TikTok ad spend increased in Q1 despite regulatory woes

Ramp team

TikTok—with its highs and lows—has captivated users, advertisers, and the media for years.

The wildly popular app has over two billion users worldwide, including more than 135 million in the U.S., and plays a major role in shaping internet culture, music, and fashion trends. TikTok’s appeal is stronger than ever among American teens: 47% ranked it as their favorite social app in an April 2025 survey.

But the app’s U.S. operations have been fraught with controversy. TikTok briefly went dark in early 2025 after months of failed negotiations between its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, and the U.S. government.

Incredibly, the January shutdown didn’t shake advertisers. According to Ramp data, more than 65% of businesses actually increased their TikTok ad spend that same month.

The rise and resilience of TikTok

Despite ongoing political scrutiny, TikTok has grown at a remarkable pace.

Chinese tech company ByteDance launched TikTok internationally in 2017 and quickly established a foothold in the U.S. market by acquiring an American lip-syncing app. TikTok rapidly increased in popularity among Gen Z users and experienced a massive surge in engagement during the COVID-19 pandemic. It became the most downloaded app globally in 2020 and surpassed 1 billion monthly active users by September 2021.

In 2020, the Trump administration announced its intention to shutter TikTok in the U.S. market due to national security concerns. The attempt wasn’t immediately successful, but in 2024, President Joe Biden signed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act. The law mandated that ByteDance sell TikTok’s U.S. operations within 270 days or face a nationwide ban.

All of this came to a head on the sell-or-ban deadline, January 18, 2025. TikTok became unavailable in the U.S. for about 12 hours before receiving an extension from President Donald Trump. Clearly, advertisers breathed a sigh of relief and continued to spend: TikTok was the top digital advertising platform in Q1.

The future of TikTok ads

The government’s extended sell-or-ban cutoff was April 5, 2025. But, like in January, the deadline was pushed back to allow for further negotiations, this time until June 19.

TikTok’s long-term future in the U.S. is uncertain, but for now, it’s still running—and drawing in advertisers.

Ramp team•

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