‘Until The Wheels Fall Off’ How Buyers Are Rethinking Their Relationship With TikTok

January 24, 2025

For many advertisers and agencies, returning to TikTok this week felt a bit like remote working through a natural disaster: business as usual — except not really.

Several agency sources told AdExchanger that many of their clients — or even all, in some cases — are already back running ads on TikTok, especially those with businesses that depend heavily on the platform.

But now that everyone knows firsthand what a ban would actually look like, that bell can’t be un-rung.

“It feels different, because we now have such an acute awareness that our contingency plans may be very real plans,” said Davitha Tiller, head of social and integrated communications at Havas.

Still, many clients remain “super jazzed and super optimistic about TikTok,” said one ad agency VP, who asked to remain anonymous in order to speak freely.

“The prevailing perspective is: There’s a bump in the road, but not panic.”

Doomsday Preppers

Between when the TikTok ban was signed into law in April and when it was set to go into effect on January 19, agencies and their clients had plenty of time to figure out how best to build their backup plans.

For a lot of brands, this involved reviewing paid media spend, updating influencer contacts, gathering and preserving TikTok data, and securing presences on other channels if needed.

Not surprisingly, most advertisers leaned toward the familiar. Channels like Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts are already performance drivers for many brands. There’s also been renewed interest in ad buying on Pinterest, Reddit, Snapchat, and Spotify.

Interestingly, there have even been early conversations about RedNote — a Chinese-language social app that American TikTok users unexpectedly signed up for in droves last week — as an organic branded outlet.

According to Sean Clayton, CEO and co-founder of Myosin Marketing, most of his agency’s clients were already getting better performance results from Google, Facebook, and Instagram than from TikTok.

“You don’t build a lot of brand loyalty and brand advocacy on TikTok — it’s like a quick hit,” Clayton said.
“It’s more chasing the trends than it is actually building a long-term, sustainable brand using social media.”

Some brands, however, have been able to tap into more responsive communities on TikTok and planned to follow those users and creators to other platforms. This required agility — especially when TikTok returned unexpectedly.

“We’ve seen so many brands activate reactively on Instagram, posting their favorite TikTok moments from over the years,” Tiller said. “And even as they were doing that, that’s when the platform came back.”

You Came Back Different

On the dawn of the final day — January 19 — some brands paused their campaigns in advance or moved their ad spend elsewhere. Others took a “till-the-wheels-fall-off” approach and waited it out.

No one, however, expected how quickly the platform would disappear and then reappear — almost like a switch flipping off and on, said Ross Martin, president of independent full-service agency Known.

“That was, for many brands, terrifying to see,” Martin said.
“And it reinforced the power of the platform, which is really hard to fathom unless it’s taken away from you.”

Now that TikTok is back, there are conflicting reports about how the brief closure may have impacted the ad-buying experience.

Some media buyers say the platform has been glitchy and the algorithm is behaving strangely, affecting targeting. Others haven’t noticed any technical changes at all — but they say the mood on the app feels very different as users express both relief and confusion.

Performance metrics also tell a contradictory story.

Most of the sources AdExchanger spoke with said it’s too soon to tell whether the shutdown impacted current campaign performance. Still, Clayton noted a sharp increase in followers on his own account and a spike in engagement across the platform.

Live data from ecommerce insights platform MikMak suggests that, among its own customers, 7% of paid media traffic is currently coming from TikTok — back to pre-shutdown levels, but still short of the 2024 average of 25% to 30%.

Another commerce data platform, Charm.io, told Digiday that total sales volume on TikTok Shop increased by $5 million in the seven days leading up to the shutdown, with an additional $500,000 in sales on the day TikTok returned.

This data lines up with the noticeable vibe shift on the platform, where users are eager to get back to scrolling and shopping.

“There’s a real appreciation that it’s back,” Martin said.
“And there’s a lot of hope and optimism that this means it’s here to stay.”

But will that hope last?

Trapped in Purgatory

Being stuck in app store limbo could mean user growth on TikTok may stagnate, or even decline — especially if the platform’s recent Trump-supportive messaging triggers another politically motivated social media exodus, like what happened with Meta and X.

So far, however, agencies and their clients don’t seem alarmed. TikTok has inspired strong loyalty from its user base, and fewer people — even among ad buyers — are reacting with outrage, noted the aforementioned anonymous agency VP.

“You got Bezos next to Zuckerberg [at the Trump inauguration],” they said, “and you don’t see people going, ‘Ah, screw it. I’m not going to use Amazon.’”

Still, once you’ve seen the matrix for what it is, you can’t unsee it.

Some TikTok users are beginning to think of their content and communities as separate from the platform itself.

“They’re beginning to question TikTok’s goals,” said Katie Secret, EVP and global head of marketing at Outbrain.

Although not affiliated with an agency, she said she’s had similar conversations with publishers about how to manage the fragmentation of a diversified social media presence.

“It’s healthy for brands, publishers, and consumers to scrutinize how content is served and managed, and whether it’s coming from a publication or a source they trust,” Secret added.

Even if TikTok were to shut down permanently next time, most agencies believe there won’t be another wave of all-hands-on-deck panic — as long as teams are agile enough to pivot, or large enough to absorb the hit.

Which means, as always, it’ll be small businesses and individual creators that suffer most in a TikTok-free world.

“When you’re watching pundits talk about the merits of TikTok, it can seem like an academic or philosophical conversation,” said Martin.
“But there’s nothing academic or philosophical about it for brands and creators who are counting on that for business imperatives.”