TikTok ad types, explained: find the right format for your campaign

TikTok ranks first among consumers for capturing attention, according to Kantar's Media Reactions 2025 study cited in TikTok's own branding data. That attention is worth buying. The catch is the menu of TikTok ad formats: In-Feed, Spark, TopView, Top Feed, Pulse, Branded Mission, Shopping ads. The names give away almost nothing about what each one does, and picking the wrong one can quietly waste your budget.

There's a simple way to choose though, and it's the way TikTok itself is built. Its Ads Manager is organized around campaign objectives, so the fastest route to the right format is to start from your goal and work backward. This guide maps every current TikTok ad type to what it's meant to achieve, so you can match the format to the campaign.

Start with your objective

Before you compare formats, name the outcome. TikTok's Ads Manager groups campaigns into three objective families: awareness, consideration, and conversion, with a sales objective covering purchases from your TikTok Shop, website, and app. Awareness is about reach and attention. Consideration is about clicks, views, and engagement. Conversion is about installs, leads, and sales.

Pick that goal first and the format list shrinks on its own, because most types of TikTok ads are built for a specific rung of the funnel. The sections below follow that order, from broad reach down to direct sales.

Every TikTok ad format at a glance

In-Feed Ads: the workhorse

In-Feed Ads are the format most campaigns run. These are the auction ads that appear in the For You feed between organic videos, full-screen and sound-on, so a good one reads as a post the viewer chose to watch. They support the widest range of objectives, which makes them the default starting point for almost any campaign, from traffic to conversions.

Because they run in the auction, In-Feed Ads scale with your budget and optimize toward the goal you set. If you only learn one TikTok format, learn this one.

Spark Ads: borrow real posts

Spark Ads turn an existing organic video into an ad. You can boost a post from your own account or, with permission, a creator's post, and the likes, comments, and shares stay attached to the original. TikTok's Spark Ads support nearly every objective, from reach and video views to lead generation and sales.

The appeal is authenticity. A Spark Ad carries the social proof the original post already earned, and it keeps the native look that performs on TikTok. For most brands, the strongest performance play is to find an organic video that's already resonating and put spend behind it as a Spark Ad.

Reach the masses: TopView, Top Feed, and Pulse

When the goal is awareness at scale, TikTok's premium branding formats buy guaranteed visibility. TopView is the big one: a full-screen, sound-on video that plays as the first thing a user sees when they open the app. Top Feed places your ad in the first In-Feed slot of the session. Both are built for launch moments and mass reach.

Pulse puts your ad alongside the most popular content on the platform, so your brand rides next to what people already came to watch. TikTok's data, citing Nielsen, reports that Pulse captured 40.3% additional audience beyond television alone. These formats cost more than auction ads and are usually reserved for bigger budgets and tentpole campaigns.

Read also: How to use AI in marketing to save hours every week

Get people involved: Branded Mission and Branded Effects

Some formats turn the audience into participants. Branded Mission crowdsources content from real TikTok creators: you set a brief, creators make videos, and you amplify the best ones, which gives you a stream of authentic creative and community engagement. It sits in TikTok's consideration objectives, though brands also use it for upper-funnel brand building.

Branded Effects are custom stickers, filters, and augmented-reality effects that users apply to their own videos, which puts your brand into content people make themselves. Interactive add-ons round out the set: overlays like display cards, voting stickers, and countdowns that you layer onto an In-Feed Ad to lift engagement and clicks.

Drive sales: Shopping ads, Search Ads, Carousel, and Playable

For conversion and commerce, TikTok's lower-funnel formats connect the ad to a purchase or an install. Video Shopping Ads and TikTok Shop formats pull products into the ad and let people buy without leaving the app, which suits catalog-driven ecommerce. Carousel ads show multiple images in one placement, useful for walking through several products or steps.

Search Ads place your brand against what users are actively looking for, capturing intent the way search advertising does elsewhere. Playable ads give a hands-on preview of a game or app before the download, which lifts install quality for app-promotion campaigns. Each of these maps to TikTok's conversion and sales objectives.

The older premium formats

A couple of TikTok's original premium formats still exist but get less of the spotlight now. Brand Takeover, the full-screen ad on app open, is still sold, usually through direct sales, while TikTok leads with the video-based TopView and TopReach for launches. The Branded Hashtag Challenge, once TikTok's signature campaign, is still documented as a paid campaign type in TikTok's Business Help Center, though TikTok has been steering brands toward Branded Mission, a newer creator-crowdsourcing product that many treat as its successor. If you're weighing a hashtag challenge, compare it against Branded Mission before you commit.

Pick the right TikTok ad type fast

Here's the short version on the main types of ads on TikTok. For broad awareness and launches, reach for TopView, Top Feed, or Pulse. For everyday performance across the funnel, run In-Feed Ads, and boost your best organic videos with Spark Ads. For engagement and community, use Branded Mission and Branded Effects. For sales, apps, and ecommerce, use Shopping ads, Search Ads, Carousel, and Playable ads.

One thing every format shares: it lives or dies on native, vertical, sound-on creative, and you rarely know which cut wins until you test a few. That volume is the bottleneck for most teams. A tool like Creatify turns a product URL into TikTok-ready 9:16 video variations in minutes, with a library of AI avatars and voices, so you can produce enough versions to test across formats without a full production cycle for each one.

Read also: How to run Snapchat ads: the channel most marketers skip

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the main TikTok ad types?

The core TikTok ad formats are In-Feed Ads (auction ads in the For You feed), Spark Ads (boosted organic posts), and the premium branding formats TopView, Top Feed, and Pulse. Alongside those sit Branded Mission and Branded Effects for engagement, and Shopping ads, Search Ads, Carousel, and Playable ads for conversion and commerce.

Which TikTok ad format is best for my goal?

Match the format to the objective. For awareness, use TopView, Top Feed, or Pulse. For consideration and everyday performance, use In-Feed and Spark Ads. For engagement, use Branded Mission or Branded Effects. For sales, apps, and ecommerce, use Shopping ads, Search Ads, or Playable ads. TikTok's Ads Manager asks for your objective first for this reason.

What's the difference between In-Feed Ads and Spark Ads?

An In-Feed Ad is a standalone ad you build and run in the feed. A Spark Ad promotes an existing organic post, from your account or a creator's, and keeps that post's likes, comments, and shares. Spark Ads tend to feel more native and carry built-in social proof, while In-Feed Ads give you full control over the creative from scratch.

Is the Branded Hashtag Challenge still available?

Yes. TikTok still documents the Branded Hashtag Challenge as a paid campaign type in its Business Help Center. That said, TikTok has been promoting Branded Mission, a newer creator-crowdsourcing format, as its go-to for that kind of campaign, so it's worth comparing the two before you book one.

Which TikTok ad format is best for a small budget?

In-Feed Ads and Spark Ads, both auction formats, work at almost any budget and let you start small and scale what performs. The premium branding formats like TopView and Pulse carry high minimums, so they suit larger, campaign-level spends. For most small advertisers, boosting a strong organic video as a Spark Ad is the most efficient place to begin.