Nothing forces you to think creatively like an entire platform disappearing overnight. After the January scramble during the TikTok blackout, I had to find clients fast paths for success, that turned into future-proofing for what’s in store for the platform this year. The latest extension of the deadline to sell the app to September 17, 2025 is fast approaching. So now, digital marketers need to make strategic bets near term on where to invest their ad spend, how to diversify, and what to do if TikTok is banned in the US for good.
Why Should Advertisers Look for a TikTok Alternative?
You could speculate that the deadline will get pushed again. But it might not. It’s important to have a plan ready to prevent a last-minute scramble and a significant drop in performance.
Teams should absolutely be preparing for “some level of change”, and begin to understand where their audiences are, what to test, tweak, and go-do in preparation for a potential full-blown ban.
💡 Create a cross-channel retargeting audience that has visited your site from a TikTok ad. This audience can be applied on other social media channels.
Criteria to Select Your TikTok Alternative
Not all platforms are created equal. So “just go to an alternative” is a nuanced decision. Each platform has its strengths but not all of them may be a strategic fit for all verticals. Consider:
Audience Alignment
Is your audience active and engaged on this platform? This can include demographics, psychographics, and platform overlap (would your TikTok users also use this alternative platform? Tools like Sparktoro can help you get familiar with platforms your audience is likely to use).
Campaign Objectives
Does the platform support the necessary stages of your funnel? For example, advertisers generally have more success with B2B lead generation on LinkedIn than on TikTok.
Creative Compatibility
If your brand has a backlog of vertical assets to implement on TikTok, can they also be reused on other platforms with minimal edits? Details to look at include video length, text overlays, music licensing, and watermark restrictions.
💡 Don’t use vertical videos that have TikTok’s watermark on other social media platforms. Using that watermark could lead to reach suppression or be turned off by the platform.
Analytics and Reporting
Is the reporting tool on the alternative platform easy to navigate? If your company uses a third-party integration like Google Analytics, Salesforce, or Shopify, can it be easily integrated to a new platform?
Best TikTok Alternatives in 2025
Instagram Reels
There are two big benefits that come to mind if clients are considering allocating more dollars to Reels. One of them is that their TikTok creative can easily run on Reels with little to no editing. The second is reach and engagement.
Users can watch Reels on Instagram or Facebook and everyday, more than 200 billion Reels are watched across both Meta platforms. Compared to video ads, Reels receives 22% more interactions.
The United States has the second highest Instagram Reel audience at 166.15 million and 70% of Instagram users are between 18 - 34 years old.
In 2024, Meta had an average CPM of $8.96.
If this sounds like your cup of tea, the best creative to use on Reels include UGC, product demos, and customer testimonials.
Instagram Reels is an effective ad platform for B2C brands especially:
- Beauty & Cosmetics
- Fashion
- Fitness & Health
- Food & Beverage
- E-commerce
- Of note: Education & Online Learnings, Finance, Fin-Tech, and B2B brands are gaining traction on the platform
💡 If you’re a B2B brand, Reels is a great avenue to run behind the scenes content, thought leadership, and brand storytelling.
YouTube Shorts
Compared to other social media platforms, CPMs are generally more affordable. This is even more obvious for awareness campaigns and search tie-ins.
The largest age group of YouTube Shorts is 25 - 34 year-olds. Collectively, 18 - 44 makes up 55% of YouTube Shorts watchers.
As with Reels, the US also has the second highest users but at 164.5 million users.
Brands that would suit YouTube Shorts are ones that benefit from searchability, storytelling, tutorials, and mass awareness. Unlike other social media platforms, YouTube is part of the Google ecosystem and this makes it ideal for discovery and intent-based actions.
These verticals are likely to find success on YouTube Shorts:
- Gaming, Tech & Gadgets
- Beauty & Cosmetics
- Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG)
- Fitness & Health
- Fintech, and Entertainment (music labels, TV shows, influencers, movies, and events)
YouTube Shorts CPMs are usually between $2 - $6 (depending on audience and objective) which is significantly lower than Display and YouTube In-stream ads.
Snapchat
This is a great TikTok alternative if your audience skews younger or if you want to build up your younger audience. More than 60% of Gen Z individuals use it daily. Users spend an average of more than 30 minutes on Snapchat everyday, which makes it one of the most engaging platforms for younger individuals.
Snapchat's average CPM is approximately $8.85, though it can vary based on targeting and bidding strategy.
The best industries to utilize Snapchat include:
- Beauty & Cosmetics
- Fashion & Apparel
- Entertainment & Media
- Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG)
- Gaming
- Mobile Apps
- Of note: Food Delivery, Events (concerts, virtual events, festivals), education and e-learning, and Fin-Tech are growing and thriving on the platform
💡 Utilize ads that look more natural / native than polished and professional ads. Polished ads didn’t perform as well as UGC ads.
In my honest opinion, Pinterest is probably one of the best places to catch users with a high purchase intent. Pinterest users utilize Pinterest for inspiration and are more open to possible solutions.
The platform heavily skews those who identify as female and are in the younger demographic. 42% of Pinterest users are between 18-24 and 40% are from 25 - 34 year-olds.
Pinterest CPMs generally fall between $2 and $5, depending on targeting and ad type.
Compared to the other platforms mentioned above, Pinterest may be the most different from TikTok. However, these differences may be in its favor.
Platform Comparisons
Final Thoughts
As the future of TikTok in the U.S. is still an unknown factor, proactive advertisers should not be idle.
Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, Snapchat, and Pinterest each offer strategic opportunities for brands to stay agile, engaged, and effective – with or without TikTok. Diversifying your media mix now ensures you're not only prepared for a potential ban, but positioned to outperform competitors who waited too long. Think of this as less of a pivot and more of an evolution. Because in advertising, darling, reinvention is always on trend.
Ready to start diversifying your paid social strategy? Let's talk.
