What TikTok advertising actually costs a UK small business, how to set the account and pixel up properly, and what kind of video gets clicks rather than scrolls.
What TikTok ads cost in the UK
Clicks typically run £0.10 to £0.30, which is a fraction of what the same click costs on Google Search. Minimum campaign budgets start around £20 a day at campaign level and £10 at ad group level, so a realistic first test is £10 to £20 a day for two to three weeks — roughly £300 to learn whether it works for you.
The cheap traffic comes with a catch. Nobody on TikTok is searching for a plumber. You are interrupting people, so the first two seconds of the video decide everything.
Setting the account up properly
- Open a TikTok Ads Manager account — it is free, and business verification takes a day or so.
- Install the TikTok pixel on your site before you spend anything, so conversions are tracked from day one.
- Set up one conversion event that matters — a form submission, a call, or a completed purchase. Not page views.
- Pick a campaign objective that matches that event. Traffic objectives buy you clicks; conversion objectives buy you customers.
- Start with one ad group and three to five videos, and let the platform find the winner.
Video that actually works
Film vertically on a phone. Do not make an advert — make a clip that happens to be one. The formats that consistently work for UK small businesses:
- Before and after, with the reveal in the first two seconds.
- Someone doing the actual job, talking through it as they go.
- A common mistake and what it costs to fix.
- Honest price talk — what a job costs and why.
- A three-second hook, a fifteen-second point, and one clear instruction at the end.
Polished agency video tends to underperform against a phone clip filmed in a workshop. TikTok users can smell an advert instantly and scroll past it.
Targeting in the UK
Keep it broad at first. TikTok's algorithm finds the audience faster than you will by stacking interest filters, and narrow targeting on a small budget just makes clicks more expensive. Use location targeting if you are a local business — a radius around your town — and leave age and interests wide until you have data telling you otherwise.
Measuring it honestly
Track cost per enquiry, not cost per view. A video with 100,000 views and no phone calls is entertainment, not marketing. Give every campaign at least two weeks before judging it, and change one thing at a time — creative, audience or budget, never all three at once.
Questions
Is TikTok advertising worth it for a small UK business? If your work is visual and you can film it, yes — the cost per view is unbeatable. If you sell an emergency service people search for, spend on Google first.
How much do TikTok ads cost in the UK? Around £0.10 to £0.30 per click, with a practical minimum test budget of £10 to £20 a day.
Do I need a TikTok following to advertise? No. Ads reach people whether you have followers or not.
Do I need to be on camera? It helps enormously for trades, but hands-only footage of the work also performs well.
How long before I know if it is working? Two to three weeks of consistent spend with conversion tracking in place.
Comparing platforms first? See the small business advertising comparison.