In brief
The advertising objective is the first choice: it determines the following settings and what TikTok tries to achieve. Objectives fall into three families: - Awareness: Reach. - Consideration: Traffic, Video views, Community interaction. - Conversion: TikTok-native growth (“Growth Max”), App promotion, Lead generation, Sales.
Why it matters
A poorly chosen objective asks TikTok to look for the wrong behavior. A "Traffic" campaign will find clickers, not necessarily buyers.
The steps
- Open Create and choose the objective: the panel on the right summarizes what the objective allows.
- Specify if needed: campaign type for reach, sales destination (TikTok Shop, website, app, website and app), promotion type for an app (install or retargeting).
- Name the campaign: the default name combines the objective and the date.
- Choose the budget strategy (see the guide on budgets).
- Click Continue to set up the ad group.
Pitfalls to avoid
- Choosing Traffic to sell: without a conversion event, TikTok optimizes for clicks.
- Changing the objective during creation: ad groups and ads are reset.
- Forgetting the destination for the “Sales” objective.
Frequently asked questions
Which objective to make a brand known? Reach or video views.
Which objective to gain followers? Community interaction (followers or TikTok page visits).
What does “TikTok-native growth” do? It links your content to journeys directly inside TikTok (mini-games, mini-series), with value-based optimization.
Key takeaways
- Three families: awareness, consideration, conversion.
- The objective steers everything else.
- Changing the objective = starting over for groups and ads.
Practice in TRIALO
Choose Reach, Traffic and then Lead generation in turn: see what changes in the ad group (frequency, optimization goal, optimization location).