Spark Ads on TikTok: How to Promote Your Own Videos and Streams With Ads (2026)

Spark Ads are ads made from a video you have already published: TikTok shows your regular post as an ad, while all the views, likes, comments, shares and follows stay on that post and on your account. You can promote your own videos or someone else's if the creator has given you an ad authorization code, which is valid for 7, 30, 60 or 365 days, depending on what the creator picks. Spark Ads can only be launched in TikTok Ads Manager, and the budget minimums there are more than $50 per day per campaign and more than $20 per day per ad group. The Community Interaction goal suits streams, but TikTok's help center has no step-by-step guide specifically for LIVE. From Russia there is still almost nothing to promote: since 2022 TikTok has not let people post videos or go live from Russia.

What Spark Ads are

TikTok calls Spark Ads a native ad format built on organic posts. Put simply, you do not make a separate ad creative: you take a video that is already on your profile and buy extra impressions for it. Viewers see it in the feed as a normal video, with your username, avatar, caption and sound, only with an ad label and a call-to-action button.

The main advantage for a creator is that the result does not vanish when the campaign ends. The video collects views and comments for itself, your profile gains followers, and all of it stays after the money has run out.

What can be turned into Spark Ads:

• your own public videos from the account linked to your ad account;
• videos by other creators, using the ad authorization code issued by the post owner;
• videos up to 10 minutes long, which is the limit for Spark Ads under TikTok's specification.

Stories and carousel duets are not supported in Spark Ads: if you try to add them, the ad account will return an error.

How Spark Ads differ from regular ads

Regular ads (non-Spark) are uploaded to the ad account as a separate file and published from a “custom profile”, a Custom Identity with any name and picture you like. TikTok's help center says this is the only way to run non-Spark ads and that the platform is gradually moving away from such profiles. In other words, advertising on TikTok is becoming more and more tied to real accounts.

What we compare	Spark Ads	Regular ad
Where the video comes from	A post published on TikTok	A file uploaded to the ad account
Whose name it runs under	Your account or the account of the creator who gave you the code	A Custom Identity, which TikTok is phasing out
Where likes and comments go	To the original post	To the ad
Tap on the username and avatar	Opens the creator's profile, with a Follow button	Leads to a website or an app store
Followers and profile visits in the report	Yes	No
Caption	Taken from the post, cannot be changed in the ad account	Written in the ad account

For a streamer this is the key point: a regular ad leads to a website, while Spark Ads lead to the profile where your videos and streams live.

Authorization code: who issues it and how long it lasts

You need a code when the ad runs from one account but the video sits on another. For example, you are promoting a highlight clip from your stream that was posted by your editor or a friendly blogger, or a creator hands their video over to a brand. If you promote your own video from the account linked to the ad account, no code is needed.

Only the owner of the video can create the code, in the TikTok app:

1. Make sure that authorizing posts for ads is allowed in your privacy settings or in the creator tools. The first time you turn it on, TikTok will ask you to accept the terms for advertising content.
2. Open the video you need and tap the three dots.
3. Go to “Ad settings” and turn on ad authorization.
4. Choose the period: 7, 30, 60 or 365 days.
5. Tap “Generate” and copy the code.
6. Send the code to the advertiser.

A few rules worth knowing in advance:

• The video must be public. A private video that ends up in a campaign becomes public, and this cannot be changed until the promotion is over.
• The caption is locked after authorization. Check the text and hashtags before you create the code.
• The code must cover the whole campaign. If the authorization ends before the ad end date, the ad account will return an error.
• Duets and stitches need codes from both creators: first you enter the second creator's code, then the code of the original creator.
• You can revoke authorization in the same “Ad settings”, but only if the video is not currently running as a paid ad.
• A video can be deleted from the profile only after its authorization has been removed.

TikTok's help center does not publish separate age or account type requirements for issuing a code. There is a requirement on the other side, though: to promote your own videos without a code, the account is linked to the ad account and switched to a business account.

How to launch Spark Ads in Ads Manager

1. Prepare the post. Link your own account to the ad account through Business Center. For someone else's video, get the code from the creator.
2. Add the code to the ad account. Go to “Tools” → “Creatives” → creative library → Spark Ads posts → “Apply for authorization”. Paste the code and find the post. You can add up to 20 codes at a time.
3. Create a campaign and pick a goal. Which one to pick is covered below.
4. Set up the ad group. Audience, schedule, budget and bidding strategy.
5. Build the ad. Turn on “Use TikTok account” and choose “Your account” or “Another authorized account or post”. On the TikTok posts tab, select the video you need, check the authorization period shown under it, then fill in the details and destination.
6. Publish. The ad goes to moderation. The ad account will not accept videos that have been blocked for violations.

Which goal to choose

In auction campaigns Spark Ads work with all the main goals: reach, traffic, video views, community interaction, app promotion, conversions, leads and sales. In campaigns with fixed reach and frequency, only reach, traffic and video views are available. A streamer usually needs two of them.

Goal	What it optimizes	When to use it
Video Views	Focused views: 6 or 15 seconds	You want to boost the reach of a strong clip
Community Interaction	Follows or page visits, for example to your profile	You need followers who will come to your streams
Traffic	Clicks to a website or an app	You are taking people outside TikTok, for example to your own site

“Community Interaction” works only with Spark Ads. For a business audience (showing ads to people who have already interacted with the account), TikTok recommends having at least 10,000 followers, so at the start it is better to rely on interests and demographics.

Budget

The minimums in Ads Manager are published officially: the daily campaign budget must be more than $50 and the daily ad group budget more than $20. If you set a budget for the whole period, the ad group minimum is counted as $20 for each day: a 31-day ad group will require at least $620. TikTok does not publish the price per impression, click or follower; it is set at auction and depends on the audience and the country. A one-off test is cheaper through Promote, and we compared the two tools in detail in the article TikTok Promote or Ads Manager.

Spark Ads and TikTok LIVE

Right in the description of the Community Interaction goal, TikTok says it is meant for followers, profile visits and promoting a live stream. But the goal's own page lists only two optimizations: follows and page visits. There is no separate “stream” destination and no step-by-step guide for promoting LIVE through Ads Manager in the help center. The LIVE Shopping and LIVE GMV Max formats are built for TikTok Shop sellers and do not suit a streamer without a shop.

So a workable plan for streams looks like this:

• Before the stream: Spark Ads for follows. Take the best clip from your last stream and promote it with the Community Interaction goal and optimization for follows. TikTok itself links follower growth to future streams: by its data, followers watch a brand's broadcasts 5.4 times longer.
• During the stream: Promote. If you need to bring people into the stream right now, Promote has the “Promote LIVE” goal: you must be 18+ and have at least 1,000 followers.
• After the stream: new clips. Cut out the best moments and promote the ones that hold viewers better without ads.

A newcomer who arrived from an ad quickly leaves an empty stream. How to keep them in the broadcast is something we covered in the piece on how to get viewers on TikTok LIVE.

Metrics: what to look at in the report

The Spark Ads report is richer than the one for regular ads: only here do you get paid followers, profile visits, and clicks on music and on anchor links.

Metric	What it shows
Paid followers	How many people followed after seeing the ad
Profile visits	How many people came to look at your other videos
Focused views at 6 and 15 s	Whether the video holds the attention of a new audience
CPM, CPC, CTR	Cost per thousand impressions, cost per click, click-through rate
Cost per follower	Spend divided by new followers; calculated manually

Compare the ad numbers with organic: did views of your next videos grow, did new followers come to your streams. Where to find this in the app and in TikTok Studio is covered in our article on TikTok and TikTok LIVE analytics.

Common mistakes

• A 7-day code for a month-long campaign. The authorization will end before the ad does. Choose a period with a margin.
• A typo in the caption. The text cannot be changed after authorization. Check the caption before you create the code.
• Promoting a weak video. Ads speed up impressions but do not fix the content. If a video does not hold viewers for 6 seconds without money, it will be expensive with money.
• The Traffic goal for the sake of followers. The algorithm optimizes what you picked. If you need follows, choose Community Interaction.
• Deleting the video during the campaign. Remove the authorization first, otherwise you will not be able to delete it.
• Bots instead of ads. TikTok's Community Guidelines prohibit artificial engagement, and the ad account does not accept videos that have been blocked for violations.

Can you run Spark Ads from Russia and the CIS

In March 2022 TikTok suspended live streams and uploads of new content in Russia. According to Hi-Tech Mail (May 2026), the restrictions remain: from a Russian IP you cannot go live or publish videos, and there are no official statements about a return. Without new posts there is essentially nothing to promote with Spark Ads.

As for the ad account itself, the information is contradictory:

• TikTok's help center (updated November 2025) lists Russia among the countries where you can create an ad account yourself in Business Center.
• Kommersant (May 2025) and Unisender (January 2026) write that TikTok's in-app ad tools do not work for Russian users and that brands are mostly placed through integrations with bloggers.

The 2022 restrictions applied only to Russia. But in the same official country list, the only CIS country is Ukraine: Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Armenia and others are not there. If you are in Russia and want to grow on streams, it makes more sense to invest in the platforms that are available: Twitch, YouTube, Kick and VK Video Live.

Ads pay off better when there are already people in the stream and a chat going: a newcomer finds it easier to stay where things are lively. The TikTok viewers service will help with a starting audience, and you can put together a plan for your own schedule in the viewer control panel.

Frequently asked questions

How are Spark Ads different from Promote?

Promote is a promotion button inside the app, with no separate ad account and with a goal for LIVE. Spark Ads is a format in Ads Manager with detailed targeting and reports, but with a minimum budget of more than $50 per day per campaign. In both cases it is your published video that gets promoted.

How long is a Spark Ads authorization code valid?

The video creator chooses the period when creating the code: 7, 30, 60 or 365 days. If the code has expired, the creator can extend the authorization.

Do I need a code to promote my own video?

No, if your account is linked to the ad account as a business account. A code is needed when the video belongs to another account.

Can I promote a stream with Spark Ads?

TikTok mentions promoting a stream in the description of the Community Interaction goal, but the help center has no step-by-step guide and no separate destination for LIVE. It is more reliable to promote an announcement or a clip for follows before the stream, and the stream itself through Promote.

How much do Spark Ads cost?

Only the minimums are officially published: more than $50 per day per campaign and more than $20 per day per ad group. The price of an impression, a click and a follower is set at auction and is not officially published.