• by Colin Kirkland , Yesterday

To gain a competitive edge over rival social media giants and legacy e-commerce platforms, TikTok is introducing two expanded AI advertising formats designed to convert potential buyers, manage creative assets, and automate campaign creation ahead of the holiday season.

TikTok is building out the functionality of two pillars of its advertising business -- "Search Ads" and "GMV Max" -- while unveiling a new tool that selects and organizes an advertiser's AI-generated creative into a single workflow.

Originally launched in 2024, TikTok's Search Ads Campaign tool allows advertisers to target ads based around user’s search inquiries.

Powered by the company’s Smart+ automated ad system, advertisers will be able to automate their search ads across keywords and creative with the goal of boosting the performance of their ad via more exact targeting.

TikTok is also using Smart+ to power its new “Creative Selection” feature, designed to fill an advertiser's workflow with “every creative source,” from an advertiser's own assets to AI-generated creative and creator content.

By doing so, TikTok wants to simplify the process of approving and activating creative while preparing a campaign.

“The solution surfaces the recommended groups of creatives tailored for the business and campaign objective and gives advertisers full control of what goes live,” the company explained in a statement.

Finally, TikTok Shop merchants will now see an expanded version of the platform’s GMV Max ad solution, originally designed in 2024 to automate sellers’ campaign creation.

Moving forward, GMV Max will be trained to account for a seller’s business costs, such as affiliate commissions, coupons, and referral fees in order to help optimize merchants’ return on investment.