Start advertising · Step 1 of 3

Open the shop first.

You have a product. Before you buy a single ad, you need three places for it to live: a store with its own address, an Instagram account and a TikTok account. Here is what each one needs, and why the order matters.

Updated September 2026 · Sources checked

Three places, one product.

An ad does not sell anything. It sends someone somewhere. When they get there, they look around before they pay: at the page behind the ad, and usually at your profile as well. If either one is empty, or missing, the ad has bought a click and nothing else.

The store is the base. In 2025, 378 billion dollars of sales went through Shopify stores alone, run by millions of merchants in more than 175 countries.4 Shopping inside the social apps is growing fast, 87 billion dollars in the United States last year, but it is still under seven percent of online retail.5 The profiles are the front door. In Meta’s own survey of weekly Instagram users, two thirds said that after seeing a product on Instagram they went on to the brand’s website.6

So the order is store, then Instagram, then TikTok. Each one is a short list, and the platforms have written the lists themselves.

378 billion Dollars of sales through Shopify stores in 2025, from millions of merchants in more than 175 countries.4
7 percent Roughly the share of US online retail that happens inside the social apps. The rest happens on a store.5
65% Of weekly Instagram users in Meta’s 2018 survey who went on to a brand’s website after seeing its product.6

The store, with its own address.

You can build the store before you pay for it. On Shopify a new store starts in private mode with its checkout switched off, and nothing sells until you choose a plan.3 It comes with a default address ending in myshopify.com. Replace that with your own domain, either bought through Shopify or connected from wherever you already own one, and the connection can take up to two days to go live.1,2

The address is not a vanity. Nearly everything else in this series asks for it. Meta’s shop integration wants your products “available for direct purchase from your verified domain”.7 TikTok’s ad account review wants a website that is yours and clearly sells something, and it says outright that a marketplace listing or an unverified social account does not count.8 TikTok Shop wants a return policy page on the store as well.9

Inside the store, one page per product. A clear photo, a price and a checkout that works. Every ad will send people to that product page, and it is what InstantClips reads to make the ad. Get it right once and everything downstream is built on it.

A man at a kitchen table typing on a laptop that shows a simple store page with a photo of a speckled ceramic mug, the mugs themselves stacked on a linen cloth beside a phone playing a vertical video of them, and a small ring light clipped to the table.
The store
  • Your own domain Meta wants products on your verified domain. TikTok will not accept a marketplace listing as your website.7,8 Required
  • A plan chosen, checkout live A trial store is private and cannot sell until you pick a plan.3 Required
  • One page per product A clear photo, a price, a working checkout. The page behind every ad, and the page InstantClips reads. Required
  • A return policy page TikTok Shop asks for one on the store.9 For TikTok Shop

Instagram: a professional account, tied to a Page.

Half of American adults use Instagram. Among 18 to 29 year olds it is four in five.10 The account you open for the brand should be a professional account from the start. Instagram lets you switch a personal account in a minute, for free, and the switch makes the account public. In return you get the professional dashboard with your insights, the ability to create ads, and contact details on the profile.11

Then connect it to a Facebook Page. Instagram calls this step optional, and says it is what makes ads and shopping tools work.11 In practice the Page is the source of the ads: Ads Manager asks you to connect a Facebook Page before anything else, and that Page becomes the voice of your ads on Instagram.12 Shopify’s Meta integration needs the same two things, a published Facebook Page and an Instagram professional account associated with it.7

Meta’s own list of what a shop needs starts with your domain and ends with accurate information and a business it can trust.13 A public professional account, with the store’s name and the store’s link on it, is most of that list.

Instagram
  • A professional account Business, not creator. The switch makes the account public.11 Required
  • A Facebook Page for the business Instagram calls it optional. Ads Manager asks for it first, and Shopify’s integration needs it published.7,11,12 Required for ads
  • The two connected The professional account associated with the Page.7 Required for ads
  • Contact details and the store link On the profile. Part of representing your business and your domain.11,13 Required

TikTok: a business account is a verification, not a switch.

Thirty-seven percent of American adults use TikTok, and 63 percent of 18 to 29 year olds.10 TikTok’s own research says one in two of its users has gone there to research a product.14 And they are buying from people like you: more than 171,000 small businesses sell on TikTok Shop in the United States, and in 2024 they took about a third of all its purchases each month.15

TikTok’s help pages describe the business account differently from most guides you will find. It is not a toggle. You go to Settings, then Account, then Business verification, and TikTok confirms the business, which can take up to five working days.16 A verified business account gets the music library that is cleared for commercial use, analytics in the Business Suite, the Promote tool and a website link on the profile. It loses the general music library, because those songs are not cleared for business use.16,17

One warning from TikTok itself: do not switch back and forth. The verification is not saved, and you would have to do it again. If you also want to post personal videos, TikTok’s advice is two separate accounts.16 And if you plan to sell through TikTok Shop from a Shopify store, you will need a TikTok for Business account and a return policy page, and the store has to be in one of the countries TikTok Shop supports.9

TikTok
  • A dedicated brand account Separate from any personal one. TikTok’s own advice.16 Required
  • Business verification Settings, Account, Business verification. Up to five working days.16 Up to 5 days
  • The store link on the profile A verified business account can post a website link.16,17 Required
  • A TikTok for Business account For TikTok Shop through Shopify, with a return policy page on the store.9 For TikTok Shop

Same name, same picture, same product, everywhere.

The three places have to look like one business. Meta’s shop requirements say it plainly: represent your business and your domain, and provide accurate information.13 TikTok’s account review will not take an unverified social account in place of a website.8 And the shopper who lands on your profile from an ad is running the same check in their head. Same name as the store. Same picture. The product they just saw, and a link that goes straight to it.

A profile that passes that check has posts on it. Not many, but not none. A brand-new account with a logo and no videos looks like what it is, and a shopper who has seen an ad and then finds an empty profile does not usually go back and buy. So before the first ad, put something on the two profiles.

A small amber bottle standing on a curved sheet of white card on a wooden windowsill, a phone on a tabletop tripod in the foreground framing it for a vertical shot, a woman’s hands steadying the tripod.

InstantClips fills the profiles from the product page.

This is where the order pays off. The product page you built is the input. Paste it into InstantClips and it reads the page, writes a short plan for the video, the hook, the format and the first three seconds, and generates a vertical video from that plan. Ask for another angle and you get a different video. Three or four of them on each profile, and a shopper who checks finds a business.

The first video is free, and you read the plan before anything is made. See the example library, or see what it costs. When the profiles are stocked, Step 2 is the accounts and verifications the ad platform wants, on Meta or on TikTok, and Step 3 is the first campaign.

What a stocked profile looks like.

A shirt worn on a street, coffee beans into a jar, a cat in its bed, a knit and its twin. Four videos from the library, the kind a new profile needs before its first ad. Tap one to play it.

Fit check 12s
Detail pass 5s
Feature demo 12s
Second look 12s

Your product page is enough to start.

Four stores, and the videos made from their product pages. Yours works the same way: paste the link, read the plan, post the video. The first one is free.

4z7126-0r.myshopify.com
The FENNEC listing photo: the sand-coloured Icon Cap with the embroidered fennec mark.
The product page
Detail pass 15s Made from 4z7126-0r.myshopify.com’s product page.
velanardo.com
The Velanardo listing photo: the black Ehi Amico boots at a three-quarter angle on a white ground.
The product page
Detail pass 20s Made from velanardo.com’s product page.
puffinlime.com
The Puffin Lime product listing photo: a child hanging a wooden tooth-fairy door hanger on a bedroom door.
The product page
Gift moment 15s Made from puffinlime.com’s product page.
jpauloinc.com
The J. Paulo listing photo: the wrapped kojic acid and turmeric soap bar beside a cut bar.
The product page
Detail pass 15s Made from jpauloinc.com’s product page.

Your first video is free.

Paste a product link, or upload photos. The first video is free, and there is no card to enter.

Upload photos in the app

Sources 17
  1. 1 Shopify Help Center, “Domains”: “By default, your online store was given a myshopify.com URL when you signed up for Shopify”; “You can use domains that you buy from Shopify or from any third-party domain provider.” Shopify Help Center
  2. 2 Shopify Help Center, “Connecting a third-party domain to Shopify”: the change takes effect “within two hours, but can take up to two days”; “you still need to log in to your third-party domain provider to manage domain settings, pay for your domain, and renew it.” Shopify Help Center
  3. 3 Shopify Help Center, “Trying Shopify with a free trial”: “When you open a store on a free trial, your store is initially in private mode, or its checkout is inactive”; “Your store is paused until you choose a paid plan.” Shopify Help Center
  4. 4 Shopify Inc., Form 10-K for the year ended 31 December 2025: “millions of merchants from more than 175 countries”; gross merchandise volume of 378.4 billion dollars, up 29 percent. SEC filing, Form 10-K
  5. 5 EMARKETER, “TikTok Shop makes up nearly 20% of social commerce in 2025”, 9 December 2025: US social commerce sales of 87.02 billion dollars in 2025; TikTok Shop 15.82 billion; “social commerce still represents a small percentage of the retail ecommerce pie (6.9%)”. EMARKETER press release
  6. 6 Meta for Business, Facebook IQ, “How Instagram Boosts Brands and Drives Sales”, 6 February 2019, on a Meta-commissioned Ipsos survey of 21,000 weekly Instagram users in 13 countries, November 2018: “83% discover new products or services”; after seeing a product, “65% visited the brand’s website or app”. Meta for Business
  7. 7 Shopify Help Center, “Facebook and Instagram by Meta”, requirements: “You must have a Shopify online store and it can’t be in private mode”; “Your business must have its own published Facebook Page”; for Instagram, “your account needs to be a professional account that’s associated with the Facebook Page”; “Your products must be available for direct purchase from your verified domain.” Shopify Help Center
  8. 8 TikTok Advertising Policies, “Account Review Checklist”: the company website “Does not point to a third-party site (like eBay, Alibaba, or Amazon), personal website, or un-verified social media account” and “Clearly promotes a product, service, or brand”. TikTok Business Help Center
  9. 9 Shopify Help Center, “Setting up TikTok Shop”: “You need to have an online store, and a TikTok for Business account”; “You need to display a return policy page on your online store”; the store must be in one of ten listed countries. Shopify Help Center
  10. 10 Pew Research Center, “Americans’ Social Media Use 2025”, 20 November 2025, 5,022 US adults surveyed February to June 2025: Instagram, “Half of U.S. adults now report using it”; TikTok, “37% of U.S. adults”; among 18 to 29 year olds, 80 percent and 63 percent. Pew Research Center
  11. 11 Instagram Help Center, “Set up a professional Instagram account”: “You can change your personal Instagram account to a business or creator account”; “If your personal account is private, switching to a professional account will make it public”; it gives “the professional dashboard to see your insights, start creating ads”, and contact details; connecting a Facebook Page “is optional and will make it easier to … use connected experiences such as ads and shopping tools.” Instagram Help Center
  12. 12 Meta Business Help Center, “Run ads on Instagram with your Facebook Page”: “At the Ad level, you’ll first need to connect a Facebook Page in the Identity section”; the Page “has automatically been selected to be the voice of your ads on Instagram.” Meta Business Help Center
  13. 13 Meta Business Help Center, “Commerce eligibility requirements”: to sell on Facebook and Instagram, an account “must meet the following requirements: 1. Comply with our policies 2. Represent your business and your domain 3. Be located in a supported country 4. Demonstrate trustworthiness 5. Provide accurate information and follow best practices”. Meta Business Help Center
  14. 14 TikTok for Business, “Where Brand Discovery Thrives: TikTok As A Search Destination”, 6 May 2024, on TikTok-commissioned research by Material: “1 in 2 TikTok users say they went to TikTok to research or learn more about new products or brands” (US, April 2022, 2,000 respondents). TikTok for Business
  15. 15 TikTok Newsroom, “TikTok Shop is where shoppers come to discover”, 13 June 2025: “over 171,000 local and small businesses on TikTok Shop” in the United States; small businesses took “over a third of all TikTok Shop US purchases” each month in 2024. TikTok Newsroom
  16. 16 TikTok Help Center, “Account types on TikTok”: “Anyone whose primary goal on TikTok is to promote their business … should use a Verified Business Account”; the switch is under “Business verification” and “may take up to 5 business days”; a verified account gets the Commercial Music Library, the Business Suite analytics, Promote and a website link on the profile, and loses the general music library; “We advise against switching back and forth … we recommend using two separate accounts.” TikTok Help Center
  17. 17 TikTok Business Help Center, “About business verification for TikTok accounts”, June 2026: “Although business verification is optional, there are specific tools and features designed to help you find commercial success”, including conversion analytics and the ability “to attach destination link … to videos or profile”. TikTok Business Help Center