TikTok expands its Pulse product to bring brands closer to its culture

Ahead of its presentation at the 2025 NewFronts, TikTok unveiled new additions to the product it has now dubbed the Pulse Suite. That’s the name of the ad program that lets brands target top-performing posts on the For You Page, and it is now extended to user-generated content through a vehicle called Pulse Core.

Pulse cordons off advertising space next to “the hottest, trending, and most-premium brand safe content,” as explained in a TikTok Newsroom post. The product has headlined TikTok’s NewFronts pitch in each of the past four years. It first debuted shortly before the 2022 pitchfest and expanded a year later with the launch of Pulse Premiere, which packages ad space next to “premium publisher content.”

Custom Pulse Lineups and a fresh batch of publisher partners arrived in 2024. This year, TikTok’s Pulse expansion is placing more focus on creators. Core campaigns can be customized to focus on specific trends, holidays, or other categories.

“TikTok has become part of people’s everyday lives—it’s where they go to be educated, entertained, and to discover something new. When brands show up with that same mindset, not just to advertise but to genuinely engage, they naturally become part of the conversation,” reads a statement from TikTok VP of Global Business Solutions Khartoon Weiss. “The real value comes from showing up consistently—not just during big cultural moments, but all the time—because culture doesn’t take a day off. It happens on TikTok every single day.”

Pulse Premiere is continuing to grow alongside its creator-oriented counterpart. New publishers added to the Premiere roster include Formula 1, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Red Bull Media.

The concept of a digital ad program that targets a slice of top-performing content is most closely associated with the Google product now known as YouTube Select. In recent months, other tech companies have rolled out their own versions of YouTube Select, with X and LinkedIn serving as two notable examples.

TikTok’s take on premium advertiser placements has a distinct focus on recurring events. Seasonal Lineups in Pulse Core hone in on annual happenings like Mother’s Day or back-to-school season. A separate product named Content Sponsorship Packages puts advertisers at the center of platform-wide tentpoles. Formula 1, for example, will build Sponsorship Packages around November’s Las Vegas Grand Prix.

This approach has unlocked a coveted audience that advertisers struggle to reach on other platforms. Per the latest TikTok Newsroom post, 45% of the audience reached through Pulse campaigns hadn’t previously seen an equivalent ad on TV.

The takeaway is that TikTok-based advertising continues to pay dividends, even as the platform finds itself in regulatory hot water. The jury’s still out on a potential U.S. TikTok ban, but the app’s economic impact is giving regulators a big reason to keep it running.