How to Reach the US Audience on TikTok

The relevance of your audience geographic location

Short-form UGC content has become the main driver of B2C app marketing, especially for smaller teams that focus on low CPM and high converting marketing strategies. The high adoption of Apple/Google Pay has pushed in-app purchases to new highs over the last years. In 2024, global in-app purchases reached an unprecedented $150 billion. Another 13% increases from 2023.

And of course, some regions are more attractive than others. In Apples App Store, the US has led the rankings of highest grossing markets for years. This makes it the most attractive target region for app developers. However, non-US based developers are faced with a tough challenge. TikTok’s algorithm heavily focuses on regional relevance when deciding which audience a video will be shown to. If a developer is based in Germany, it will be almost impossible to dominantly reach the US audience, especially if the account is connected to the German version of TikTok from the German App Store.

To solve this, the developer needs an account that is registered in the US. Lets see why this is so hard to achieve and how it can be still solved.

The challenge of creating US-based TikTok accounts

TikTok is using advanced detection methods to track down suspicious behavior, ToS violations and of course, bots. Their systems are so sophisticated that simply turning on a VPN to get a US-based IP address does not work. Even worse, this can lead to a shadow ban or even full ban of your account. The same holds true for any kind of virtuell browser setups that simulate different account setups and origins. Marketers all around the world are constantly trying to find the most reliable, efficient and cheapest way to create US-based accounts.

When digging deep enough, you can find many different offerings to directly purchase warmed up US-based TikTok accounts. But usually, this is not a good solution as most app developers are looking for accounts that are warmed-up exclusively within their target niche of interest. So how can we still get US-based TikTok accounts to work?

Here’s a proven way to set up US-based TikTok accounts from anywhere in the world

1. Get a dedicated Iphone (all phones starting from Iphone 8 should work)
2. Get a US Sim card or E-sim
3. Subscribe to a high quality VPN or eben better, a 4G/5G Mobile Proxy provider
4. Factory reset Iphone
5. During Installation Setup, choose US as the country
6. Disable location services
7. Create a new email for iCloud
8. If you are going with Mobile Proxy instead of VPN, buy a rule-based proxy client such as “ShadowRocket” from the App Store.
   1. it costs $2.99 so you need to set up your App Store Account
   2. App Store Account → Use random US address and your US number
   3. Setup ShadowRocket via Socks5 and whitelist your home IP address
9. Check IP address via Whoer. net
10. Install TikTok and create first account via US mobile number

It needs to be noted that 4G/5G Mobile Proxies are quite pricey and it makes sense to teste with a few simple VPN providers first. Ultimately, a shadow-banned account is not a big issue as the value does not lie in the accounts its followers but mostly in the created content. New accounts can be warmed-up and bootstrapped anytime.

Warming up your Account in your target niche

After you have successfully created an US-based TikTok account, the next step is to follow a clean account warm-up procedure to optimize the accounts future reach towards your target group.

First, keep your account clean and don’t add any profile information in the first two days. Then start searching for content in your target niche. Let’s say you are building an AI study app. Search for terms such as ‘studytok’ ‘study with me’ or ‘study motivation’. Engage with your niches content for 2-3 days and try to mimic a natural user as close as possible. Engagement should include any possible action including comments, shares, dms or even trivial things such as rewatching a single video.

The most important Dos and Don’ts

• Keep using your account naturally with human-like interactions daily
• Don’t add more than three accounts per Iphone
• When warming up multiple accounts, don’t start them all at once but one after the other
• ALWAYS check your IP before opening TikTok
• When using a dedicated phone, avoid using it with other services to reduce the probability of mistakes that could trigger TikTok
• Use a unique and valid email address when setting up a new TikTok account
• Try to choose your posting times aligned with the US-time zone

Summary

With this guide, you will be able to reach an US-based audience on a daily basis. The overall costs to scale this approach are actually quite low. Older Iphones can be bought for less than $100 and e-sim + reliable VPN are quite affordable.

The most annoying part of the process is probably the warm-up as you don’t really know if it worked before you start posting your first videos. Sometimes, TikTok was still able to flag some behaviour as suspicious and you need to start again. But since content quality is the biggest factor in getting viral, follower counts and account age are less important and losing an account due to a shadowban is max a temporary issue.

You want to distribute your app with viral content in the US? Track all your freshly warmed-up accounts and observe closely how your content performs and if your accoutn warm up was succesful. Start tracking today →