In early June 2025, TikTok’s annual TikTok World event introduced a slate of AI-powered advertising tools aimed at helping businesses grow on the platform. The standout features are Insight Spotlight and Content Suite, designed to give advertisers deeper data and creative resources. Insight Spotlight taps TikTok’s data to show which content and trends are resonating with your target audiences. Content Suite is a searchable library of user-generated videos that mention your brand or products, all pre-vetted for ad performance. Together, these tools promise to make TikTok ads more targeted and efficient than ever.
Insight Spotlight: AI-Powered Trend Insights
TikTok’s new Insight Spotlight tool is like a search engine for audience interests. It lets you filter TikTok content by demographic groups and industries, showing which videos and hashtags are hot for each segment. The tool even generates AI-based suggestions for content strategy. For example, TikTok demonstrated an AI tip to “produce video content focused on ‘hormonal health’ for female, English-speaking users” based on what that audience is watching. This means small businesses can discover relevant trends without hours of scrolling. Insight Spotlight surfaces emerging topics and compares your brand’s content to industry benchmarks. In short, it turns TikTok into a data-driven insight engine, helping you tailor ads to what customers care about.
Content Suite: Turning Fan Videos into Ads
TikTok One Content Suite is a content-discovery dashboard for marketers. Instead of hunting down TikTok videos or influencers manually, you can search Content Suite for any organic video that mentions your brand. It “centralises all of the organic content that mentions your brand” into one place, enabling you to seamlessly amplify genuine user-made content as ads. TikTok says Content Suite finds “up to 44× more results than manual search” (versus “over 40 times more relevant results” than in-app search, per the announcement. Once you spot a good video, you can click to request the creator’s permission and turn it into an ad (a “Spark Ad,” TikTok’s branded content ad format). This simplifies what used to be a drawn-out process – now you can farm influencer or fan videos for campaigns with a few clicks. TikTok reports that ads using creator-made videos drove 159% higher engagement than standard ads at the same cost, showing how authentic UGC can boost results while saving on production costs.
Why It Matters for Small Businesses
- Sharper targeting: Insight Spotlight’s demographic and trend data help you zero in on the right audience and message. Instead of guessing what styles or topics click, you get concrete data on what your customers are watching and searching for.
- Leverage authentic content: Content Suite makes it easy to tap into your fans’ creativity. You can turn user videos into ads in a few clicks. Using this genuine content often costs less than hiring big influencers or expensive ad crews.
- Higher ROI: TikTok’s data shows ads based on creator content get much more engagement at the same cost. In practice, that means each advertising dollar can go further, improving your return on investment.
- Saves time and money: The AI-driven insights and automated workflows let small teams do more with less. For example, Insight Spotlight’s AI summary feature automatically pulls out the most relevant information from your searches. Content Suite handles rights and outreach in-platform, so you avoid manual negotiations. These efficiencies free up time to focus on creative strategy rather than busywork.
The AI Wave in Advertising
TikTok’s move is part of a broader trend toward AI-driven ads. Major platforms are rolling out AI tools for marketers. For instance, eMarketer reports that Meta (Facebook/Instagram) plans to let brands fully generate and target ads using AI by 2026, including automatic copy, visuals, and pinpointed audience selection. The Verge notes that TikTok’s new offerings include “AI-powered ad tools” to make content on TikTok “much more tailored and specific”. In practice, this means AI is becoming a digital assistant for marketers across social media. For a small business, learning to use these AI features could be key to keeping up with bigger competitors.
Getting Started: Tips for Small Businesses
- Join TikTok for Business: First, create a TikTok Business Account and Ads Manager access. These tools live in TikTok’s ad dashboard (TikTok One).
- Use Insight Spotlight for research: Treat it like a brainstorming tool. Enter keywords or audience demographics relevant to your product. Note the trending hashtags, topics, and content styles it returns. Try out the AI-suggested content themes and see what sparks ideas for your videos.
- Experiment with Content Suite: Search your brand name or product names to find videos fans have made. Filter by popularity or predicted performance and pick a few that fit your image. Then request permission and run them as Spark Ads. You can A/B test these user videos versus your regular ads to see what works best.
- Try AI suggestions, but review: TikTok also hinted at an upcoming “Ad Assistant,t” and you can use other AI tools to draft ad copy or concepts. Always vet AI-generated ideas for brand fit, but let them inspire new angles.
- Measure and iterate: As with any campaign, keep an eye on metrics. Look at engagement, clicks, or conversions from these new formats. Start with a small budget test, learn what content resonates (using Insight Spotlight’s analytics), and refine. Over time, these tools can help you stretch your marketing budget further.
TikTok’s new AI ad tools democratise advanced marketing tactics, so even a one-person shop can tap into big-data insights. By experimenting early, small businesses can find fresh, lower-cost ways to reach their audience – and avoid being left behind as digital advertising goes AI-driven.