TikTok Catalog Ads: How to Set Up Your Catalogue and Launch

TikTok catalog ads show products from your catalogue inside video and carousel ads, matched to each viewer by TikTok's delivery system. TikTok's catalogue ads page notes that the format was previously known as Video Shopping Ads, or VSA. The setup has four parts: a catalogue, pixel events that match it, videos, and a sales campaign.

If you already run catalogue ads on Meta, much of this will feel familiar. Our pillar guide to Meta catalogue ads covers the same ideas there, and the guide to catalogue ads for fashion brands covers sizes, colours and stock. For campaign structure on TikTok generally, see the TikTok ads campaign structure guide.

What are TikTok catalog ads?

Catalogue ads on TikTok are sales ads that pull products, images, prices and videos from a catalogue you own, and show each viewer the products they are most likely to buy. TikTok's overview of catalogues describes the Smart+ version as showing "personalized creatives for each consumer powered by your product library".

There are two routes on TikTok, and they are easy to confuse:

• Catalogue as product source: your products live in a TikTok catalogue and shoppers click through to your website. This is the route this guide covers.
• TikTok Shop: products sold inside TikTok, which run through a separate Video Shopping Ads flow for TikTok Shop.

TikTok's own research gives a sense of why brands bother. Its ecommerce solutions page cites a 2024 Commerce Landscape Study, run with Ipsos, in which 64% of TikTok users said they had bought something after seeing ads or shoppable content on the platform. It is TikTok's own commissioned research, so read it as context, not a forecast for your store.

What do you need before you start?

Before you create a TikTok catalogue campaign, three things must already be in place, and missing any one of them is the most common reason a first launch stalls. TikTok's getting ready checklist and related help pages list them:

1. At least four products in your catalogue that are in stock, approved and activated.
2. The TikTok pixel or Events API sending ViewContent, AddToCart and CompletePayment with a content_id for each product.
3. Videos. TikTok recommends at least six for a catalogue campaign.

You do not need a TikTok Shop. If you manage client accounts, set up the catalogue inside the right Business Center first: our guide to TikTok Business Center for agencies explains who should own which assets.

How to create a TikTok catalogue

Creating a TikTok catalogue takes a few minutes, but two of the settings cannot be fixed casually later, so decide them before you start. TikTok's catalogue creation guide gives the steps:

1. In TikTok Ads Manager, click Assets, then Catalog, and create a new catalogue.
2. Enter a catalogue name.
3. Pick a default currency. TikTok says it must match the currency of your listed products.
4. Pick a targeting location. TikTok says this is the only location where you can target ads featuring the catalogue's products.
5. Add products in one of three ways: Manually Add, Data Feed Schedule from an online file, or Upload File from TikTok's template.

The template has 9 required and 27 optional product fields. Supported formats are CSV, XML (RSS), XML (Atom), ZIP and GZ, with files under 50 GB and fewer than 20 million products. If you run a store platform, TikTok's catalogue overview lists ten partner integrations, including Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce and PrestaShop, as places where a catalogue can be created.

TikTok's catalogue best practices add a few quality rules worth following from day one:

• Images or videos of at least 500 by 500 pixels, in JPEG or PNG.
• Titles under 150 characters, with the key information first.
• An item_group_id shared by all variants of one product, while each variant keeps its own sku_id.
• A catalogue refresh every day.

How do you connect pixel events and check the match rate?

Catalogue ads on TikTok only learn from your site when pixel events can be tied to products in the feed. TikTok's match rate guide says Catalog Manager supports three event types for this: ViewContent, AddToCart and CompletePayment.

The single rule that matters most: the content_id in your events must follow the same format as the SKU ID in your catalogue. If the catalogue uses variant SKUs and the pixel sends parent product IDs, the match rate collapses.

After you connect the event source, check the rate under Event Sources in Catalog Manager. TikTok says a new connection can take several days to stabilise, that the rate should stay roughly the same over a 7-day lookback window, and that swings of 20% up or down can point to a misconfiguration. TikTok's best practices page asks you to push the rate towards 100%.

How do you add catalogue videos?

Catalogue video is TikTok's video format for catalogue ads, and it is where most of the creative work in a TikTok catalogue campaign sits. TikTok's catalogue video guide gives the steps:

1. In TikTok Ads Manager, open Catalog Manager from Tools and select your catalogue.
2. Open Videos and add videos by uploading new ones, importing from Ads Manager, or choosing recommended videos from earlier catalogue campaigns.
3. Click Select products and search by SKU ID, title, brand, SPU ID or product ID.
4. Save.

Mapping is automatic in some cases. TikTok's Smart+ catalogue setup guide says that with 20 or fewer products, all SKUs are mapped to each video; with more, TikTok tries to match the most relevant products.

Videos that work on TikTok look native: vertical, product in use, early hook. If your store only has studio stills, our guide to AI product photos for ads covers ways to get more angles and short clips without a new shoot.

How to launch a TikTok catalogue campaign

Launching the campaign is the shortest part of the job once the catalogue, events and videos are ready. TikTok's Smart+ catalogue setup guide lists the steps:

1. In Ads Manager, open Campaign and click Create.
2. Choose Sales, then Website.
3. Choose Smart+ campaign.
4. In the Catalog section, switch on Use catalog and pick your catalogue.
5. Choose products: All products, a Product set, or up to 20 specific products.
6. Add creative: catalogue images and videos, your own uploads, or Spark Ads from authorised TikTok posts.
7. Add the destination URL and publish. Ads and catalogue products go through review first.

Start with all products or a broad product set unless you have a clear reason to narrow it. TikTok's ecommerce page says the format can "reach new and retarget existing audiences with intent to purchase", so one well-fed campaign often does more than several thin ones. Our TikTok ads automated rules guide covers guardrails once it is live.

Troubleshooting TikTok catalogue campaigns

When a TikTok catalogue campaign does not deliver, the cause is usually upstream in the catalogue or the events. Check these in order:

• Fewer than four eligible products. Products that are out of stock, rejected or inactive do not count.
• Currency mismatch. The catalogue currency must match your product prices.
• Wrong targeting location. The campaign can only target the location set on the catalogue.
• Low match rate. Check content_id format against catalogue SKU IDs, and check that the parameter is named correctly.
• Too few videos. Under six videos gives the system little to match to products.
• Stale feed. Prices and stock that lag behind your site send shoppers to products you no longer sell, or at the wrong price. TikTok recommends a daily refresh.

Running TikTok catalogue ads next to Meta

Most ecommerce brands run TikTok catalogue ads alongside Meta, and the hard part is comparing them fairly while each sits in its own ads manager with its own attribution.

Wevion connects TikTok, Meta, Google, Snapchat, Taboola and Outbrain through each platform's official API with OAuth, syncs data about every 15 minutes, and shows every platform's spend and results in one dashboard next to your Shopify or WooCommerce orders, so TikTok and Meta catalogue campaigns can be read side by side.

Wevion's catalogue tools, including diagnostics, product sets and product audiences, work with Meta, so your TikTok catalogue still lives in TikTok's Catalog Manager. For the videos TikTok asks for, Feed Enrichment, currently in beta, makes a 5-second product video in 9:16 or 1:1 from the photos you already have; you can download kept results and upload them to Catalog Manager. To compare how the two platforms perform for your store, our TikTok vs Meta ads benchmark is a good next read. You can try Wevion with a 14-day trial on the Pro plan, no card needed at sign-up.

Key takeaways

• Catalogue ads on TikTok, formerly Video Shopping Ads, need a catalogue, matching pixel events and videos; no TikTok Shop is required.
• Set the catalogue currency and targeting location carefully: currency must match your prices, and ads can only target that location.
• Pixel content_id values must use the same format as catalogue SKU IDs, across ViewContent, AddToCart and CompletePayment.
• Add at least six videos and link them to products in Catalog Manager.
• Launch through Sales, Website and Smart+ with the catalogue switched on, starting broad before narrowing to product sets.