CBO vs ABO: who controls your budget

CBO vs ABO: who controls your budget

First, the words. ABO = Ad Group Budget Optimization, meaning you set a budget per ad group yourself. CBO = Campaign Budget Optimization, meaning you set one budget for the whole campaign and TikTok spreads it across ad groups for you.

How to choose:
— ABO: pick this while testing. You force equal spend on each idea, so a weak ad can't get starved before you see real data.
— CBO: pick this once you know what works. TikTok pushes money to the winners automatically.

The tradeoff: CBO is hands-off but can pile spend onto one ad group and ignore the rest, which hides useful signals early on.

Try this: run your next test in ABO with 3 ad groups, then move winners to CBO later. You're not behind — most pros test this exact way.