TikTok ad strategy has changed completely in the last 24 months. “TikTok media buying” no longer exists in its original form. What worked in 2023 is largely ineffective today.
If you want to scale TikTok ads as an ecommerce brand in 2026, you need to adapt to how TikTok’s ecosystem actually works now—especially TikTok Shop, affiliates, and GMV Max campaigns. Below is a practical breakdown of how you can win using TikTok ads with the most up-to-date strategy.
Key Takeaways:
TikTok ads rely on having an effective TikTok affiliate strategy in place
80% of TikTok ad spend should be on TikTok's new GMV Max campaign type
GMV Max campaigns must be properly segmented and optimized
It's important to keep "feeding" these GMV Max campaigns with more affiliate content
1. You Need a TikTok Affiliate Program (Non-Negotiable)
Having a TikTok affiliate program is no longer optional. It’s a non-starter.
You should be sending Target Collaboration invites to at least 500 influencers per month. You cannot simply upload your best Meta ad creative and run standard TikTok ads. That approach works for maybe 10% of brands now.
The new approach to TikTok ads is:
Run Target Collaboration campaigns
Put paid spend behind creator videos
Drive traffic directly to the TikTok Shop destination
Affiliate-driven creative is now the foundation of scalable TikTok advertising.
2. Set Up Your TikTok Shop & Affiliate Campaigns for Success
Your campaign structure matters before you ever turn ads on.
Best practices:
Set different commission levels for organic vs. paid conversions in Target Collaboration campaigns. Margins are drastically different, so commission structures should be too.
Be very generous on the organic side.
Make sure all SKUs are live in TikTok Shop. More SKUs = more shots on goal for virality.
Fully optimize your TikTok Shop product pages.
Yes, all those annoying product variant fields and description sections need to be filled out. They are all inputs for TikTok’s algorithm to distribute your products to more users.
TikTok ad strategy has changed completely in the last 24 months. “TikTok media buying” no longer exists in its original form. What worked in 2023 is largely ineffective today.
If you want to scale TikTok ads as an ecommerce brand in 2026, you need to adapt to how TikTok’s ecosystem actually works now—especially TikTok Shop, affiliates, and GMV Max campaigns. Below is a practical breakdown of how you can win using TikTok ads with the most up-to-date strategy.
Key Takeaways:
TikTok ads rely on having an effective TikTok affiliate strategy in place
80% of TikTok ad spend should be on TikTok's new GMV Max campaign type
GMV Max campaigns must be properly segmented and optimized
It's important to keep "feeding" these GMV Max campaigns with more affiliate content
1. You Need a TikTok Affiliate Program (Non-Negotiable)
Having a TikTok affiliate program is no longer optional. It’s a non-starter.
You should be sending Target Collaboration invites to at least 500 influencers per month. You cannot simply upload your best Meta ad creative and run standard TikTok ads. That approach works for maybe 10% of brands now.
The new approach to TikTok ads is:
Run Target Collaboration campaigns
Put paid spend behind creator videos
Drive traffic directly to the TikTok Shop destination
Affiliate-driven creative is now the foundation of scalable TikTok advertising.
2. Set Up Your TikTok Shop & Affiliate Campaigns for Success
Your campaign structure matters before you ever turn ads on.
Best practices:
Set different commission levels for organic vs. paid conversions in Target Collaboration campaigns. Margins are drastically different, so commission structures should be too.
Be very generous on the organic side.
Make sure all SKUs are live in TikTok Shop. More SKUs = more shots on goal for virality.
Fully optimize your TikTok Shop product pages.
Yes, all those annoying product variant fields and description sections need to be filled out. They are all inputs for TikTok’s algorithm to distribute your products to more users.
3. Launch GMV Max Campaigns the Right Way
Skipping affiliate outreach strategy here—it’s out of scope.
Fast-forward to when your Target Collaboration campaigns have been live for 1–2 months. You should have 50+ creator videos live before turning on ads.
At this point, you should use TikTok’s GMV Max campaign type.
GMV Max Setup Best Practices
Create a separate GMV Max campaign for each major product or category.
This allows you to adjust budget and ROAS independently, since each category will have different content quality and total addressable market on TikTok.
Toggle on automatic creative sourcing.
Do not manually select ads. Any organic post that tags your TikTok Shop should be eligible for paid spend.
Assume day-one spend with zero conversions.
Even with a target ROI, early results are unpredictable. Start conservative and scale budgets gradually.
Understand that budget and ROAS inputs are signals, not outputs.
A common scenario:
$5,000/day budget
Target ROAS of 1.0
Actual spend of ~$500/day at a 2.0 ROAS
Do not link to your shop when promoting seasonal or short-term offers.
Otherwise, GMV Max will pick them up and promote them indefinitely as evergreen content.
4. Feed the GMV Max Machine Continuously
Once your TikTok ads are live, the real work starts.
The hardest part of GMV Max campaigns is consistent delivery. This is where ongoing affiliate outreach matters.
Key rules:
Continue sending 500+ affiliate invites every month
Double down on creators whose videos are already performing
Keep refreshing creative volume
A common mistake brands make is consolidating all SKUs into a single campaign and never recruiting new creators. This usually leads to 3–5 months of explosive growth, followed by a hard plateau and volume collapse.
5. Measure GMV Max Performance Accurately
Measurement with GMV Max campaigns is not clean or 1-to-1 like Meta ads.
Important realities:
TikTok’s GMV Max attribution is extremely generous
These campaigns are often less incremental than manual campaigns
Reported performance is usually inflated
Tools like Triple Whale now support GMV Max reporting, which helps. Personally, I’m a fan of using a “How Did You Hear About Us” (HDYHAU) survey and treating organic + paid TikTok as a single acquisition channel. If my survey-based CPA is within range, I’m comfortable scaling GMV Max—even if platform numbers are noisy.
6. Use Manual TikTok Campaigns for Incremental Volume
GMV Max should not be your only TikTok ad strategy. You can’t use the Shop destination in manual campaigns if the product is in GMV Max, but you can run web destination campaigns.
This is where:
Top-performing Meta ads belong
Older TikTok formats still work (SPC campaigns, LALs, etc.)
Think of manual web campaigns as top-of-funnel support. They:
Can run with looser ROAS targets
Build a halo effect across acquisition channels
Should not be your primary TikTok spend anymore
Target ~20% of total TikTok ad spend on manual web campaigns.
Final Thoughts on Scaling TikTok Ads in 2026
We learned all of this the hard way. GMV Max campaigns can feel stable early on, which makes it easy to become dependent on them. But without constant creator inflow, SKU expansion, and active management, volume will stall. TikTok advertising in 2026 is not about media buying—it’s about ecosystem management.
