TikTok scales fast and spends fast. These five signals are the first things our AI looks at when auditing a TikTok account — and you can check them by hand too.
1. High-CPA outlier campaigns
Find campaigns whose CPA is well above your account median. They quietly eat budget without producing — the first candidates to cut or trim.
2. Scaling low-ROAS campaigns
Adding budget only makes sense while the marginal ROAS is still healthy. Pouring more into a campaign whose ROAS is already sliding usually just accelerates the waste. Watch the marginal return, not the lifetime average.
3. Creative fatigue (declining CTR)
Run the same Spark Ad / In-Feed long enough and CTR decays while CPM rises. If CTR keeps falling but spend keeps climbing, you’re paying a premium for tired creative.
4. Audience overlap / bidding against yourself
When several ad groups target heavily overlapping audiences, you can end up bidding up your own CPMs on the same people. Merging or separating audiences often drops CPM directly.
5. Feeding campaigns that should be paused
A campaign that’s been below target ROAS for weeks with no clear test purpose is pure waste to keep funding. Either make it a real experiment or pause it.