There’s nothing more frustrating than spending much time submitting your TikTok ad and finding out that your ad has been rejected.
Every TikTok ad will have to go through the review process before publishing on this platform. So to make sure your ad adheres to the TikTok requirements and gets approved fast, keep reading to learn more about the TikTok Ads review checklist below.
What is the TikTok Ad review checklist?
The ad review checklist is a list of requirements that the TikTok team will use to review your ad before it officially goes live.
It often takes up to 24 hours to review whether your ad is eligible to publish on TikTok or not. If your TikTok ad complies with TikTok requirements, the ad approval process can proceed faster.
In contrast, if you can’t satisfy the TikTok Ad review checklist, you can easily find yourself in these two situations:
- TikTok Ads not spending: TikTok Ads don’t spend the daily budget
- TikTok Ads not delivering: TikTok Ads don’t get any impressions
To ensure you meet all the requirements for ad posting, take a closer look at the TikTok Ad review checklist in the following.
TikTok Ad review checklist
The ad review checklist consists of 3 main parts as shown below:
TikTok Ad Review Checklist: Landing Page
Include reliable information
A landing page is the first impression that each customer has on your brand. So, it’s very important to contain valid information about terms and conditions, business license, contact, and policies, which build trust and credibility from the audience.
So, where should you put it on the homepage? We suggest to place in locations that viewers can easily take notice of, like at the footer of each page would be a great option. Additionally, this information needs to be shown on every page of your site.
Be mobile-friendly
An ideal landing page should be one that the audience can view from horizontal to vertical directions, and they’re able to read your content directly without zooming out.
Here are some pieces of useful tips to create engaging and attractive landing pages that might target the right audience:
- Put your CTA at the top of your landing page
- Don’t add many texts, images, and videos
- Decrease the loading time
- Use a single-column layout
- Contain understandable and simple navigation
Here’s an example of how a good landing page should look like
Don’t show illegal products
The landing page is the place to display a wide range of your products that will meet customers’ needs. So, it’s unacceptable if any prohibited items include on the homepage even if it’s not in your advertising list items.
To check full lists of what is banned products, you can visit TikTok Advertising Policies – Industry Entry to make sure any products shown in the ad are not prohibited.
Don’t allow sensitive information
There are lot of data that the landing page will not allow collecting from the audience before they log in to the site. We will list some of them below:
- Financial information: income, bank account number, net worth, credit or debit card number, tax number, CVV, credit scores, debt, financial statement, or bankruptcy status.
- Health information: medical history, disabilities, mental or physical condition, or medical treatments.
- Personal identity: usernames, passwords, password protection answers, social security number, passport number, driver’s license number.
TikTok Ad Review Checklist: Ad Messaging
Consistency is one of the key factors to ensure a positive user experience. TikTok team review will evaluate the consistency between the ad’s creative, landing page, and display or app name to decide whether or not your ads are approved.
So, when setting up your ads, take note of the checklist shown below to make sure that your ads meet all of the requirements in the approval process:
Featured products in the ad are consistent with products on the Landing page
Keep in mind that the product or service featured in your ad must match the products and services displayed on your Landing Page.
Ad text aligns with what’s displayed in the video
Ensure the products and services featured in your ad’s video or images match the ad text.
Display Name is matching with branding on Landing Page
You must add a Display Name or App Name when creating a diversion ad in order to distinguish your brand in the ad.
Moreover, the Display Name or App Name also must match the one on your Homepage.
Note: This requirement is not applied to Spark Ads.
TikTok Ad Review Checklist: Ad Language
TikTok is now available in various countries so that’s why it allows to set up of different languages to be understandable for every user no matter where they are in the world.
More importantly, when it comes to ad language, TikTok highlights transparency to make sure that the audience can understand what they see and hear from the ad. To be accepted by the TikTok team review, the language in the ads must correspond to the accepted languages in the region where your ads are focused.
There are some factors in language policies that you need to take into consideration when creating your ads:
- All countries/ regions must choose at least one eligible language in a group’s Targeting > Location module.
- The ad’s text, caption, spoken words, subtitles, written words, and landing page on the video ad are matching with accepted languages in ALL the countries/regions targeted by an ad group.
If your ad wants to access regions using various permitted languages, multiple ad groups would be the best option.
For example, if your targeted market is Singapore, some kinds of accepted languages you can use are Bahasa Melayu, Chinese, English, and Tamil.
Note: Below are some common mistakes when setting up language for your ads:
- Target countries with various acceptable languages in a single ad group.
- Use subtitles or copy on landing pages that don’t match the accepted languages used in the targeted country.
- Targeting users based on the language is not a substitute for using the official language of a country or region.
4 tips for the smoother TikTok Ad review process
Focus on media
Your ads need to meet all of the requirements of the TikTok policy to make sure your ad has high-quality media. Check image specifications and video specifications for further details.
Let’s take a look at an excellent example:
It’s important to note that the TikTok team can refuse your request if your ad makes some mistakes:
- The quality of images/ videos/ audio is poor and difficult to understand.
- Not include sound or audio in the video.
- The background audio is not clear and cohesive.
- Audio is not required for video ads.
Avoid containing third-party logos
In fact, if there is more than one logo on the ad, it will make customers confused about these products belong to which brands. Not only that, containing third-party names on the ads will mislead users about the advertiser’s brand affiliation.
Here’s an example from Shopee, a well-known eCommerce shopping platform. In each ad, they only show their logo, which increases brand awareness and gets familiar to customers.
On the contrary, the ads below will not be accepted because it doesn’t comply with TikTok ad policy when displaying the TikTok logo and claiming this product is a “TikTok Bestseller”.
Prevent errors in ad text or caption
In order to highlight the business value and products featured in the ads, your caption needs to be understandable and clear for everyone.
Let’s see how this brand created a caption that is short and sweet but still delivers its marketing goals.
On the other hand, there are still some kinds of errors marketers should take notice of when creating ads:
- Cover text and logos with stickers, symbols, or mosaics
- Include a video or image with missing and inaccurate text
- Excessive and distracting capitalization
- Misspellings and grammatical errors
Keep the information on the website and in the ads consistent
As we have mentioned above why you should prioritize consistency in TikTok. That means whatever you show on ads must be relevant to the one on your official website. The data could be ad captions, ad text, ad images, ad videos, ad call-to-action (CTA), promotions, prices, and discounts.
Here’s an example showing the matching between the information on the ad and on the landing page:
On the contrary, the ad below won’t pass the review because there is a mismatch in the data between the ad and the website.
TikTok Ads Review FAQs
1. Why were my ad groups rejected?
If one or more of the ads in an ad group violate our advertising regulations, the entire ad group may be rejected. To guarantee a quicker review process, make sure your ads adhere to the following guidelines:
- Verify that your advertised products or services are not included in TikTok’s list of restricted industries.
- Avoid making any false or misleading claims, or using sensational or shocking content.
- Avoid violating anyone’s intellectual property in any way.
2. Are certain ads prohibited?
Certainly, there are specific products and services that are prohibited in some countries and regions. So if your ads contain images of one of the banned products or services, it is likely that you can run your ads on TikTok. Find out more about ad policies for restricted and prohibited products or services.
3. Are there any age restrictions for certain ads?
Age restriction is depended on the products or services you’re promoting and your targeted region. You can check TikTok’s policies and avoid violating them to have a smooth ads review experience.
4. How do I know when my ads are approved?
Under the Campaign tab in TikTok Ads Manager, you can check the approval status of your campaign, ad group, and ad.
5. What can I do if my ad is stuck in review?
The majority of TikTok ads are reviewed within 24 hours, while some may take longer than usual to be approved. Once your TikTok ads have been accepted and published, you will be notified. You will be informed via Ad Group in the TikTok Ads Manager if your ad is rejected and changes can be made to help publish your ad.
Make your TikTok Ad review process easier than ever
It would be difficult for brands to create an ad that meets all requirements from TikTok, especially for those who aren’t familiar with this platform. However, the outcome is definitely worth it for brands to achieve their marketing goals.
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