Advertising rules of the five main platforms in Vietnam
Updated 23 October 2026
Billing units, minimums, what counts as a view, attribution windows and invoice VAT for Facebook, TikTok, Google, YouTube and Zalo Ads, each line taken from the platform’s own help pages, blogs and notices. Free to reuse with attribution.
Short answer
None of the main advertising platforms in Vietnam publishes a rate card: Facebook, TikTok, Google and YouTube sell through auctions, and Zalo Ads sells at floor prices. What can be compared across them is their rules: the minimum spend, what counts as a view, how long each platform credits itself with a sale, and the VAT on the invoice. Because each platform sets these differently, cost per view or self-reported conversions from two platforms cannot be put side by side.
This page carries no average cost per thousand impressions or per click: no platform publishes one for Vietnam, and the figures that circulate online have no checkable source. A company’s real prices are the auction results of its own account.
How each platform sells, and the minimum it states
Four of the five sell through auctions, so none publishes a rate card; Zalo Ads sells at floor prices. The minimums below are what it takes for ads to deliver at all, not what it takes for a campaign to produce a readable result.
| Platform | Sold by | Stated minimum | Spend pacing and learning phase |
|---|---|---|---|
| Facebook, Instagram | Auction; mostly charged per impression, per click or per ThruPlay depending on the objective | No general figure published; with a cost-per-result goal, the daily budget should be at least five times that goal | Up to 175% of the daily budget on a given day, no more than seven times it over a week; about 50 results a week per ad set to leave the learning phase |
| TikTok | Auction; per impression, click or focused view. TikTok Shop: GMV Max, set by budget and target ROI | Over USD 50 a day at campaign level and over USD 20 a day at ad group level (USD 20 × days for a lifetime budget) | About 25 results or seven days to pass the learning phase; raise budgets by no more than 40% while learning and 30% after, at most every two days |
| Google Search | Auction per click; the actual price is usually below the maximum bid | No general minimum stated | Up to twice the average daily budget on a given day, no more than 30.4 times it in a month |
| YouTube | Auction inside Google Ads; skippable ads per view or per thousand impressions, six-second and non-skippable ads per thousand impressions | No general minimum; Demand Gen campaigns created through the Google Ads API need at least USD 5 a day from 1 April 2026 | As Google Search; frequency caps apply only to in-stream and bumper ads, not to Demand Gen |
| Zalo Ads | Quantity bought at floor prices: impressions, taps or contacts | Total-budget bidding from 200,000 dong a day, 500,000 dong for Official Account follower ads; video from 6,000 dong per thousand impressions in the Timeline, at least 50,000 impressions; Form ads 3,000 dong per tap | No withdrawals or transfers between accounts; balances unused for six months incur a maintenance fee |
A “view” means something different on each platform
The same words, cost per view, describe different lengths of attention on each platform, so view prices cannot be compared across platforms directly.
| Platform | What counts as a view | When you pay per view |
|---|---|---|
| Facebook, Instagram | ThruPlay: at least 15 seconds, or 6 seconds with the six-second goal, or nearly all of a shorter video. Reports also show 3-second and 2-second continuous plays | Only 15-second ThruPlay can be billed per ThruPlay; six-second ThruPlay is billed per impression |
| TikTok | Focused view: at least 6 seconds, or 15 seconds, or the whole of a shorter video, or an interaction in the first 6 seconds. Reports also show 2-second views | The video views objective is billed per focused view; interactions in the first second do not count |
| YouTube | TrueView view: 30 seconds of an in-stream ad, or all of a shorter ad, or an interaction; 10 seconds for Shorts ads. Public view counts under a video include views from ads | Only with view-based bidding; six-second and non-skippable ads are billed per impression |
| Zalo Ads | The current help pages do not define a view | Video ads are billed per thousand impressions |
Each platform credits itself within its own window
An attribution window is how long after a click or a view a platform still claims a sale as its own. Adding up the conversions each platform reports usually gives more than the real number of orders.
| Platform | Default window the platform states |
|---|---|
| Facebook, Instagram | 7 days after a click, 1 day after a view, 1 day after an engagement |
| TikTok | 7 days after a click, 1 day after a view; for web events without Advanced Matching, TikTok states 1 day after a click |
| Google Ads, including YouTube | 30 days after a click; engaged views (10 seconds for skippable ads, 5 seconds for Shorts and in-feed ads): 3 days for web conversions, 1 day for Demand Gen |
| Zalo Ads | Not stated in the help pages; contact-based ads are billed per form submission, message or order |
Who invoices, and the VAT on the invoice
For a company with a Vietnamese billing address, the VAT line is the cost most often left out of a media budget. Read the rate on each invoice itself; this is not tax advice.
| Platform | Invoicing entity | VAT as stated by the platform |
|---|---|---|
| Facebook, Instagram | Meta Platforms Ireland Limited | From 1 July 2025, self-serve advertisers paying by card with Vietnam as buyer country: 10%, as a separate invoice line. Registered businesses on monthly invoicing, or verified by tax code from 12 October 2026: Meta does not collect it and the business declares foreign contractor tax itself |
| TikTok | TikTok, which declares and pays the foreign contractor tax | 10% on the total ad purchase from 1 July 2025 for buyers with a Vietnamese billing address; enter the tax code before the first top-up, as invoices are not reissued |
| Google Ads, including YouTube | Google Vietnam Company Limited (new accounts from 1 March 2025; invoicing as reseller from 1 April 2025) | 10%, reduced to 8% until 31 December 2026 according to Google; enter the tax code in the payer details |
| Zalo Ads | Adtima, a domestic company; one invoice per top-up, issued the next working day, since 1 June 2025 | A Zalo Ads notice of April 2022 keeps advertising services at 10% |
Sources
Every line in the tables comes from the platform’s own help pages, blogs or notices, with the version read noted for each. Platforms change their rules often; open the original page before using a figure in a contract or a board report.
Meta Business Help Center
About ThruPlay; ThruPlays; 3-second video plays; About attribution settings; Best practices for minimum budgets; About getting charged; Vietnam VAT page (English version, including the 12 October 2026 change). Read 18 October 2026.
TikTok Ads Manager Help
About Budget (July 2026); Learning Phase (June 2026); Video views objective (August 2026); Video play metrics (November 2025); moving to GMV Max (March 2026); Vietnam VAT and CIT (July 2025).
Google Ads Help
About video ad formats; About video ad metrics; About engaged-view conversions; About conversion windows; About average daily budgets; About frequency capping; Taxes in your country (Google Vietnam Company Limited). Google Ads Developer Blog, 27 February 2026 (Demand Gen). Read 18–23 October 2026.
Zalo Ads (ads.zalo.me)
Video ad set-up guide (September 2026); July 2025 update notes; billing types and bidding; total-budget bidding; Form ad guide; notices on per-top-up invoicing and on the VAT rate (April 2022). Read 10 October 2026.
Citing this page
You may quote and reuse the tables with credit to MWY Consulting and a link to this page. If a line has gone out of date, tell us through the Contact page.
Planning media for Vietnam from headquarters?
Thirty minutes, no fee. Bring the plan, and we will point out which figures in it come from rules that differ by platform.