTok weekly -- nearly matching traditional search engine usage.

The data was cited from a study published in July conducted in partnership with WARC.

Among those who are using TikTok to search, 38% begin searching for information on traditional search platforms before turning to TikTok, while 34% begin on TikTok before switching to traditional search platforms.

WARC noted that search is more popular among younger demographics like Gen Z, with search discovery rates similar to traditional search platforms like Google.

Some 86% of Gen Z search on TikTok weekly compared with traditional search at 90%.

TikTok also shared data from a search ad campaign run by Aerie, a lifestyle apparel brand by American Eagle that delivered strong incremental growth, including significant lifts in engagement and conversions.

A Conversion Lift Study showed that a combination of the TikTok Search Ads Campaign with In-Feed Ads enhanced overall performance for a campaign that delivered more than a 3% lift in conversions, as well as 3,800 incremental purchases and a $2.64 incremental return on ad spend (iROAS) -- all outperforming the 100% in-feed budget allocation.