TikTok Ads performance often fluctuates throughout the day. This presents an excellent opportunity to apply bid management rules, allowing you to handle these variations without significantly impacting your marketing performance.
TikTok's Bidding Actions now allow you to manage bid adjustments directly through automation rules. These automations let you fine-tune campaign performance without manual changes in Ads Manager. It's important to note that all bidding actions only apply at the ad group level.
Available bidding actions
The following bidding actions may be automated within your rules:
Increase bid
Decrease bid
Set bid
Optimization types
TikTok bidding logic is built around two optimization types:
Optimization Type | Ads Manager Strategy Labels | Description |
Cost-based optimization | Cost Cap, Target cost, Cost per result goal, Bid cap | Keeps your average cost per result close to your desired amount. Ideal for controlling CPA or cost per conversion. |
Value-based optimization | Minimum ROAS, Highest Value | Focuses on maximizing return on ad spend. You can either target a minimum ROAS or allow TikTok to fully spend the budget to get the highest possible conversion value. |
Note: Minimum ROAS and Highest Value strategies are available only when the ad group optimization type is set to Value-based (Value). This requires choosing a Sales or App Promotion objective.
How bid changes work
You can define bid changes in two ways:
1. Change by value
Specify a percentage or monetary amount.
Example: Increase bid by 10%, Decrease bid by $0.50.
The system updates each filtered ad group’s bid accordingly.
2. Change by custom metric value
Use any custom metric as the bid value.
The system retrieves the metric’s calculated value for each ad group.
You can choose a custom timeframe for the metric data.
💡 For ROAS optimization, only Increase/Decrease/Set by value is available. When used, the Ad Groups’ ROAS target (Minimum ROAS) will be changed to the specified amount.
Automating bid adjustments
To automate bid adjustments within a campaign:
Create a rule that filters the ad groups you want to adjust (e.g., those under a specific campaign).
Select a bid adjustment action (Increase, Decrease, or Set bid) and define the change.
Set the rule live.
This setup allows your ad groups to automatically update bids based on performance conditions - without requiring an initial strategy-setting step.
How it relates to TikTok Ads Manager
These automations mirror what advertisers can manually do in TikTok Ads Manager under Ad Group → Bidding & Optimization:
Editing Bid amount or Target ROAS corresponds to Set bid, Increase, or Decrease bid actions.
Using Maximum Delivery is equivalent to allowing TikTok’s automatic bidding.
The difference is that with automation rules these adjustments are done automatically, saving time and maintaining consistent performance controls.
Key notes and limitations
Bidding actions are available only at Ad Group level.
Smart+ campaigns use automatic bidding (Maximum Delivery); manual bid edits won’t apply.
Rules examples
If an ad group struggles to spend or lacks impressions, your bid may be too low to compete. A rule that raises bids when delivery drops ensures your campaign stays competitive, especially during high-demand periods or when new creatives need to start performing.
Performance patterns often shift on weekends, with user behavior and competition levels changing throughout the day. Automated rules can lower bids during slower periods or raise them when engagement peaks. Over time, reviewing weekend performance patterns will help you fine-tune these adjustments for better results.