GMV Max Explained For UK Brands
Category
TikTok Shop
Published by
Tom Emmanuel
Read Time
6 Minutes
GMV Max is now how TikTok Shop ads work in the UK. Since July 2025 TikTok has made it the default and only supported campaign type for TikTok Shop ads, replacing the old Product Shopping Ads and Video Shopping Ads for shop sales. You give it a budget and an ROI target, and it chooses the products, videos, audiences and placements itself, using your own posts and your creators' videos. The skill is no longer in building campaigns. It is in setting the right target and feeding it the right content.
Tom Emmanuel
Founder, Furnace Commerce
GMV Max explained: what it is and what changed
What GMV Max does
GMV Max launched in the UK in January 2025 for both product and LIVE campaigns. It automates targeting, bidding and creative. Instead of a ROAS target per ad group, you set one ROI target for the campaign and a budget, and TikTok tries to maximise your total shop sales within that target. It optimises across all your TikTok Shop traffic, not just the ads. TikTok says it uses organic, paid and affiliate content, and pulls in videos with product links and Spark Ads posts. That is why a GMV Max campaign can look strong in TikTok's own reporting: it claims credit for a wider set of sales than an old-style ad would. There are two kinds. Product GMV Max promotes your products across videos and placements. LIVE GMV Max promotes your LIVE sessions, with one campaign per TikTok account, and only needs a profile, budget and start time.
What happened to Product and Video Shopping Ads
TikTok's migration guidance says you can no longer create, edit or duplicate Product Shopping Ads or Video Shopping Ads for the Sales objective when TikTok Shop is the destination. Existing campaigns keep running until you stop them. Upgraded campaigns carry over their past ROI as the starting target. Video Shopping Ads still work when the destination is a Showcase rather than your shop, and LIVE Shopping Ads still exist. But when LIVE GMV Max is switched on for your official account, existing LIVE Shopping Ads for that account pause automatically and do not restart on their own. If you were used to tight manual control over products, audiences and bids, that control has largely gone. Your levers are now the ROI target, the budget, which products are in the campaign and the content available to it.
Setting the ROI target
The ROI target is the most important number in the account. Set it too high and GMV Max will not spend. Set it too low and it will spend happily at a loss. Work it out from your margin. Take your average selling price, then subtract product cost, TikTok's commission fee, delivery, any discount you fund and affiliate commission on orders that come through creator content. What is left is what you can afford to spend on ads per order. Divide the order value by that amount and you have your breakeven ROI. Set the target above it, by enough to leave a profit. Then judge the campaign on total shop profit, not TikTok's reported ROI. Because GMV Max counts organic and affiliate sales it helped, its ROI can look better than the real incremental return. Watch total sales, total ad spend and contribution margin across the whole shop, week by week. Our breakeven ROAS calculator does the arithmetic. A worked example. A £30 product costs £9 to make, TikTok's 9% commission fee is £2.70, delivery is £3.50 and affiliate commission on creator-driven orders averages £3. That leaves £11.80. If you are happy to spend all of that on ads at breakeven, your breakeven ROI is £30 divided by £11.80, about 2.5. A target of 3.5 leaves room for profit. Your numbers will differ, so do the sum with your own.
Feeding it content: creators and Spark Ads
GMV Max is only as good as the videos it can use. It will test whatever is available and spend behind what converts, so the more good shoppable videos you have, the better it performs. Creator videos are often the biggest source. A creator can authorise you to use their affiliate video in your ads, and you can set a separate Shop Ads commission for orders that come through those ads. Your TikTok Shop affiliate programme and your ads are now one system. Spark Ads let you run organic posts, your own or a creator's, as ads. The creator generates a code in the app and you add it in Ads Manager. Use them on posts that are already selling organically. Keep fresh content coming. Brief creators on the angles that are selling, post regularly from your own account, and retire videos once they stop converting. Check which products are in each campaign as well. GMV Max will spend wherever it sees sales, which is not always on the products with the best margin. Keep low-margin or stock-limited products out of the campaign, or give them their own campaign with a higher target, so the algorithm cannot buy volume you do not want.
GMV Max took away most of the buttons. What is left is the target, the budget and the content, and those decide whether you make money.
Questions brands ask about GMV Max
Is GMV Max mandatory for TikTok Shop ads in the UK?
For new TikTok Shop sales campaigns, yes in practice. TikTok's help centre says that since July 2025 GMV Max is the default and only supported campaign type for TikTok Shop ads, and the UK is in its list of markets. Existing Product and Video Shopping Ads keep running, but you cannot create new ones with your shop as the destination.
What is the difference between ROI and ROAS on TikTok?
Both compare sales with ad spend. GMV Max uses an ROI target across the whole campaign and counts the wider shop sales it influenced, including organic and affiliate orders. That makes its reported number look better than a strict ad-attributed ROAS. Judge it on total shop profit.
Can GMV Max use my affiliates' videos?
Yes, once the creator authorises you. Affiliate videos come in as a video source in GMV Max, and you can pay a separate Shop Ads commission on orders that come through those ads. Set it so the ad cost and the commission together still leave you a margin.
How much should I spend on GMV Max?
Start with a budget you can afford to lose while it learns, with a target ROI above your breakeven. Increase it when the shop's total profit rises, not when TikTok's reported ROI looks good. If it will not spend at your target, you usually need better content or better products in the campaign rather than a lower target.
Let's work together
GMV Max spending at a loss?
Send us your margins and your last month in Ads Manager, and we will tell you what target we would set and what content it needs.