Landscape Map

A breadth-first map of TikTok's catalog-driven ads landscape — use this page to gauge the whole picture before narrowing scope. Everything below either consumes or produces a catalog, or automates the campaign that does.

Last verified 2026-04-21.

The big picture

Business Center
       │
       ▼
    CATALOG  ──── 5 types: Products · Hotels · Flights · Destinations · Media Titles
       │
       ├── Feeds (URL / file / API)
       ├── Product Sets (rule-based or file-based)
       └── Event source (pixel / app) — the signal loop
       │
       ▼
Ad formats that consume catalogs
       │
 ┌─────┼──────────────┬──────────────┬──────────────────┐
Carousel   Single Video   Catalog Video   Streaming Ads
(images)   (+add-ons)     (ML picks clip) (Media Card + Multi-Show)
       │
       ▼
Campaign orchestration
       │
  ┌────┴────────┐
Manual     Smart+
            │
      ┌─────┴──────────────┐
  Smart+ v1         Upgraded Smart+
 (sunset Feb'26)    (Feb'26, unified flow)
                          │
              ┌───────────┼───────────────┐
         Sales         Lead Gen      App Promotion
           │
     Catalog web+app │ App retargeting │ Flexible at ad-level

Three axes to think in

Any catalog-driven motion on TikTok is a point in this 3D space — this is the cleanest way to decide Sprinklr scope.

Axis 1 — Catalog type

Type	Vertical	Mass market?
Products	E-commerce (retail, D2C, marketplaces, CPG, beauty…)	Yes
Hotels / Flights / Destinations	Travel (OTAs, airlines, tourism)	Niche
Media Titles	Streaming & entertainment	Growing fast

Full detail: catalog-types.

Axis 2 — Ad format

Format	Requires catalog type	Creative surface
Carousel	Products	Catalog images swiped inline
Single Video + interactive add-ons	Products	Upload video, dynamic add-ons bound to SKUs
Catalog Video	Products	TikTok ML chooses which advertiser video to show per user
Smart+ Catalog Ads (Web+App)	Products	Auto-gen catalog carousel + optional videos, across web and app destinations
Streaming — Media Card	Media Titles	Interactive add-on: auto-scrolling title cards (cover + genre + IMDb rating)
Streaming — Multi-Show Experience	Media Titles	Full-screen 4-tile auto-play video carousel

Full detail: ad-composition-flow, streaming-ads.

Axis 3 — Automation layer

Layer	Status
Manual campaign	Available; full control
Smart+ v1	Deprecating Feb 2026 creation-side in Sprinklr ⁵
Upgraded Smart+	Feb 2026 — unified manual+Smart+ flow, catalog at ad-level ¹

Full detail: Upgraded Smart+ overview.

Ad structure primitives (always the same)

TikTok Ads Manager always organises ads into Campaign → Ad Group → Ad ². What changes per format is where the catalog plugs in, not the skeleton.

Campaign: objective, overall budget.
Ad Group: placements, audience, budget/schedule, optimisation goal + bid.
Ad: creative assets + text + CTA + tracking.

In Upgraded Smart+ the Ad level gains "asset group" semantics: per-ad destination URL, per-ad product set, up to 50 creative assets ¹. This is what makes mixing catalog + non-catalog in one campaign possible.

Catalog is the gravity well

Every TikTok performance format worth discussing in 2026 either:

Consumes a catalog (all ad formats in Axis 2), or
Is automated by Smart+, which prefers catalogs as input (because catalogs make dynamic creative optimisation possible ⁴).

The only notable non-catalog Smart+ path left in Sprinklr today is Web Conversions (non-catalog) + Lead Gen + App Promo ⁵ — and even those TikTok is nudging advertisers toward catalog adoption for.

Using this map for Sprinklr scoping

Pick one cell from each axis to define a scope slice. The most likely first PRD:

Axis 1: Products
Axis 2: Carousel + Single Video + Catalog Video
Axis 3: Upgraded Smart+ (Web+App + flexible at ad-level)

That's what the Proposed MVP scopes. Streaming (Media Titles) and Travel catalogs are separate tracks — don't fold into MVP v1 unless a design partner blocks on it.