How to Close TikTok Ad Account

Deciding it's time to close your TikTok Ads account is a big step, whether you're pausing your marketing efforts, restructuring your business, or simply moving on to different channels. This guide will walk you through the entire process, from preparing your account for closure to understanding the final consequences of deactivation.

Before You Close Your TikTok Ads Account: A Pre-Deletion Checklist

Closing your ad account is a permanent action, and you can't undo it once it's done. Before you hit the deactivate button, it's smart to run through a quick checklist to make sure you’re not leaving anything important behind. Taking these preparatory steps can save you from future headaches related to billing, data loss, and reporting.

1. Settle All Outstanding Payments

First and foremost, check your account balance. Do you owe TikTok any money for past ad campaigns? If so, you'll need to clear this balance before you can proceed with closing the account. TikTok won't typically allow an account with an outstanding payment to be deactivated.

• Check your balance: Navigate to the "Billing & Payment" section within your TikTok Ads Manager dashboard. Here, you'll see your current balance, recent transactions, and any pending invoices.
• Make a payment: If you have an outstanding amount, use your linked payment method to settle the account. This ensures a clean break and prevents any unexpected charges or collection notices later on.

Conversely, if you happen to have a remaining prepayment balance, be aware that you will forfeit this credit when you close the account. TikTok generally does not offer refunds for remaining ad spend, so try to use up any existing balance on a small final campaign if possible.

2. Pause All Active Campaigns

While deactivating your account should automatically stop all campaigns, it’s good practice to manually pause them yourself first. This gives you full control and ensures no ads continue to run (and spend money) while the deactivation request is being processed.

• Go to the "Campaigns" tab in your Ads Manager.
• Select all active campaigns, ad groups, and ads.
• Use the toggle switch or the edit menu to change their status to "Paused" or "Turned Off."

This simple action prevents any rogue ad spend and gives you peace of mind that all advertising activity has stopped before you take the final step to close the account.

3. Back Up Your Data and Reports

This is probably the most important step in the entire process. Once your account is closed, all of your historical campaign data will be gone forever. You'll lose access to performance metrics, audience insights, ad creative performance, and conversion data. Losing this information means you can't learn from past successes or failures, analyze trends over time, or use historical benchmarks for future marketing strategies.

Before you even think about deactivating, export everything you might need in the future:

• Campaign Performance: Export detailed performance reports for all of your key campaigns. Be sure to include metrics like spend, impressions, clicks, CPC, CPM, conversions, cost per conversion, and ROAS. Set a custom date range to "All Time" to capture the full history.
• Audience Insights: If you've been using specific custom audiences or lookalike audiences, save their settings and performance data. You might have discovered a high-performing demographic or interest group you’ll want to remember.
• Ad Creative Reports: Download performance data for your best and worst-performing ads. Knowing which videos, copy, and CTAs resonated with your audience is valuable information you can apply to any other platform.

Export these reports as CSV or Excel files and save them in a secure folder on your computer or cloud storage. This historical archive is your proof of performance and a roadmap for what worked.

4. Inform Your Team and Stakeholders

If you work with a team, an agency, or have clients, let them know you're closing the account. This step prevents confusion when they can no longer access the Ads Manager or see performance data. Clear communication ensures everyone is on the same page and that all final reporting needs have been addressed before the data becomes inaccessible.

Step-by-Step Guide to Deactivating Your TikTok Ads Account

Once you’ve completed your pre-deletion checklist, you're ready to proceed with the actual deactivation. The process is fairly straightforward if you know where to look. Follow these steps carefully.

Step 1: Log In to TikTok Ads Manager

Start by heading over to the TikTok Ads Manager (https://ads.tiktok.com/) and logging in with the credentials associated with the account you wish to close.

Step 2: Navigate to Account Setup

Once you're in the dashboard, look for your account icon or username in the top-right corner of the page. Click on it to reveal a dropdown menu, and from there, select "Account Info" or a similar setting. This section contains all the basic details about your ads account.

Step 3: Access Your Account Information

You will be taken to the "Account Setup" page. Here you'll likely see several tabs like "Basic Information," "Payment," and "Admins." Make sure you are on the "Basic Information" tab. This is where your business information, account status, and other core details are displayed.

Step 4: Find the "Deactivate Account" Option

Scroll down to the bottom of the "Basic Information" module. You should see an option labeled "Advanced Settings." After it, you can find something like “Deactivate Account.” Next to it, there will be a button or link called "Deactivate."

TikTok places this option a bit out of sight to prevent accidental closures, so you may need to look carefully.

Step 5: Confirm Your Decision

Clicking "Deactivate" will trigger a confirmation window. TikTok will warn you about the consequences of this action, stating that deactivation is permanent and you’ll lose all campaign data and access. You will have to confirm that you understand and wish to proceed.

This is your last chance to turn back. If you are 100% sure, confirm your choice.

Step 6: Provide a Reason for Closing

TikTok will likely present you with a short survey asking why you're deactivating your account. You can select a reason from a list (e.g., "Not satisfied with performance," "No longer need an ads account") or write in your own response. This feedback is used for their internal data, and providing it is usually required to complete the process. After submitting your reason, the account will be scheduled for permanent deletion.

What Happens After You Close Your Account?

Understanding the finality of your decision is important. Here’s exactly what you can expect after the process is complete:

• Permanent Loss of Access: You will no longer be able to log in to the TikTok Ads Manager for that specific account. All dashboards, reports, and campaign editing tools will be gone.
• All Data is Deleted: As stated earlier, your campaign history, ad creative library, and audience data will be permanently erased. There is no way to recover this information from TikTok's side.
• Remaining Balance is Forfeited: Any prepaid ad credits or funds left in your account balance will be lost.
• Your TikTok Profile is Unaffected: It's important to note that closing your ad account does not affect any personal or business TikTok profile linked to it. You can continue using TikTok as a regular user just fine.

Can I Reopen a Closed TikTok Ads Account?

No. In nearly all cases, deactivating your TikTok Ad account is an irreversible action. You cannot contact support to have it reinstated. If you decide you want to run TikTok ads again in the future, you will have to create a brand new ad account from scratch. This new account will start with no historical data, no audience history, and a fresh ad pixel.

Alternatives to Completely Closing Your Account

If you're unsure about permanently deleting everything, or if you think you might want to advertise on TikTok again someday, consider these less final alternatives:

• Pause All Campaigns Indefinitely: Instead of deactivating, simply pause all your campaigns, ad groups, and ads. This effectively stops all ad spending but preserves your account and all its precious data for when you return.
• Remove Your Payment Method: For extra security, you can remove your credit card or other payment method from the "Billing & Payment" section. This makes it impossible for any new charges to be made, accidentally or otherwise.

This approach gives you the best of both worlds: your spending is stopped, but your account, pixel data, custom audiences, and campaign history remain safely intact for whenever you need them.

Final Thoughts

Closing your TikTok Ad account is a simple process, but its consequences are permanent. By following a pre-deletion checklist - clearing outstanding payments, pausing campaigns, and downloading all your performance data - you can ensure a clean and responsible closure without sacrificing valuable insights.

Backing up campaign data is especially vital, not just for posterity but for informing future strategy. At https://www.graphed.com/register, we make that a lot easier by consolidating all your marketing data in one place. We connect automatically to your advertising platforms like TikTok Ads, which lets you not only preserve your historical performance but also ask questions about your data in simple, natural language to find insights across all your channels - even after you've closed an old account.