Introducing Carousels
Photo carousels are shoppable and they sell, and Cruva now tracks them next to your videos: their own page under Content, a format filter in AI Search and Social Intelligence, and campaigns that count them toward creator payouts.
A carousel is a set of photos a viewer swipes through on TikTok, usually over a sound, instead of a video. They are shoppable in exactly the same way, which means they can drive real GMV for your shop. You will also see them called slideshows, photo posts, shoppable photos or photo mode. Those all mean the same format, and Cruva calls them carousels everywhere.
Shoppable, and easy to miss
Carousels sell the way videos do, but a report built only around video posts has nowhere to put the GMV they bring in.
The creators making them look quiet
A creator whose audience comes from photo posts does not stand out in a search that only matches on video.
Briefs get answered in the other format
When a creator responds to your brief with a carousel, you want that post to count toward the campaign rather than fall through it.
Two formats, one number
Carousel and video performance read very differently. Mixed into a single figure, neither one tells you much.
How it works
Carousels now sit alongside videos and LIVEs across the product, on a page of their own and behind a format filter wherever content is listed.
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See your own carousels
Content > Carousels lists every carousel tied to your shop, with the creator handle, the products featured, post date, GMV, units sold, views, likes, comments, CTR, engagement and ad metrics. Cards along the top track Carousel Posts, Carousel GMV and Carousel Views for the range you pick, and Export to CSV takes the data with you.
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Open one and page through it
Click a thumbnail for the carousel viewer. Arrow through the frames or jump to one with the dots, mute the sound if you need to, and download a single image or all of them at once. Performance, Analytics and Product tabs sit on the right, the same detail you get for a video.
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Search for the creators making them
In AI Search, open Settings next to the search bar and set Content type to Carousels only. It narrows which posts a creator can be matched on, and it carries through to the result count, Save list and Export CSV, so what you save is what you saw.
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Filter the wider market
On Social Intelligence > Videos, the Filters button has a Format setting: All Videos, Carousels Only or Videos Only. Carousel results carry a photo icon and open in the same viewer, and the CSV export includes an Is Slideshow column so you can slice the two formats after the fact.
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Count them in campaigns
In the campaign configurator, the Campaign Details step has a Content Type dropdown. Tick Carousel on its own for a carousel-only campaign, or alongside Video and LIVE so creators qualify with any of them. Participants' carousels then count toward progress and payouts exactly like videos.
Carousels also show up on their own in the video lists on brand, product and creator pages, with no filter to set. Rows carrying the photo icon open the carousel viewer instead of the player.
Your creators are already posting carousels. Now the format shows up in your reporting, your search and your payouts.
Worth knowing before you switch the filter on
Carousels are a smaller slice of the indexed catalog than videos, so Carousels only returns fewer creators than an unfiltered search. That is the format's share of what is out there, not a filter going wrong.
A carousel also needs a different shot list than a video. If the format is new to your creators, say so in the creator brief rather than assuming the swap is obvious. And in the viewer, some posts use licensed music that TikTok does not expose, so those play with no sound.
Which campaigns can count them
The Content Type dropdown appears on Retainer, Contest, Leaderboard and Sweepstakes campaigns. A campaign has to count at least one content type, so the last remaining option cannot be unticked, and Reset puts it back to Video only.
- A carousel counts only if it was posted inside the campaign window, including the grace period after the end date.
- It has to promote a product on the campaign's product list. A carousel featuring a product you did not add will not count, however well it did.
- Metrics sync from TikTok on a delay, so a new post and its GMV appear after that lag rather than instantly.
Review what has come in from the Carousels tab, either on a single campaign or across all of them from the community content view, alongside Videos and LIVEs.
Available now under Content > Carousels
The Carousels page, the AI Search content type and the campaign content types are there today. Social Intelligence needs the Growth plan to view, and the Scale plan to save creators from it into a list.
