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How Lift works on TikTok Ads

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Lift checks every connected TikTok ad account once a day and lists what it finds as cards in Recommendations (TikTok above the list shows only those). Lift reads the account and never changes it: you make every change in TikTok Ads Manager. The checks are in The checks Lift runs on TikTok Ads.

Which accounts Lift checks

All of them, on Lift only workspaces and workspaces with Block alike, once Tapper has set your workspace up. There is nothing to switch on: Business details has no TikTok section.

  • A new account is read at the next daily read (30 days of history the first time), and the daily check after that can write its first cards.
  • An account that needs reconnecting is not read or checked, and its open cards stay as they were: see Reconnect an ad account that stopped working.

What Lift reads, and when

Once a day, after TikTok has settled the previous day, Lift reads campaigns, ad groups, ads and custom audiences, and each ad group's and ad's daily figures: spend (in the account's currency), results, clicks, video views, reach and frequency.

TikTok restates conversions, so Lift rereads the last 28 complete days daily and judges up to three days back, in the account's time zone: the two newest days never enter a cost comparison. From that day, checks look back 28 days, judge most problems on the last 7 and price money over 28. TopView and Promote campaigns are left out.

The data check before any card

Lift holds the day back when TikTok's figures are incomplete, the read of campaigns, ad groups and ads has not finished, the account is not active in TikTok, or Tapper's last 7 days of spend does not match TikTok's report (or the report cannot be read). On a held day no card opens or closes, and the account's open cards leave the list and every total until a later check passes. Then they return with their first Detected date, or close.

How Lift judges an ad group

What counts as a result

TikTok's own result for the ad group's optimization goal, on its own attribution windows. Results of different goals are never added or compared. The goal sets the starting stage:

  • Top of the funnel: 1,000 people reached (for reach), an impression, a 6-second view, a 6-second or 15-second focused view, a follow or a profile visit.
  • Middle: a click, a landing page view, an engaged session or a lead.
  • Bottom: a conversion or purchase, an install or an in-app event.

Leads and bottom-of-funnel results count as conversions. A reach ad group is costed per 1,000 people reached over 28 days and left out of the cost and budget-move checks. An ad group with an unrecognized goal gets no card, nor do its ads.

Learning, estimated

TikTok does not report learning, so Lift estimates it, and every TikTok card says Learning estimated in its Evidence. An ad group leaves learning 7 days or 25 results after it is created or materially changed, whichever comes first; with value bidding, 7 days and 50 results; under campaign budget optimization, 3 days or 50 results. A material change is a budget change over 30%, or any change to budget mode, bidding, goal or optimization event, audiences, locations, languages, ages, gender, placements or schedule. When Lift's reads show no change, the last edit TikTok reports counts, even a rename: that means fewer cards, never more.

Funnel stages

In the middle and bottom, included audiences refine the stage, first rule that applies: an audience Lift cannot place leaves no stage; website, shop activity or app activity audiences keep it; engagement, lead generation or business account audiences move it to the middle; customer file or offline event audiences alone make it an existing customers ad group. Anything else, lookalikes included, keeps the stage. Excluded audiences never count.

Only Move budget to the cheaper ad group, Creative wearing out and Results stopped look at an ad group with no stage. TikTok cards do not show the stage, and Setup's stage settings are for Meta.

Similar ad groups and targets

Similar ad groups share the account, goal, objective, stage, attribution windows, and exactly the same locations and languages: an all-languages ad group is not compared with a one-language one, and one with no location targeting has no peers. Lift needs 3 with 5 or more results each; without them, the cost comparison checks, Spend with no results included, stay quiet.

The targets in Business details are for Meta. On TikTok, costs are always compared with similar ad groups, existing customers ad groups get no money card, and Frequency above the brief uses Tapper's default of 1 to 2 a week.

How cards open, close and come back

  • Quiet ad groups. No advice on an ad group estimated to be learning, with under 7 days of spend in the last 28, or in a campaign with no spend in the last 3 days. Only Results stopped still looks. Its cards close under Resolved and come back once it is not quiet, if still found.
  • Only what TikTok delivers. Cards are raised only on what TikTok is delivering (switched on and Active, or out of budget for the day). A card closes under Resolved when delivery stops.
  • No longer found. A card also closes under Resolved when Lift no longer finds the problem on a passing day, or when Tapper revises the check. Resolved never counts as money saved.
  • Results stopped. While it finds results missing, and for 7 days after its card goes, only it, Buying clicks instead of page views and Frequency above the brief run. Other open cards leave the list meanwhile, then return or close.
  • Your actions. Cards marked as done or dismissed stay so while the check finds the same thing. Not for this account closes the check's open cards on that account, but the check keeps running.

Where the other parts of Lift apply

  • Google Ads only: Reasons and its fix plan, Campaign settings findings and alerts, the Products page, and the Google Ads settings in Business details such as the Detection window.
  • Meta only: the funnel stage on cards, and the Meta area of Business details.

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