{"id":7024,"date":"2026-10-19T08:21:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-19T01:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adtek.agency\/retail-media-vietnam-shopee-ads-tiktok-gmv-max\/"},"modified":"2026-10-21T00:12:41","modified_gmt":"2026-10-20T17:12:41","slug":"retail-media-vietnam-shopee-ads-tiktok-gmv-max","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adtek.agency\/en\/retail-media-vietnam-shopee-ads-tiktok-gmv-max\/","title":{"rendered":"Retail media in Vietnam: how Shopee Ads and TikTok GMV Max work"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is not a step-by-step guide to setting up campaigns. Shopee<\/a> and TikTok<\/a> already publish official guides for that. What I cover here is how retail media in Vietnam charges sellers on these two marketplaces, and how to work out your break-even ROAS before 11.11.<\/p>\n

In Q2 2026, Shopee’s advertising revenue grew more than 70% year over year, while GMV (gross merchandise value, the total value of goods sold) grew only 28.4% (Sea Limited, August 2026). What sellers spend on marketplace ads is growing more than twice as fast as GMV. If you cannot calculate your break-even ROAS, it is easy to rack up orders and still lose money.<\/p>\n

Those are regional figures. In Vietnam, e-commerce GMV for the first 9 months of 2026 reached VND 411,800 billion, up 22% (YouNet ECI, October 2026). Shopee and TikTok Shop have both changed their tools and fee schedules in ways that push sellers to spend more on ads.<\/p>\n

Marketplace advertising (retail media) is advertising that sellers pay for inside Shopee or TikTok Shop so that their products, store or livestream appear in search results, recommendations and video feeds. Because the marketplace both sells the ad placement and records the order, it measures the revenue itself and optimizes bids on its own against the target ROAS or ROI that the seller sets.<\/strong><\/p>\n

How is it different from Meta or Google ads?<\/h2>\n

Marketplace ads appear while people are already shopping, so they sit closer to the purchase decision than social media ads. The trade-off is that the marketplace keeps all the data. ROAS<\/a> (return on ad spend) = revenue \/ ad spend, so spending VND 1 million to bring in VND 4 million is a ROAS of 4. The marketplace calculates this number by rules it sets itself, and you have no pixel of your own to verify it.<\/p>\n

Think of the marketplace as the owner of a market hall. It charges rent for the stall (fixed fees), takes a percentage of each sale (transaction fees), and then sells the spots at the end of each aisle (visibility). Both marketplaces are following Meta’s lead: you set a budget and a goal, and the algorithm picks the placements, the audience and the creative on its own (see our article on Meta advertising in 2026<\/a>).<\/p>\n

What types of Shopee Ads are there?<\/h2>\n

Shopee Vietnam calls its ads “D\u1ecbch v\u1ee5 Hi\u1ec3n th\u1ecb Shopee” (DVHT, literally Shopee display services). You find them in Seller Centre under Marketing Centre. The main types:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Type<\/th>\nWhere it appears<\/th>\nHow it is priced<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
Product ads in Search<\/td>\nSearch results page<\/td>\nKeyword bidding, pay per click<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Product ads in Discovery<\/td>\nDaily Discover (homepage) and You May Also Like (product page)<\/td>\nPay per click, with targeting by age, gender, location and behavior<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Shop+ ads<\/td>\nShop card and product card on the search results page<\/td>\nKeyword bidding, minimum bid VND 1,500<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Livestream ads<\/td>\nShopee Live homepage, Discover section<\/td>\nTarget ROAS set for the live session<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Homepage ads<\/td>\nHomepage banner<\/td>\noCPM, charged per 1,000 impressions<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Shop+ replaced the old Shop ads from August 13, 2026 and adds a share of voice (SOV) metric by keyword. The homepage banner is the only type charged on a CPM<\/a> (cost per mille) basis, which makes it a better fit for a big brand launching a product than for a store that needs orders right away.<\/p>\n

Shopee GMV Max (T\u1ed1i \u0111a Doanh thu)<\/h3>\n

T\u1ed1i \u0111a Doanh thu, which sellers usually just call GMV Max, is the automated bidding mode for product ads. With system-optimized ROAS (T\u1ed1i \u01b0u ROAS b\u1edfi h\u1ec7 th\u1ed1ng), Shopee picks the ROAS level for you, and this is the recommended option for new products. With custom ROAS (T\u00f9y ch\u1ec9nh ROAS), you set your own target and Shopee shows 3 suggested levels.<\/p>\n

This mode delivers across more placements than manual campaigns: Search, Discovery, Games and Shopee Coins. Group campaigns let several products share one budget and one target. Shopee advises against setting ROAS much higher than its suggestion, and recommends changing the target only 1 to 2 times a day, by no more than 20% each time.<\/p>\n

Manual campaigns are gradually being upgraded to GMV Max, with 14 days’ notice. During the last 7 days before the upgrade, you cannot edit manual campaigns or create new ones. Shopee has not announced a single date for everyone, so watch for the notice in your account.<\/p>\n

Sale Day Bid Optimization (T\u1ed1i \u01b0u Gi\u00e1 th\u1ea7u Ng\u00e0y Sale)<\/h3>\n

During mega sales, the system can lower your target ROAS by up to 30% on custom ROAS campaigns (10% on system-optimized ROAS). The budget is raised by 20% at a time, up to 5 times, and then goes back to its previous level the next day. You turn it on or off under “Gi\u1ea3i Ph\u00e1p Th\u00f4ng Minh T\u0103ng Doanh S\u1ed1” (smart solutions to grow sales).<\/p>\n

How does TikTok GMV Max work?<\/h2>\n

Since July 2025, GMV Max has been the default and only campaign type for TikTok Shop ads with a sales objective. You can no longer create the old Shopping Ads, although existing campaigns keep running. Both kinds of GMV Max are available in Vietnam.<\/p>\n

Product GMV Max<\/h3>\n

You choose the products, set a daily budget and a target ROI. ROI (return on investment) here means revenue divided by cost, the same as ROAS. It is not profit. The system chooses the videos on its own (including authorized affiliate videos), the placements and the audience. When the campaign hits its target, the budget can rise automatically by 50% at a time, up to 10 times a day.<\/p>\n

Max delivery works the other way around: it uses a separate budget, tries to spend all of it, and accepts that ROI will fluctuate. TikTok suggests a daily budget of at least 10 times your average order value.<\/p>\n

LIVE GMV Max<\/h3>\n

LIVE GMV Max runs at the store level, with one campaign per TikTok account. It optimizes both paid placements and organic traffic into the live room, and only increases spend when ROI is close to target. When a store’s main account runs LIVE GMV Max, that account’s old LIVE Shopping Ads are paused automatically.<\/p>\n

ROI protection<\/h3>\n

Since February 25, 2026, TikTok refunds ad credit when a day’s ROI falls below 90% of the target ROI and the campaign has more than 20 orders that day. Refund = total cost minus [total revenue \/ (daily target ROI \u00d7 0.9)]. With a target of 5, a spend of VND 10 million and revenue of VND 40 million, you get back about VND 1.11 million. Days on which you use Max delivery or edit the products in the campaign are not protected.<\/p>\n

Marketplace ROAS is not profit<\/h2>\n

The two marketplaces count ad revenue differently, but both count more broadly than the sales the ads actually add.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
<\/th>\nShopee Ads<\/th>\nTikTok Product GMV Max<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
Orders credited to ads<\/td>\nPurchases within 7 days of a click, or within 1 day of an ad view<\/td>\nEvery order of the promoted product while the campaign runs, including organic and affiliate orders<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Reported revenue<\/td>\nDirect GMV, and GMV including other products in the shop<\/td>\nGross revenue, including the marketplace’s subsidies<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Formula<\/td>\nROAS = GMV \/ cost<\/td>\nROI = gross revenue \/ cost<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Shopee uses a 7-day attribution window<\/a>: someone who clicks an ad on Monday, then searches for the product again and buys on Saturday, still counts toward the ad. People who only see the ad without clicking are also counted if they buy within 1 day (Shopee Ads, Tracking campaign performance<\/a>). TikTok’s own help page points out that Product GMV Max figures include both paid and organic traffic. As a result, ROI and cost per order may not accurately reflect how well a video performs.<\/p>\n

Both numbers are calculated before marketplace fees, returns and cancellations, and cost of goods. With a 20% profit margin, a ROAS of 5 only gets you to break-even. I recommend putting two other numbers next to it: ad spend divided by the store’s total GMV, and total orders before and after you switch on GMV Max. If total orders do not rise while revenue “from ads” does, the ads are taking credit for organic orders.<\/p>\n

2026 marketplace fees tied to advertising<\/h2>\n

From May 9, 2026, TikTok Shop raised its transaction fee from 5% to 6% (B\u00e1o C\u00f4ng Th\u01b0\u01a1ng, the Ministry of Industry and Trade’s newspaper, May 2026). From May 19, 2026, stores that spend at least 4% of GMV on GMV Max over 30 days get a 1 percentage point cut in the transaction fee from day 31, meaning they pay 5%. From October 21, 2026, the discount moves to tiers based on the share of ad spend over 30 days: 4% to under 7% gets 0.5% off, 7% to under 10% gets 0.7% off, 10% to under 15% gets 1% off, 15% to under 20% gets 1.2% off, and 20% or more gets 1.5% off (TikTok Shop Seller University, updated October 13, 2026).<\/p>\n

Shopee raised its transaction processing fee to 6% from May 1, 2026 (from May 8, 2026 for Shopee Mall). Invited sellers can get a discount on this fee. If they join, part of each order’s revenue is automatically topped up into their ad balance and a Shop GMV Max campaign is switched on. The size of the discount is not published.<\/p>\n

A program called “Duy tr\u00ec hi\u1ec3n th\u1ecb” (maintain visibility), planned to start on May 29, 2026, would have taken at least 1% of each order’s revenue and moved it into the seller’s ad account. Shopee postponed it after a request from the Vietnam Competition Commission (VnEconomy, May 2026).<\/p>\n

Under TikTok Shop’s new tier table, a store with VND 1 billion in monthly GMV that spends VND 40 million (4%) on ads saves only VND 5 million in fees. To save VND 10 million it has to spend VND 100 million (10%) or more. If that ad money is not profitable on its own, do not raise the budget just to reach a higher tier.<\/p>\n

How to calculate break-even ROAS after marketplace fees<\/h2>\n

Run this calculation for each SKU before you enter a target ROAS in Shopee or a target ROI in TikTok.<\/p>\n

Example (hypothetical figures, not the fee schedule of any specific category):<\/strong> I sell a product at VND 250,000 on 11.11, with a cost of goods of VND 90,000. Assume percentage-based marketplace fees (fixed, transaction and service fees) add up to 24%, fixed costs per order (infrastructure fee, packaging) are VND 10,000, and returns and cancellations run at 8%. I want to keep a profit of 10% of the selling price.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Percentage-based marketplace fees: 250,000 \u00d7 24% = VND 60,000.<\/li>\n
  2. Margin before ads = (selling price minus cost of goods, percentage fees and fixed cost per order) \/ selling price. 250,000 minus 90,000, 60,000 and 10,000 leaves VND 90,000, or 36%.<\/li>\n
  3. Break-even ROAS = 1 \/ margin before ads = 1 \/ 0.36 = 2.78.<\/li>\n
  4. Target ROAS = 1 \/ (margin before ads minus the margin you want to keep). To keep a profit of VND 25,000 (10%), I can spend at most 90,000 minus 25,000 = VND 65,000 on ads per order (26%). Target ROAS = 1 \/ 0.26 = 3.85.<\/li>\n
  5. ROAS you need to see in the marketplace report = target ROAS \/ (1 minus the return and cancellation rate) = 3.85 \/ 0.92 = 4.18.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    If I set 3.85 on Shopee and turn on Sale Day Bid Optimization, the target can be cut by 30% to about 2.70, which is below the 2.78 break-even. For a thin-margin SKU like this, I would set a higher target or turn the feature off.<\/p>\n

    With Product GMV Max, suppose 30% of the revenue credited to the campaign is organic orders you would have had anyway. The reported ROI then needs to be around 4.18 \/ 0.7 \u2248 6.0 for the incremental part to hit the target. You only learn the real share by comparing total orders before and after the campaign goes live. How to calculate break-even discounts under the 2026 fee schedules is covered in Adtek’s 11.11 plan<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    Retail media in Vietnam: checklist before 11.11<\/h2>\n

    From October 19, there are 23 days left until November 11. Shopee recommends giving new campaigns a full 7-day learning period, so most of the setup needs to be done before November 4.<\/p>\n

    Both marketplaces<\/h3>\n