Step-by-Step Guide: How to Set Up Smart+. Setup Tips

Written by

Ksenia Lebedeva

Date published

Mar 4, 2026

General Recommendations for All Smart+ Campaign Types

Learning phase — one week: do not make any changes to bids, audiences, or creatives during the first week after launch. Any edits reset the learning progress.
Starting budget: to ensure the algorithm learns correctly, your starting budget should be at least 10× your historical CPA for a comparable objective.
Creatives: upload a minimum of 4–6 different assets at launch. The more variety you provide, the faster the algorithm finds winning combinations.

💡 If you don't have enough ad creatives to launch a strong campaign, you can use TikTok Symphony — an AI tool built directly into TikTok Ads Manager that generates videos from your product description. Free to use, right inside Ads Manager.

💡 Or you can try Aitech — a creative platform that turns your product feed into dynamic ad templates and personalized videos at scale, with built-in A/B testing.

Measurement: use split testing to objectively evaluate performance uplift compared to manual campaigns.
Creative fatigue: add 2–5 new assets without deleting existing ones — this keeps the budget balance intact.

Step 1. Create Your Campaign

Ads Manager → "Create Ad" → "Create new" → "Advertising objective":

Website conversions → Sales → Website → Smart+ campaign

Tips:

Connect TikTok Pixel and Events API. For web campaigns, using a product catalog is also recommended to unlock Smart+ Catalog Ads.
When using Target CPA or Minimum ROAS, set your bid based on your historical CPA from the last 7 days; budget from 30× CPA.
After the learning phase, adjust bids by no more than 15% every 2 days.
If budget isn't being spent — try disabling view-through attribution; if 90%+ is being spent — increase budget by 30% to grow volume.

App installs → App promotion → App install → Smart+ campaign

Tips:

Budget and bidding strategy

Cost Cap (recommended for Android): — Budget: at least 3× your usual daily budget, or a minimum of 30× your target CPA. — Target CPA: use your average CPA from the last 7 days.

Maximum Delivery: — Budget: start with a daily budget of at least 10× your historical CPA.

Keep the multilingual creative tool enabled by default — it improves ad relevance even for single-market campaigns.
Signs of campaign fatigue: CPA has doubled or CTR/CVR has been declining for 2 consecutive days — add new creatives and wait 3 days before making further changes.
Don't evaluate Cost Cap performance by budget spend rate — look at actual CPA, conversion volume, and billing ratio instead.

Lead generation → Lead generation → Smart+ campaign

Tips:

Start with broad targeting; if lead quality is low, narrow the audience via Advanced settings: set a minimum age of 18 or 25, exclude existing customers via custom audiences.
If you have limited hours for processing leads — set up Dayparting so ads don't run outside business hours.
Consider TikTok Instant Forms: the form is filled out directly in TikTok using data from the user's profile — conversion is higher than redirecting to an external website.
If CPA rises after the learning phase: first add new creatives, then increase budget by no more than 50% per day.

Catalog sales → Sales → Website → Smart+ campaign → Product source → turn on "Catalog campaign"

Tips:

Before launch, your catalog must contain at least 4 active, approved products. Make sure descriptions are complete, prices are current, and images meet quality standards (minimum 500×500 px).
Update your catalog daily — discrepancies between catalog data and your website reduce delivery quality.
Add at least 6 videos in different formats; TikTok will automatically generate carousels from catalog data, and your additional videos give the algorithm more combinations to test.
If you have more than 20 products — go to View linked products and verify the mapping manually; automatic matching can make errors when products look similar.
Your pixel must track the Purchase event — without this signal, the algorithm cannot optimize correctly.

Step 2. Set Your Budget and Bid

Step 3. Upload Creatives and Launch

Upload a minimum of 6 different creatives.

💡 If you don't have enough ad creatives, use TikTok Symphony — an AI tool inside TikTok Ads Manager that generates videos from your product description. Free, right inside Ads Manager.

Step 4. Publish Your Campaign

Click "Publish".

Then — 7 days hands-off. This is the learning phase. Don't change targeting, don't reduce budget, don't pause ad groups. The algorithm is collecting data and calibrating.

Step 5. What to Do After 7 Days

Review: CPA, ROAS, CVR, CTR.

If the campaign is working — scale up: increase budget by ≥20%, add 2–5 new creatives.

If results are weak — add new creatives in different formats and wait another 3 days. If that doesn't help — launch a new campaign with a different set of assets.

Ready to Launch Smart+?

If you need reliable infrastructure — trusted ad accounts, responsive support in your language, and favorable partnership terms — register on the Aitarget platform.

Ready to Launch Smart+?

If you need reliable infrastructure — trusted ad accounts, responsive support in your language, and favorable partnership terms — register on the Aitarget platform.