Custom Audience Template and Customer File Formatter for TikTok Ads

How to fill the TikTok custom audience template

This tool builds the TikTok custom audience template for you from whatever you have: a Shopify or app export, a CRM report, or a pasted list with one ID per line. It follows TikTok's customer file specifications for the header row, emails, E.164 phones and mobile advertising IDs (MAIDs).

1. Add your IDs. Upload a file or paste a list. A single column that mixes emails, phone numbers and ad IDs is fine — each value is sorted into the right column.
2. Check the columns. Up to three email and three phone columns are used per customer, plus the IDFA or GAID column. Add a country column if you have one; it sets each phone's country code.
3. Pick a default country. Numbers like (415) 555-0101 need a country code to become +14155550101.
4. Choose plain or hashed. Plain values are what TikTok's template shows. Hashing is optional, because TikTok hashes plain values on upload.
5. Download. You get one combined file. If your list has more than one ID type, you can also download emails, phones and ad IDs as separate one-column files.

Rules the file follows

• A header row that names the ID: email, phone and maid, exactly as in TikTok's template.
• No header more than three times, one ID per cell, one customer per row.
• Emails without spaces and in lowercase; phones in E.164; ad IDs trimmed and all in one case.
• Rows with no usable ID, all-zero ad IDs and exact duplicates are removed and listed, so the entry count is honest.

TikTok custom audience upload in Ads Manager

1. Open Audience Manager. In TikTok Ads Manager click the Tools tab, then Audience Manager.
2. Create the audience. Click Create Audience, choose Custom Audience, then Customer File.
3. Upload and name it. Upload the CSV from this page, give the audience a clear name (for example the export date), and click Confirm.
4. Give it a day or two. TikTok says the audience can take 24 to 48 hours to generate. After matching, TikTok deletes your uploaded file.
5. Check the matched size before you use it. Audience Manager shows the matched users. Under 1,000 matched, the audience can't be added to an ad group yet.

Common TikTok customer file problems

“File must contain at least 1000 entries”

TikTok wants at least 1,000 entries, and rows without a real email, phone or ad ID can never match. The tool counts the usable rows before you upload.

TikTok custom audience unavailable

The audience needs 1,000 matched users to be available. It can also expire when it is not used for a long time; then it can only be deleted. Upload a fresh file.

No header row, or headers TikTok doesn't know

TikTok asks for a header row that describes the ID. A pasted list straight from a CRM usually has none, or uses names like E-mail Address. The download always starts with TikTok's own header names.

The same header more than three times

Some exports have four or five email fields per customer. TikTok allows each header at most three times in one file, so the tool keeps the first three and reports the rest.

Mobile ad IDs in mixed case

TikTok's guidelines ask for MAIDs in all uppercase or all lowercase. A mix of both, common when iOS and Android IDs come from different systems, is fixed by lowercasing every ID.

Hashed phones that match nobody

A number hashed without its country code can't match. Whether the "+" belongs in the hashed text is less clear: TikTok's customer file page asks for E.164 with "+", yet its example hash on that page is of the number without "+". The tool lets you pick either, and warns you. The simplest fix is to upload plain values and let TikTok hash them.