TikTok’s Commercial Content Library: All You Need to Know

July 26, 2023

Sara Bregasi

Sara Bregasi

Content Writer

Last week, TikTok introduced a Commercial Content Library to promote transparency regarding paid advertising and other commercial content on the platform. 

Essentially, the Commercial Content Library is a large database where you can find  information on TikTok paid ads (and finally stalk your competitors with ease). 

In this article, we will cover all you need to know about TikTok’s Commercial Content Library and discuss how you can use this database to make better ads.

TikTok’s Commercial Content Library: What is it?

You can access the Commercial Content Library at library.tiktok.com. This is a public library, available to everyone, regardless of your location or account status. 

The CCL has two core sub-libraries: 

  1. Ad Library: a database of all TikTok paid ads in the European Economic Area (EEA), Switzerland, and the UK. According to TikTok, making data from more countries available is in the works, but a launch date has not been disclosed yet. 
  2. Other commercial content: branded content or paid partnerships. While these videos are not paid TikTok ads, the creator who uploaded them has indicated via the content disclosure setting that it is promotional content. 

TikTok's Commercial Content Library

TikTok’s Commercial Content Library: How does it work?

The Ad Library is the most relevant sub-library for advertisers, so we will focus on that. If you are familiar with Meta Ad Library, this is the same thing. You can filter based on your target country and ad publication date, and you can even look up a specific advertiser name or a keyword (such as health, beauty, sports) related to your industry. 

When you click on a specific ad, you will be able to see an Ad Summary section that includes the unique ad ID for that particular creative, the first and last shown date, and an approximation of how many unique viewers have seen the ad at least once. 

On the right side, you can also see the advertiser name, the company that paid for the ad, and the advertiser’s registered location.

TikTok's Commercial Content Library Ad Summary

The next section is a Targeting Summary which delivers information about the target audience of the ads, such as gender, location, age, and additional parameters (such as interests, video interactions etc). 

TikTok’s Commercial Content Library: How can you use it to make better ads?

Incorporating TikTok’s Commercial Content Library in your competitor and trend research is the core benefit of this update for advertisers. 

If you know your top competitors or companies that have a similar offer to yours, you can directly look up the competitor’s name and see which creatives and targeting strategies they are using. 

You can also filter on specific industries, countries, or keywords to find top performing ads. Getting inspired by relevant ads that have been running for a long time is a good first step to making better ads. 

TikTok’s Commercial Content Library: Conclusion 

TikTok’s updated Commercial Content Library is a strong move that positions the platform to better compete with Meta. Now you can access transparent ad details for paid TikTok ads and other commercial content available in the EEA, Switzerland, and the UK. 

This large amount of data will allow advertisers to make more informed decisions and track their performance against industry benchmarks. 

If you are running TikTok ads, check out our previous articles on how to scale your TikTok campaigns in 6 simple steps and 9 must-have TikTok tools for advertisers

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