Lemon8’s Paid Ads Debut: A New Playbook for Lifestyle Brands

Lemon8, owned by TikTok’s parent company ByteDance, is a lifestyle content community app centered on beauty, fashion, food, travel, and more, attracting a youthful audience. The platform blends Pinterest’s curated visuals, TikTok’s trend-driven scrollable content, and Instagram’s social community, emphasizing discovery, aesthetics, and lifestyle engagement. Launched in 2020 and introduced to the U.S. in early 2023, Lemon8 quickly gained traction, reaching #9 in the App Store that year. Today, it operates across Japan, key Southeast Asian markets (Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam), the UK, and the U.S.

Looking ahead, in September 2025 Lemon8 is rolling out paid advertising in the U.S., Thailand, and Japan, beginning with a closed Beta for select brands through TikTok Ads Manager.

 

What This Means for Advertisers

Lemon8 is no TikTok clone: it’s ByteDance’s “Pinterest-meets-TikTok” lifestyle hub, thriving on beauty, fashion, food, wellness, and travel inspiration. In September 2025, the platform opens its first paid ads in the U.S., Thailand, and Japan via TikTok Ads Manager (closed Beta), signaling a major step in its evolution from niche community to scaled ad player.

Why it Matters: Lemon8 delivers incremental, intent-driven reach in an authentic, curated environment. One in three users aren’t active on TikTok, while two-thirds overlap—unlocking both new reach and cross-platform synergy. Unlike pure entertainment platforms, Lemon8 attracts audiences with purpose: 30% search daily, and 1 in 6 open the app specifically for tips, products, or recommendations.

The Catch: Success here won’t come from recycling TikTok or Meta assets. Lemon8 is designed as a complementary lifestyle community, not a replacement. It thrives on mood-board aesthetics, everyday inspiration, and recommendation-driven storytelling. Brands that lean in with platform-native content and authentic voices will win trust. Those that treat it like “just another channel” will miss the mark.

Code3 Recommendations

So what now? Our social experts have recommended on what brands should do now to capitalize on the emerging platform:

• Move Early. Lifestyle brands should establish organic presence now to build credibility with Lemon8’s highly engaged audience.
• Play the Community Game. Ads should look and feel like the feed: authentic, story-first, recommendation-oriented.
• Test the Beta. For brands with access, closed Beta placements offer exclusive reach, early learnings, and first-mover advantage.
• Think Ahead. Early adoption positions brands to capture bigger monetization opportunities as Lemon8 scales within the TikTok Ads ecosystem.

Bottom Line: Lemon8 is more than a TikTok side project — it’s ByteDance’s lifestyle anchor. For advertisers in beauty, fashion, wellness, travel, and food, the window is now to define your presence before the platform’s ad landscape matures.