Agency buyers say TikTok Ad Network has to prove its extra reach finds new customers before it earns a bigger share of their budgets.
TikTok opened TikTok Ad Network (TTAN), the third-party app network it previously ran as Pangle, to US advertisers at Advertising Week New York. The launch lets campaigns built in TikTok Ads Manager run in other companies' apps, and TikTok says the network covers nearly 400,000 apps with more than 1 billion daily active users.
Five agency executives who spoke to Digiday said the size of the network is not the argument. They want to know which apps their ads will appear in, control over that list, and proof that the added reach finds people they would not have reached anyway.
What Buyers Are Asking For
Shamsul Chowdhury, executive vice president of paid media at Zeno Group, said the network could help bring down cost per thousand impressions (CPM). His condition was app-level control, with "a clear whitelist or blacklist option available."
He already rates TikTok well on cost and performance. Lower CPMs together with a better return on ad spend (ROAS) would be "icing on the cake," he said.
Farhad Divecha, group CEO of Accuracast, noted that "there are already widely available platforms that do this." Google sells off-platform reach through its Display Network and AdMob, Meta through Audience Network, and LinkedIn through its own audience network. Amazon DSP applies Amazon's shopper data to open web and streaming inventory.
Bryce Hamlin, vice president of data intelligence at Power Digital, described the opening TikTok is chasing. Today a TikTok campaign reaches only people who use TikTok. The same targeting applied to wider inventory would give brands "more reason to increase share of wallet (if it works)," he said.
What TikTok's Help Pages Already Offer
Part of what Chowdhury asked for already exists. The TikTok Business Help Center's block list guide shows advertisers can exclude up to 10,000 apps from the network, by bundle ID, through the brand safety tools in Ads Manager. The block list only applies once it is switched on in an ad group's settings, and TikTok warns that blocking placements can lower impressions and performance.
The network's main help page lists post-bid brand safety measurement from DoubleVerify and Integral Ad Science, plus screening for fraudulent traffic in real time.
The full app list is still missing. Before a campaign, TikTok's media transparency tools provide a top 100 publisher list based on historical impressions, which TikTok says typically represents the majority of regional traffic. Where a campaign actually ran is reported afterwards, in a delivery report available one to two days later, which TikTok notes may leave out some publishers for contractual reasons. The help pages describe a way to block apps but no way to restrict a campaign to an approved list, which is what a whitelist would do.
Lemon8 Is the Test Already Running
Zea Hirsh, performance media supervisor at Collective Measures, called TikTok's signal "one of the strongest in the market" and said carrying it to other apps to retarget engaged users could pay off. Her agency's record with a similar extension points the other way.
Lemon8 is a good example of why scale alone isn’t enough. TikTok already allows advertisers to extend campaigns to Lemon8 through Ads Manager, and we’ve opted out so far.
Lemon8 is a lifestyle content app that TikTok sells through Ads Manager. According to TikTok's Lemon8 help page, US campaigns with eligible objectives that run as Smart+ campaigns or use automatic placement include Lemon8 placements. Its results are folded into TikTok reporting, with a separate breakdown only through custom reporting.
Lindsay Baker, associate director of social at Crossmedia, said a larger network "doesn't make us move more money into TikTok." Any extension, she said, has to show its added reach is "actually valuable, not just efficient."
What Advertisers Will Test
TikTok's case for the network is incremental reach. In its launch materials, TikTok said half of the network's users are not on TikTok, a share its TikTok Ad Network announcement sizes at 95 million incremental users. The buyers quoted by Digiday are asking for evidence that those users buy, measured in a way they trust.
Placement is fixed when an ad group is created and cannot be changed afterwards, according to TikTok's help centre. An advertiser who wants to measure the network separately from TikTok's own feed has to make that choice at setup.
Recap
What did agency buyers say about TikTok Ad Network?
Five agency executives quoted by Digiday said a bigger network will not by itself move more money into TikTok. They want control over which apps their ads appear in and proof that the added reach is incremental.
How can advertisers control where TikTok Ad Network ads appear?
TikTok Ads Manager has a block list for up to 10,000 apps, switched on in each ad group's settings. A top 100 publisher list is available before a campaign, and a delivery report shows every placement afterwards.
What changes for advertisers testing the network?
Placement cannot be changed after an ad group is created, so advertisers who want to measure TikTok Ad Network on its own have to set that up from the start. Buyers say they will judge it on incremental reach rather than lower CPMs alone.