How to Make Product Ads With AI for TikTok and YouTube—For (Almost) Free

TikTok Store, the ecommerce platform that enables customers to purchase and promote issues instantly on TikTok, moved $64.3 billion in merchandise in 2025, practically doubling from the 12 months earlier than. The U.S. alone accounted for $15.1 billion of that, and most of it was pushed by quick, low cost, face-to-camera movies of somebody holding a product and telling you why you want it.

These movies used to require an individual, a telephone, first rate lighting, and a number of other takes.

As of late, although, all you want is a product photograph and three AI instruments—most of which can be found free of charge. Here is a complete workflow, step-by-step, no technical background required, so you can begin your advertising empire.

Step 1: Get a clear product picture

Earlier than the rest, you could know what you need to promote. For this, you’ve a couple of choices: Both select one thing you’re obsessed with, or just go forward and discover the most well liked gadgets on the TikTok store and obtain no matter you assume will click on.

Obtain a photograph of the product you need to promote—a bit of clothes, an adjunct, a gadget, no matter. In the event you’re promoting a selected product or are affiliated to an organization then use your individual provider images. Then crop the picture so solely the product is seen, with no mannequin, no background litter, and no watermarks.

In our examples, we picked this inexperienced prime for TikTok (vertical format) and this Ledger crypto pockets for YouTube (horizontal format).

That crop issues greater than it might sound. The AI will deal with this picture because the supply of fact for the product, so the cleaner the reference, the extra trustworthy the consequence.

Step 2: Put a mannequin in your product

This step is necessary in case you are selling clothes and niknaks since they contain a extra human method.

Open ChatGPT and add the cropped picture. You need GPT Image 2 for this step—in Decrypt‘s personal head-to-head testing, it beat Google’s Nano Banana 2 on photorealism and product constancy, which is precisely what an AI-generated advert must not look pretend.

Then think about the surroundings you need for the advert, and switch it into a fast immediate.

You need to use one thing like this: “Generate a vertical 9:16 photograph of a Latina girl in her late 20s carrying this precise garment, posing for an informal smartphone photograph in a vivid condominium. Protect each attribute of the product precisely as proven within the reference picture: form, proportions, colour, material texture, stitching, and match. Don’t redesign, recolor, or alter the product in any approach.”

We received one thing like this:

Swap the demographic particulars—ethnicity, age, physique sort—to match whoever your audience truly is. Change the setting the identical approach: a gymnasium for activewear, a café for equipment, a avenue nook for streetwear. For non-clothing merchandise, change “carrying” with “holding” or “utilizing.”

Need the mannequin someplace particular? Add a second picture of the placement and ask ChatGPT to put the topic of picture one inside picture two. Right here is our topic in an area station, simply because.

This trick additionally works with Google’s Nano Banana 2, which handles compositing nicely. Reve is a far cheaper various, however it tends to drop immediate particulars, so product accuracy could endure.

Step 3: Ask ChatGPT for the script—in JSON

Now you want a script for a 10-second video. Do not write it your self; make ChatGPT do the advertising considering. One thing like this will likely work, however be as detailed as you possibly can in what you ask:

“Act as a senior direct-response marketer. Write a 10-second script in English for a UGC-style video the place the lady within the connected picture talks to the digicam and sells the connected product. The copy should sound pure and spoken, hook the viewer within the first two seconds, point out that the value is $20, and shut with the decision to motion ‘faucet the purchasing cart under.’ Output the script as JSON formatted for Google Circulation, with a timeline describing what occurs on display screen, the digicam conduct, and the precise dialogue for every phase of the ten seconds.”

The JSON format just isn’t ornament. Video fashions, particularly from Google, comply with structured timelines much more precisely than free paragraphs, so that you get the dialogue, gestures, and beats you requested for. One warning: assessment the output, as a result of it may be so literal that if the timeline ends at second eight, the mannequin could repeat an motion to fill the remaining two seconds.

In order for you you possibly can personalize the copy per platform. Within the immediate, ask the AI to say issues like “The perfect prime I’ve seen on my TikTok feed.” If you wish to swap social media, “tiktok feed” turns into “on X,” “in my Reels,” or “on Shorts” relying on the place it runs. The decision to motion adjustments too: the purchasing cart works on TikTok, “hyperlink in bio” suits Instagram, and “verify the pinned remark” fits YouTube.

Step 4: Generate the video in Google Circulation

Go to Google Circulation and choose Gemini Omni, the mannequin Google launched at I/O 2026 in Might. It generates clips of as much as 10 seconds with native audio—which means your mannequin truly speaks the dialogue—and it accepts reference pictures, which is the entire level right here.

Google Veo works, and will arguably be higher, however Omni is cheaper… and we like low cost.

Add each information as references: the generated picture of your mannequin and the cropped product close-up. Paste the JSON into the immediate field. Choose vertical 9:16 for TikTok, Reels, and Shorts, or horizontal 16:9 for normal YouTube movies and pre-roll adverts.

Now, the cash half. Circulation offers non-subscribers 50 free credit per day, however Google’s support docs prohibit these to the Veo 3.1 fashions.

Omni in Circulation (which is the mannequin we advocate) requires a paid Google AI plan. Plus ($7.99 a month) consists of 200 month-to-month credit, Professional ($19.99) consists of 1,000, and the 2 Extremely tiers carry 10,000 and 25,000.

There is a genuinely free backdoor, although: Google made Omni obtainable at no cost inside YouTube Shorts and the YouTube Create app for customers 18 and older. And for reference, the developer API costs Omni at roughly $0.10 per second of video—a couple of greenback per clip.

Each Omni video carries Google’s invisible SynthID watermark figuring out it as AI-generated. It will not present on display screen, however platforms can detect it, so do not plan a enterprise round pretending the footage is actual.

Right here is the Ledger advert video we received. Bear in mind, video era has quite a lot of a random parts as a result of creativity is essential for these fashions to work. In the event you don’t like the primary era, strive a couple of extra instances.

In the event you discover some irregularities that may be fastened in submit, then there’s no have to spend further credit. There are free instruments that can allow you to lower elements of the video, change lighting, colour, and many others.

For instance, on this Tiktok advert, the lady repeats the decision to motion. We have to change that, and also you’ll learn the way within the subsequent step

Step 5: Polish it in CapCut

Export the clip and open it in CapCut. That is the place you trim anomalies—AI video nonetheless produces the occasional further phrase or looping gesture—and lower the clip to precisely what you need earlier than exporting straight to your social accounts.

Subtitles are the one characteristic price being attentive to. The animated, word-by-word caption kinds that dominate TikTok sit behind CapCut Professional, which runs about $7.99 a month or $59.99 a 12 months, and the free tier caps automated captions. Guide textual content stays free, so if you happen to’re affected person, you possibly can sort your individual.

The Tiktok advert ended up wanting like this after we fastened the decision to motion:

Taking place the rabbit gap

This workflow produces acceptable outcomes, not agency-grade ones. As soon as it clicks, you may need extra management: ElevenLabs for a constant model voice throughout dozens of movies, Kling for persistent AI avatars and instruments for movement management, node-based workflows like ComfyUI for granular scene management, n8n for automation, and many others.

Every provides value and complexity, however the fundamental pipeline above is sufficient to take a look at whether or not a product sells earlier than spending something critical.

Promoting on TikTok Store doesn’t require an excessive amount of in your aspect—simply being 18 or older with a authorities ID and financial institution particulars that match your registration, and approval normally lands inside three days. TikTok takes a 6% referral charge on most orders. Selling different folks’s merchandise as an affiliate requires 1,000 followers to use, and full entry takes 5,000 followers plus 30 days in this system.

YouTube dropped the barrier even decrease: In March, its Buying Associates program opened to Associate Program creators with simply 500 subscribers throughout 12 international locations, together with the U.S. and Brazil.

Each TikTok and YouTube allow AI-generated promotional movies, however creators and advertisers should disclose how the content material was made and any industrial relationship behind it. Beneath TikTok’s AI-generated-content policy, sensible AI-generated pictures, audio or video should be labeled; advertisers operating non-Spark adverts should additionally activate the “This advert comprises AI-generated content material” choice in TikTok Ads Manager, whereas anybody selling a model, services or products should activate TikTok’s commercial-content disclosure setting.

YouTube equally requires creators to pick out “Sure” below “AI use” when a video comprises sensible content material generated or meaningfully altered with AI, after which YouTube applies an AI label; sponsored, endorsed or in any other case commercially influenced movies should individually use the platform’s paid-promotion disclosure.

X’s Authenticity policy prohibits artificial or manipulated media when it’s deceptively introduced and will trigger widespread confusion, threaten public security or produce critical hurt, whereas its advertising rules require adverts to be sincere, lawful and in line with the product being promoted. It doesn’t explicitly ban the usage of AI-generated pictures, video, and audio in promotional content material.

However allow us to put your ft on the bottom with a sobering quantity earlier than you stop your job: Per Camille Moore, president of the advertising company Third Eye Insights, of the 803,500 TikTok Store shops working within the U.S. final 12 months, greater than half recorded zero gross sales. The instruments are practically free. The competitors just isn’t.