Organic first, always
We do not put spend behind a video that has not earned attention on its own. The 24 to 48 hour read decides what gets amplified.
TikTok Shop ads
Reported ROAS on TikTok Shop is inflated by about 2.5x by its own attribution window. We manage to the corrected number, which is the only one your bank account agrees with.
GMV Max attributes on a 7-day click plus 1-day view window. That window claims credit for sales your organic content and your affiliate creators would have produced anyway. The published estimate is that it inflates reported ROAS by roughly 2.5x.
This is why ad spend on TikTok Shop so often looks brilliant in the interface and disappointing in the bank. An agency reporting your GMV Max ROAS back to you without correcting it is not lying, but it is telling you something that will not survive contact with your accounts.
| Spark Ads | GMV Max | |
|---|---|---|
| What it does | Boosts a specific organic post that already worked | Automated Shop campaign: bidding, placement, audience |
| The question it answers | Can this piece of content sell harder? | Can these products scale? |
| Control | You pick the creative | TikTok explores. Manual bidding was retired mid-2025 |
| Best used | First, on proven organic | Once conversion is confirmed and inventory is stable |
The sequence matters more than the choice: let organic run 24 to 48 hours, identify what has genuine traction, put Spark Ads behind those posts, and graduate only the confirmed converters into GMV Max. Starting at GMV Max with untested creative is how budgets disappear quietly.
When an ad amplifies a creator's affiliate video and that video drives a sale, you pay both: the ad spend TikTok charged, and the creator's commission on the same order, often 15 to 22% depending on category.
It is not double-charging, it is two systems doing their jobs, but a media plan built on ad spend alone will be short by exactly one commission on every affiliate-attributed sale. The fee calculator lets you model both together.
We do not put spend behind a video that has not earned attention on its own. The 24 to 48 hour read decides what gets amplified.
Authorisation negotiated with the creator up front, because boosting rights are worth paying for separately and asking afterwards rarely works.
Graduated only when a creative has confirmed conversion, inventory is stable and the margin is understood.
We report the dashboard number and the corrected number side by side, with the commission on ad-driven sales included. Impressions are not a business outcome.
Ad budget is billed by TikTok directly to your own card. We never take a percentage of it. Pricing is flat →
Paid amplification of an existing organic post, yours or a creator's, running as an ad from the original account with its likes and comments intact. Because you are boosting something that already earned attention, Spark Ads consistently deliver the best blended efficiency: high click-through, low cost per click.
TikTok's automated Shop campaign type. It handles bidding, placement and audience selection for you. Manual bidding for Shop ads was retired in mid-2025, so for most sellers GMV Max is now the campaign architecture rather than one option among several.
Not as reported. GMV Max uses a 7-day click plus 1-day view attribution window, which claims credit for sales that organic content would have produced anyway. It inflates reported ROAS by roughly 2.5x, so a dashboard 6:1 is about 2.4:1 incremental. We target a corrected ROAS above 1.5:1, which is where a shop stays profitable after all fees.
Average CPC runs about $0.62 and CPM about $8.40, with platform-wide ROAS averaging 3.8x on reported figures. Your category and creative quality move those far more than your bid does, now that bidding is automated.
Yes, and this catches people out. If an ad amplifies a creator's affiliate video and that video drives a sale, you pay the ad spend TikTok charged and the creator's commission on the same sale, often 15 to 22%. Both costs land on one order.
No. Paying to distribute a video the feed already rejected scales a loss. Let organic run 24 to 48 hours, find what genuinely holds attention, amplify that, then graduate the winners into GMV Max.
Figures checked 2 September 2026. Platform rules and rates change; verify against TikTok Shop Seller Center before acting on any of them.
Bring the ad account. We will tell you what the corrected number looks like, and whether the spend is actually buying you anything.