You can create and set up catalogs for TikTok shopping ads in Smartly.io. To do a basic catalog setup:

1. Create a catalog.
2. Add product feeds to the catalog and define the feed field mappings between the feed and the catalog.

See more information on feed files and supported formats.

If you have existing TikTok catalogs that you want to use in Smartly.io, see how to connect them to Smartly.io.

Limitations

See the limitations on TikTok shopping ads.

Before you start

• Make sure you have completed necessary the steps in how to get started with TikTok shopping ads: you have set up your website and pixel, you have prepared the feed, and you have the necessary permissions and have connected your TikTok user so that you can see the catalog in Smartly.io.
• TikTok recommends that you upload products at least 28 days before the campaign starts to optimize the product preview process.
• See also the FAQs related to TikTok catalogs and feeds.

Step 1: Create a TikTok catalog

To create a new TikTok catalog:

1. On the top navigation bar, click Catalogs > TikTok Catalogs.
2. In Business Center, select the TikTok Business center that you want to create the catalog for.
3. Click Create Catalog. The TikTok catalog settings page opens.
4. Define a name for the catalog.
5. Select the country and currency for the catalog. In TikTok, you can only use each catalog to target one country.
   • You cannot change these selections after you have created the catalog.
6. Select which pixels and apps you want to use to track the events for this catalog.
   • It's important that you select the correct event sources so that products and audiences are tracked correctly for the catalog and the campaigns using the catalog.
7. Click Create Catalog.

ℹ️ Note: When you create a new catalog, your user will be set as the catalog authoriser.

Step 2: Add a feed to the catalog

After creating the catalog, the catalog's feed list opens. The feed is where the catalog gets the information about your products. See more information about the product parameters in TikTok's help.

To add a feed to a TikTok catalog:

1. Click Add New Feed.
2. Define a name for the feed.
3. In Data source, enter the feed URL.
   • If the feed is hosted on an SFTP server, add the URL in the following format: sftp://username:password@mydomain.com/path/to/file.csv
   • ℹ️ Note: When added as part of the feed URL, there are cases where Smartly.io is unable to encode some special characters used in the username and password. If you spot any fetching issues, try using only alphanumeric values for the username and password instead or try to URL encode any non-URL-safe characters in the file path. For example, instead of a space, use '%20'.
4. To define the advanced settings for the feed, click Advanced settings. See details on how to define the settings.
5. Under Feed updates, define an update schedule for the feed.
6. After the feed preview loads, map the fields coming from your data source (Feed fields) into the predefined Catalog fields in the Catalog mapping section.
   • If there are any missing or incorrect mappings, see Manual field mapping below for instructions on how to modify them.
   • The catalog fields marked with an asterisk (*) are required. Other fields are optional.
7. When you're happy with the feed settings and field mapping, click Create New Feed.

Next, Smartly.io processes the feed according to the update schedule you defined. When the feed finishes processing, the catalog is ready to use.

ℹ️ Note: Similarly to the Meta & Snapchat catalogs, the feed uploads in TikTok are using the "Overwrite" (also known as "replace") method. This means that the data in each upload will replace the existing catalog product data. Existing items which are not in your new data feed will be deleted.

Manual field mapping

In Catalog mapping, you can fine-tune the feed content by mapping your data source feed fields to the predefined field names used in TikTok catalogs.

As an example, if your data source contains the product name in the field name, map that to the catalog field title, because that's where TikTok picks the names of the products.

If Smartly.io is unable to automatically map feed fields to catalog product fields, you see a red warning highlight in the required catalog fields.

You can use dynamic fields, static text, and Liquid templating in the mappings. To use static text or Liquid templating, select Use Liquid template in the feed field menu.

Preview value shows you a preview of what TikTok will see as the catalog values. Use the arrows above the column to preview the values for the products in your feed.

ℹ️ Note: It's important that you reduce the number of errors at this point. Otherwise you may see unexpected or incorrect behavior when you launch campaigns using the catalog.

Example: Connect a Google Sheet as a data source

1. You need a CSV link to your Google Sheet. See how to use Google Sheet to import a data source.
2. When you have created the CSV link to your sheet, copy and paste it to the Data source field.
3. Smartly.io now fetches a preview (sample) of your data source. The UI shows a notification below the URL field when the feed sample has been successfully fetched.
4. You can define advanced settings and adjust the catalog mapping, or save the feed configuration.

Extra fields

Sometimes you need additional fields for data that you want to use with image template or for field transformations with liquid templating, but don't need to send to TikTok. Or you might already have all the TikTok custom_label fields in use. In these situations you can use the Smartly extra fields, extra_1 - extra_9. These fields allow you to map whatever data you want to those fields and use them with Image templates and with liquid templates for field transformations. These fields are not send to TikTok. At the moment, it is not possible to update the name of these fields.

Catalog Authentication for feed uploads

In order to do scheduled feed uploads to the TikTok catalog, Smartly.io needs to have a dedicated catalog authoriser to authenticate the uploads via API. Whenever, a processed feed is uploaded to TikTok, the authentication of the TikTok user account of this catalog authoriser is used. If the catalog authoriser is not set or if they are missing required permissions the uploading of the feed to TikTok will fail.

To set (or reset) the catalog authentication:

1. Make sure you have the needed permissions to update the catalog.
2. In the top navigation bar, click Catalogs > TikTok Catalogs.
3. In Business Center, select the TikTok Business center that has the catalog you want to update.
4. On the catalog list, find the catalog that you want to update and open the catalog view by clicking the catalog's name.
5. Click Catalog settings.
6. Click Change to current user. This will make you as the new catalog authoriser, wether the catalog already had an authoriser or not.
7. The Catalog Authentication should now say "Authorized by you". On the next feed upload the authentication of your connected TikTok user account will be used.