TikTok Ads size guide: sizes and specs for 2025

So, you want to advertise on TikTok. Good choice! It’s become one of the most popular social apps ever, with more than one-billion monthly active users. That’s a lot of potential customers.

You’ll need to make your ads creative and engaging, and ‘speak the language of the platform’, but before you think about what you advertise, let’s start with how you advertise.

Here, we break down the different kinds of TikTok ads, their lengths, their aspect ratios, and other important details.

First: some important context about ByteDance

TikTok is owned by a large Chinese company named ByteDance, who — much like how Meta owns Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and other apps — also own other platforms you might not be as familiar with, like Fizzo and Pangle.

These are good to know, because, once you’re set up with TikTok Ads Manager, you might see them pop up in certain places, e.g. the ‘Global App Bundle’, which gives you the option to show ads to audiences beyond TikTok itself.

But to get you started, let’s focus on TikTok.

In-Feed TikTok Video Ad Specifications

The most common kind of TikTok ads are In-Feed Ads, which show up on your audience’s ‘For You Page’ (the main video feed) in a variety of different ways.

They fit in seamlessly with organic content (it often takes a few seconds to realise you’ve even looking at an ad!), and often include calls-to-action like ‘Shop Now’ or ‘Learn More’.

The main formats are:

• TopView ads: shown as soon as a user opens the app, and displays as a full-screen video for three seconds, before UI elements (the like/comment/share buttons, caption, etc.) fade back in and the ad transitions to looking like a regular in-feed video.

• Top Feed ads: if there’s no TopView ad, this is what users see first on their feeds, and they display as regular videos, without the three-second full-screen effect.

• Standard feed ads: regular in-feed ads which mostly just look like regular videos.

• Spark Ads: this format takes regular videos posted organically by your brand account or a creator’s account and places them as ads.

Here are the specifications for these in-feed video ads:

Dimension (aspect ratio): vertical 9:16 (540px wide by 960px tall is the minimum, but we recommend at least 720px wide by 1280px tall)

File format: .mp4, .mov., .mpeg, .3gp (most video editing apps, including TikTok’s own CapCut, can export in these formats)

Duration (length): five seconds minimum, 60 seconds maximum (15–30 seconds is the sweet spot for most ads, however)

File size: under 500 MB

In-Feed TikTok Image (Carousel) Ad Specs

TikTok also offers an image-based carousel ad format which can be great for giving users the chance to quickly scroll through a gallery of product images.

Here are the specs for TikTok’s image carousel ads:

Dimension (aspect ratio): either vertical 9:16 (again, go for at least 720px wide by 1280px tall) or square 1:1 (vertical is less essential for images — square carousels are quite a common sight on TikTok)

File format: .JPEG or .PNG

Quantity: a minimum of two images, and a maximum of 35

How captions work in TikTok Ads

There are two ways ads are posted to TikTok: Spark, and non-Spark.

Spark Ads take organically-posted videos and ‘elevate’ them into ads.

Non-Spark formats are posted as ads from the get-go.

So, for Spark ads, the caption on the ad will be the same as the caption on the original post.

And for other in-feed video ad formats, the caption will be original.

For both Spark Ads and non-Spark ads, the caption character limit is 100 (including punctuation), which displays as four lines, or four lines plus a ‘See More’ button if the text exceeds four lines.

Understanding TikTok Ad safety zones

When filming and editing your TikTok ads, be conscious of the UI elements that will cover about half of your video (e.g. the like/comment/share buttons to the right, the caption and CTA at the bottom, etc.).

This diagram highlights the ‘safety zone’ of your TikTok videos. It’s a transparent PNG, so you can download it and lay it over your videos to ensure the focal points of your ads aren’t being obscured by the TikTok interface.

TikTok Ecommerce Ads

If you’re aiming for product discovery and sales, you’ll want to try out TikTok’s ecommerce campaigns. Here’s a run-down of the different kinds:

Video Shopping Ads

These ads showcase products with video, along with descriptions and prices. If a TikTok user sees one of these videos, they can tap through to your site and buy the product in just a few minutes. Great for driving traffic and scoring low-friction conversions.

Video Shopping Ads with TikTok Shop

Similar to regular ‘Video Shopping Ads’, but the checkout takes place without the user ever leaving the app. Your products will be directly integrated into TikTok Shop. A solid option for the most seamless sales, especially if you don’t have too robust an ecommerce site of your own.

LIVE Shopping Ads

These real-time, interactive livestream ads give brands the chance to present their products, answer viewer questions, and engage directly with their audiences. They’re a bit like old-school teleshopping shows (if you’re old enough to remember those...) and can be strong opportunities to nurture brand loyalty by being entertaining, personable, and authentic.

Each of these kinds of ecommerce ads follow the same formatting as in-feed video ads (9:16 aspect ratio, 720px wide by 1280px tall, 5–60 seconds long).

Other types of TikTok ad

TikTok also offer a slate of non-feed ad formats, like:

Branded Hashtag Challenges

These ads encourage user participation by prompting audiences to create content around a specific branded hashtag.

You’ll see the best results if you partner with creators who can platform your hashtag challenge and encourage their audience to do the same.

This format is great for sparking community interaction and increasing brand awareness through viral challenges and trends. Be sure to workshop a hashtag that’s succinct, unique, and memorable!

Branded Effects

With these ads, users can add custom AR (augmented reality) effects, stickers, and filters to their own videos.

Think outside the box for these! Nobody wants to just have a company logo on their face. But if you can make people’s videos look cooler, you’re onto something.

For example: animated fire for spicy dishes at restaurants, decorative borders inspired by local culture for tourism campaigns, or virtual clothing for fashion ecommerce.

Branded Mission

This format connects brands with TikTok creators, incentivising them to publish videos which promote products in accordance with requirements set by the brand.

A brand sets their guidelines. Creators scroll through a gallery of ‘Branded Missions’ and picks which ones they want to create videos for. Win-win!

Beyond TikTok: Fizzo and Pangle

As I mentioned earlier, ByteDance own more than just TikTok — they also run apps like Fizzo and Pangle.

TikTok Ads Manager offers you the option to buy the ‘Global App Bundle’, which will expand your campaigns to those other platforms.

For this article, we’re focusing on TikTok, but ByteDance have created comprehensive specification tables for Fizzo and Pangle ads, both for images and for videos.

Got more questions about your TikTok ads? Book a discovery call with us →

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