Most “best agency” lists are long on names and short on help. You don’t need twenty vendors. You need the right one for your goals, and a simple way to tell signal from noise. In 2025 that means getting clear on whether you’re buying ads execution, creator production, or Shop operations, then validating a few TikTok-specific proofs like Spark Ads fluency, Creative Exchange process, and real Shop playbooks. Everything else is window dressing.

Start with goals, not vendor lists

If you are trying to scale performance ads, prioritize teams that can iterate creative quickly and bridge organic content into paid through Spark Ads. Spark boosts a real post so comments and follows compound on the original handle, which matters for social proof and future reach. Ask for examples where engagement and follows accelerated after boosting and how the team handled identity linking and permissions. If they fumble the Spark workflow, they will slow your learning loop.

If creator collaborations are your priority, check whether their process maps to TikTok Creative Exchange. TTCX standardizes briefs, approvals, and handoffs so you can produce native content at volume and still maintain quality. Good partners can show you the paper trail: the brief, the review loop, the usage window, and the Spark code that lets you scale winners.

If commerce is the mission, you need an operator, not just a media buyer. TikTok Shop is now meaningful, with multiple trackers putting global GMV around $26.2B in the first half of 2025, and the U.S. showing strong momentum. That does not make Shop easy. It does make it worth vetting whether the agency can run catalog hygiene, offer calendars, affiliates, and live programming, then connect those dots to paid. If you want a clear sense of what this looks like in practice, skim our program overview for TikTok Shop Ads Management.

What to evaluate once you’ve narrowed the field

Start with proof of competence inside TikTok’s own ecosystem. Look up the agency in the TikTok Marketing Partners directory and check the category fit. Badges are not everything, but they signal product knowledge and support routes you will care about when things break. If your needs are ads, creative, measurement, or commerce, the badge category should match.

Next, dig into their creative engine. TikTok rewards volume and learning speed, not one polished hero spot. Ask how many briefs and hooks per SKU they ship each week, how they decide what to keep or cut, and how quickly they convert a promising organic into Spark. If the cadence is monthly, you will learn too slowly to win. For a benchmark on how a full-funnel program is structured, our Services page outlines how paid media, creative, and social commerce work together.

Measurement is where many pitches get vague. In 2025, TikTok’s legacy SAN integration changed, which forced smarter teams to blend Ads Manager, first-party analytics, and structured tests to prove lift. Ask to see a dashboard where creative-level diagnostics drive weekly decisions. No screenshots of one low CPA. Show me the learning system. If you want cost context while you sanity-check proposals, this primer on TikTok ad costs in 2025 is a helpful anchor.

Brand safety and disclosure matter more this year too. TikTok expects clear branded content disclosure and labeling when AI-generated media looks realistic. Mature agencies enforce this inside creator workflows so you don’t get surprised later. Our quick guide to 2025 TikTok rules spells out what changed and how to stay clean.

Finally, check commercial alignment. Scopes should map to real deliverables and volumes: scripts, edits, posts, lives, affiliate outreach, and Spark deployment. Budget ranges should align with current platform economics, not wishful thinking. Fresh data in 2025 still shows attractive CPM and CPC in many categories, but your real minimum is set by creative volume and Shop complexity, not a magic media number. If you’re new to TikTok ads, start with the how-to guide, then layer on bids, budgeting, and creative testing.

The questions that separate operators from storytellers

When you reach the RFP stage, keep your questions practical and TikTok-specific. Ask for three Spark campaigns where engagement and follows compounded after boosting, and have them explain exactly what changed post-boost. Request a walk-through of their TTCX-style pipeline from brief to upload, including rights and usage windows. For Shop, ask them to map the catalog, the offer calendar, how affiliates are recruited and paid, and how they tie Shop signals back into ad targeting and creative. Then press on attribution: how do they evaluate creative-level lift weekly given the 2025 SAN change. Round it out with policy hygiene. How do they enforce disclosure and AI labels across creators and editors so your brand stays clean. If they can’t answer crisply with artifacts and examples, keep looking. For deeper context, we keep a living library on TikTok influencer strategy and a legal-lite UGC guide to help you vet creator scopes.

Red flags worth heeding

Be wary of guaranteed virality, thin testing plans, or a flat refusal to use Spark Ads on an ads engagement. Be careful with agencies selling “social commerce” that cannot show you a Shop runbook with affiliates and live programming. Treat hand-wavy measurement as a risk, especially when a team ignores this year’s attribution and policy realities. The internet is full of “top agency” roundups that rate themselves highly. Use them for a long list if you must, then bring it back to the framework above for your short list. If you want to see how we approach commerce specifically, here is a deeper explainer on TikTok Shop benefits and setup plus a practical playbook for Shop LIVE.

What good scope and budget alignment looks like

On the ads side, expect to see multiple hooks per SKU, weekly edits, and a clear learning agenda that connects creative variables to outcomes. Spark should not be an afterthought. It should be a native part of the playbook, with identity linking and creator permissions handled in hours, not weeks. For creator work, you want sourcing standards, two clean review rounds, explicit usage terms, and a plan to boost winners. For Shop, think like a retailer: tight catalog and offers, a live rhythm, and an affiliate engine that actually moves units. When you discuss budget, sanity-check it against current costs while remembering that your floor is defined by how much creative you can ship and how complex your Shop operation is. Our TikTok ad cost guide for 2025 and conversion benchmarks can help set expectations.

A quick policy note so you plan with eyes open

The U.S. divest-or-ban saga produced multiple enforcement delays this year. Deadlines shifted from spring to summer, then to September, and by late September moved again to December 16, 2025. No one benefits from whiplash. The practical takeaway is simple. Choose an agency that can keep momentum if policy shifts again. They should show you a parallel plan across channels and markets so your testing and learning do not stop.

If you want a working example

Here is how Darkroom maps to the criteria above. Our TikTok Shop Ads Management program focuses on creator seeding at scale, affiliates, live programming, and an offer calendar that ties to paid. Our paid media team runs weekly creative tests and uses Spark to compound organic proof when content hits, which you can see in the broader Services overview. Our performance creative methodology shows up throughout the Observatory, including the TikTok ads how-to. To evaluate outcomes across industries, browse our Case Studies hub. For seasonal planning, save the Black Friday on TikTok Shop playbook.