Starting September 1, TikTok will require brands advertising products in TikTok Shops to use GMV Max. GMV Max is an AI-driven tool that automates campaign decisions. Merchants choose products to promote, set budgets and target return on investment, and the algorithm determines spending — boosting existing ads or creating new ones — to maximize sales. The mandate shifts strategic control from marketers to platform algorithms and reduces advertisers' visibility outside TikTok Shop's closed ecosystem. The move aligns with broader industry trends toward AI-powered ad tools, but TikTok's implementation is compulsory and on an accelerated timeline.
The platform's guidelines say that starting September 1, brands that want to pay to advertise products for sale in their TikTok Shops will have to use a tool called GMV Max, ad buyers tell Business Insider. Introduced in 2024, the TikTok tool uses an AI algorithm to decide how to get advertisers the most bang for their buck.
The shift from TikTok's standard ads manager to GMV Max has ruffled feathers in adland, since it forces brands to relinquish some strategic control to an algorithm. It also makes it harder for brands to gauge TikTok ad performance beyond the closed ecosystem of TikTok Shop, ad buyers said. "TikTok's GMV Max is asking for us to put a lot of faith in the platform," said Dwight Bush, director of paid social at the marketing agency Doner Partners Network.
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