Meta, the parent of Facebook, has restricted Shou Zi Chew’s company, TikTok, from advertising in certain markets. TikTok has quickly secured its place for growth after being cut off from Meta’s ads platform in certain regions. YouTube, Pinterest, and mobile-app networks have become the places where it is spending more money on advertising, Sensor Tower reports.
Before TikTok was ousted on October 8, it was a big spender on Meta’s ads. TikTok’s message to Meta: “If you’re not going to take our ad dollars, someone else will. This month, however, Meta went big with its stance, banning ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, from advertising on Meta apps in certain markets.”
Why? Well, Meta’s response was quite simple. It didn’t want to “run ads from a competitor” whose goal is to pull people off our apps.
TikTok has made it clear that it’s shifting that ad spend and directing it somewhere else. After the ban took effect on Oct. 8, TikTok’s advertising spend has dropped from its previous levels on the platform and instead targeted other platforms, such as YouTube and Pinterest, based on allocation figures reported to CMO Insider by the analytics firm Sensor Tower. Between October 9 and October 16, the percentage of TikTok’s ad spend on YouTube increased from 9% to 17%.
The number of people who interacted with its ads on Pinterest increased by 9 per cent, from 3 per cent in the first week of October. Most of TikTok’s spending (58%) went toward mobile app ad networks, including Google’s AdMob, up from 19% at the beginning of October when Meta was an alternative. Kate Black, EVP of social strategy at Horizon Media, said Meta’s action further emphasises the competitiveness in the digital space and between the two of them.
For marketers, this really just reinforces the need to be agile and build balanced media strategies – and not have all your eggs in one basket. The firing of Meta’s TikTok isn’t new. In late 2022, Twitter limited users’ ability to link to their accounts on other social platforms such as Instagram and Mastodon, which it termed “free promotion,” while other platforms like Amazon have already banned rival ad platforms.
A Meta spokesperson stated that it is a “normal practice” for businesses not to give a competitor its promotional services. Meta’s changes will impact advertising policies in the US, Canada, Egypt, Indonesia, Japan, Thailand, and Vietnam. Meta, which made $117 billion in revenue in the first half of 2026, won’t be too hurt by losing an advertiser.
TikTok and its parent company ByteDance were among the largest spenders on Meta’s apps, Sensor Tower reported. Further, Meta will lose out on ad revenue from third-party marketers using its ads linked to TikTok or other ByteDance-owned properties—more revenue, if you will. However, direct-to-consumer brands looking to target prospective customers to their TikTok Shop are a no-go.
TikTok will take a hit from losing access to Meta’s more than 3 billion monthly users. And like any social media behemoth, TikTok is no exception to the rule that the bigger its user base, the better. The playbook is part and parcel: Ads that target new users and encourage new app downloads are used by Meta to boost its own apps, including Instagram.
On Sunday, one TikTok employee who specialises in user acquisition, James Gao, put out a LinkedIn callout for some ad inventory to help the company reach its targets. As for the lion’s share of social budgets, Horizon Media’s Black said that it’s owned by Meta, but there are plenty of viable alternatives when it comes to using an ad to drive an action, such as an app download. Other platforms such as Snapchat and Reddit are also being used by marketers, she added, aside from Google, YouTube and Pinterest.
