By Analiese Ross | April 15, 2024

You finally pulled the trigger and set up a TikTok Shop for your business (YAY!). Now what?

Now, it’s time to let the world know!

TikTok Shop provides a plethora of tools to help you effectively promote your new shop and push viewers to purchase your products. Lucky for you, we’ve tested almost all of them and have rounded up the top five most effective for you to try!

1. Shoppable Content

Create organic TikTok videos or go live and include subtle product placements, then add a shoppable product tag on that video to allow viewers to click directly to your shop. There are several ways you can create this content. The first is organic videos that you record and edit yourself. The second option is to source user-generated content from other TikTok creators that you can then share on your profile with a product tag. Just make sure you coordinate with the creator to have them send you the video so you can post it (rather than them posting it and you reposting that video). TikTok must see you as the original publisher of each video you share! TikTok does not encourage or condone reposts and, therefore, will not push them out on the For You Page. The last option for creating shopable content on TikTok is to use their AI-powered “Create Content” tool on TikTok Shop. This tool allows you to create original videos centered around your products with just the touch of a button. You can find this tool by logging in to your Seller Center and visiting https://seller-us.tiktok.com/shoppable-videos/create-content/auto-generate. Keep in mind that not all AI-generated videos are keepers! You must discern whether the quality is high enough to yield genuine interest on the platform.

2. TikTok Funded Promotions 

As a fairly new player in the e-commerce world, TikTok is on a mission to get as many people buying on the platform as possible. One of the initiatives they have launched to support this is TikTok Funded Promotions. These are campaigns created by TikTok that any business on TT Shop can apply to join. Once you are approved, you can offer a discount or incentive to your audience free of charge. For example, TikTok runs an annual Black Friday Funded Promotion. If you choose to join this promotion, TikTok will offer a 20% discount on all your applicable products. Buyers are encouraged to take advantage of this discount, and TikTok reimburses you for every purchase made with that 20% off coupon, so you can offer buyers an incentive while still making your full profit. It’s a WIN/WIN for everyone! These promotions won’t last forever, but while TikTok is still new, taking advantage of them is worthwhile! To view the current TikTok-funded promotions, login to your Seller Center and visit https://seller-us.tiktok.com/promotion/tts-funded-settings.

3. TikTok Affiliate Program & Influencer Gifting

TikTok makes it super easy to set up your own custom affiliate program. To get started, visit https://affiliate-us.tiktok.com/. TikTok will walk you through setting up a commission plan for influencers. Once you have created your affiliate program, you can use their search tool to find and invite creators to join the program and help sell your products. There are two types of affiliate plans available on TikTok. The first is an open plan. Setting this up enables any registered TikTok Affiliate creator to tag your TikTok Shop products in their content. For a creator to qualify for the Affiliate program, they must have a minimum of 5k followers. The second type of Affiliate program available on TikTok is called a Targeted Plan. The Targeted plan allows you to offer higher commission levels and free product gifting to creators on an invite-only basis. When deciding which creators to invite, you can use the TikTok search database to see insights on their audience, how many other TikTok Shop brands they have worked with in the past, and even how much they have made in sales from their previous affiliate work on TikTok. 

Pro Tip from the AMR Team: In our experience using the TikTok affiliate tools, we’ve found that there is still a big learning curve for both the creators and the brands. It is easy for creators to miss invites or not know how to join an affiliate program, so we recommend reaching out to each influencer in their DMs before you invite them to your affiliate plan. This way, you can walk them through the process and start to build a relationship with them outside of the generic affiliate invite.

4. Product Optimizer

One of the number one sales drivers we have seen on TikTok Shop is simply optimizing your product listings to rank at the top of search results on TikTok Shop. Not sure how to do that or where to start? Not to worry! TikTok Shop makes it super simple. Log in to your Seller Center and open the Product Optimizer tool - https://seller-us.tiktok.com/product/optimizer. Here, you will see that TikTok has a list of recommended updates for each of your listed products. The most common update recommendations that we have seen are 1) to add at least five images to each product listing (TikTok gives you specific instructions on what types of images to add) and 2) to include searchable keywords to your product title (again, TikTok will give you specific recommendations). Because the platform is still new, it is relatively easy to rank as the number one search result in your category, and doing so will have a significant impact on sales conversions!

Another way to bump up your ranking in search results is to focus on collecting 5-star reviews!

5. Ad Promotions

Lastly, take advantage of TikTok’s native in-app promotion tool. Identify your top-performing videos that include a shoppable product tag. You can promote these videos natively within the TikTok app. Click on the video, tap the three dots in the bottom right-hand corner, and select “Promote.” TikTok will ask you to choose your goal. You’ll want to select “Get Sales” as that goal. You’ll then be able to pick your targeting parameters and your budget. You do not need a massive budget to see results here. We recommend $40-$100 per video to start. Depending on how the video promotion converts, you can always return and promote it again for an additional budget!

Within the TikTok Seller Center, you will also see the option to run TikTok ads through their online ad manager. This is also an option if you desire more advanced targeting and retargeting parameters. However, if you are just starting out, I recommend using the native Promote tool in the TikTok app, as it offers a much simpler user experience for newbies!

These are just a few of the many tools available to you as a TikTok Shop owner to help you promote your products and cash in on the opportunities that TikTok Shop offers!

The number one tip I can give you is to try them all! We have worked with a wide range of clients on TikTok Shop—everything from candy companies to self-tanning products—and each has required a slightly different approach. You must be open to testing many different approaches to find what works best for your unique brand. 

It does require time and effort, but the payoff is well worth it. On average, our clients see that the ROI on TikTok Shop is nearly 3-5X times that of Facebook or Instagram. So be patient, do your due diligence, and don’t underestimate the power of TikTok Shop!

If you need help creating and executing a tailored strategy for your specific business on TikTok Shop, contact our team today for a free consultation!