In 2025, TikTok is already cheaper than Meta by CPM in several European geos. What actually works, what fails when porting Meta playbooks over, and which verticals scale best.
TikTok has stopped being an experimental channel for European campaigns: in several GEOs it's already cheaper than Meta by CPM, and the over-25 audience that used to be cited two years ago as an argument against performance marketing is now the platform's fastest-growing age group.
What works: native UGC without a studio polish
What actually works in 2025 is UGC creative with a native feel, shot vertically without a studio gloss. Campaigns with an overtly ad-like, "Meta-style" look consistently post a higher CPC on TikTok than visually rough but convincing UGC.
What doesn't work: porting Meta setups directly
Porting creative and setups straight from Meta without adapting them doesn't work. TikTok's algorithm reads early engagement signals differently (watch-through rather than clicks), and a campaign optimized for click-through often loses in practice to the same campaign optimized for attention retention.
Spark Ads as standard scaling practice
Spark Ads — running an ad through an existing organic account instead of building an ad account from scratch — deliver a noticeably higher CTR thanks to the social proof of likes and comments already accumulated, and by 2025 this is no longer an experimental feature but standard scaling practice.
Lower entry cost, stricter creative selection
Entry cost is lower than on Meta, but the creative-selection bar is stricter too: TikTok punishes a weak creative with falling impressions faster than it gives it time to accumulate stats — a working test cadence needs more variations per unit of time than on Meta.
Which verticals scale best
The verticals scaling best on TikTok in Europe in 2025 are e-commerce with a visual product, gamified apps, and some nutra offers with a cautious, non-medical framing; finance and gambling offers run into the platform's stricter moderation.
In short
- Campaigns with an ad-like, "Meta-style" look post a higher CPC on TikTok than convincing UGC.
- TikTok's algorithm reads early engagement signals differently — click optimization often loses to attention-retention optimization.
- TikTok punishes weak creative with falling impressions faster than Meta does, requiring more variations per unit of time.
- Visual-product e-commerce, gamified apps, and cautious nutra framing scale best; finance and gambling run into moderation.
- Teams that treat TikTok as a first channel, not a backup one, get cheaper traffic — but only with a creative approach built for it, not copied from Meta.
If you're planning to enter this direction — run the economics before launch, not after the first thousand dollars spent.