Online sellers, have you ever heard of TikTok affiliate marketing? This program lets you link with creators to promote your products and pay commissions on successful sales. It provides new marketing channels to get your products in front of a wider audience and increase brand awareness.
Also, affiliate marketing TikTok can be a cost-effective way to market a product or service. You only pay when someone makes a purchase, so there is no risk of wasting money on advertising that doesn’t work.
Are these attractive benefits enough to make you want to start your TikTok affiliate marketing campaign? If so, this guide is for you. We will provide detailed steps so you can implement affiliate marketing with TikTok campaign through the following sections:
- How do sellers start TikTok affiliate marketing?
- Additional affiliate marketing TikTok ideas for sellers
By any chance, you are new to this online marketplace, go and check out LitCommerce’s article on What is TikTok Shop!
How Do Sellers Start Tiktok Affiliate Marketing?
Now, let’s dive right into a step-by-step guide on how to use TikTok for affiliate marketing to achieve your eCommerce goals without any unnecessary delays.
Step 1: Create an affiliate plan
The first step to using the TikTok shop affiliate program is to create an affiliate plan that outlines the terms and conditions of your partnerships with creators. Having a plan in place can ensure that your campaign is well-organized and aligned with your overall marketing objectives.
Your plan for the TikTok affiliate marketing campaign should specify the following:
- Commission rates: Determine the percentage of each sale paid to creators as a commission.
- Payment terms: Establish how and when creators will be paid their commissions.
- Product selection: Decide which products will be available for promotion through the affiliate program. In this term, you need to consider viral products to sell on TikTok especially.
- Promotional guidelines: Provide guidelines for how creators should promote your products, ensuring brand consistency and compliance with TikTok’s policies.
Step 2: Promote brands and products
TikTok shop affiliate is a program where you pay a commission for others to promote your products. So why do you still need to promote your brand and products before collaborating with creators? Here’s a quick rundown of why:
- To generate leads: By promoting your brand and products first, you can create a pool of potential customers who are already interested in what you have to offer. This makes it easier for your affiliates to generate leads and make sales.
- To ensure that your products are a good fit for the TikTok audience: TikTok has a specific audience. Before you start promoting your products through TikTok affiliate marketing, you need to make sure that they’re a good fit for that audience. To put it differently, this pre-promoting is like testing the water, if it fits, then you use TikTok affiliate marketing to boost sales.
- To save money: The promoting actions can boost brand presence. With a strong brand presence, you don’t have to spend a lot of money promoting your products through affiliate marketing. Instead, your TikTok affiliate marketing can bring in orders immediately.
To promote brands and products on TikTok, there are 2 key aspects you need to prioritize:
- Compelling content
- Paid advertising
We will cover more details about implementing these two aspects in the following big section. Additionally, our guide on how to use TikTok for business is also something you should learn, as it provides some other useful tips for your TikTok promotional strategies.
Step 3: Accessing the affiliate backend
You will continue the TikTok affiliate marketing process by accessing the affiliate backend for the TikTok Affiliate Program through these actions:
- Log in to the TikTok Shop Seller Center to access the backend.
- Once you’re logged in, choose on Affiliate Marketing on the top panel. This will lead you to the TikTok Shop Affiliate backend
In an effort to become one of the best selling platforms, TikTok Shop provides sellers with a dedicated affiliate backend platform to manage their affiliate program effectively. This platform allows you to
- Invite creators: Send invitations to potential affiliate partners.
- Track performance: Monitor sales generated by each affiliate.
- Manage commissions: Process payments to affiliates.
Step 4: Set commission plans
The next step on how to become TikTok affiliate seller is offering attractive commission rates to incentivize creators to promote your products. In the affiliate backend, you can see three kinds of commission plans:
- Shop plan: It allows you to set a universal commission rate for all products in your TikTok Shop. Creators can promote all your products, increasing the chance of being promoted and boosting sales. The commission rate must be at least 10%. You can manage creators and check their product-adding status.
- Open plan: It allows you to choose specific Live products to join rather than all products in the TikTok Shop. The commission rate for the open plan should be between 1% and 80%. You can enable the Free Sample option for creators to apply for free samples. The open plan is visible to all qualified Affiliate creators, and sellers need to approve creator applications manually.
- Targeted plan: It lets you select specific products and set a commission rate between 1% and 80%. You can invite creators to promote your products, and they can start promoting after accepting your invitation. It’s recommended to find creators in the creator marketplace and contact them first. You can select up to 30 creators to promote your products.
To ensure that the commission plans of your TikTok affiliate marketing are competitive within the industry and align with the value you expect creators to bring, you should
- Conduct research to understand the average commission rates offered by other brands in your industry or niche.
- Determine the profit margins for your products to ensure that commission rates are sustainable for your business.
- Account for the average conversion rates of your products to ensure that commission rates are aligned with the value generated.
- Group your products into categories based on their value, such as high-value, mid-value, and low-value products.
- Assign different commission rates for each product category, ensuring that higher-value products offer higher incentives.
In particular, remember that clear and transparent commission structures will foster trust and encourage long-term partnerships
Step 5: Link up with creators
The heart of the TikTok affiliate marketing program lies in collaborating with creators who have built a loyal following on the platform. First of all, you need to identify creators whose audience aligns with your target market and whose content style complements your brand.
Then, you can connect with these creators in many ways, such as:
- Reaching out to these creators directly by messaging their social media accounts or sending collaborative emails.
- Utilizing TikTok’s creator marketplace to find suitable partners. In the upcoming section, we will give more detailed instructions on how to use this marketplace.
- Advertising your program on your company website and multiple social media posts so creators can know your TikTok affiliate program
Step 6: Monitoring performance
The final step, but always important to implement how to do affiliate marketing on TikTok, is to monitor the performance of your affiliate program regularly. This aims to assess its effectiveness and make adjustments as needed for your TikTok affiliate marketing campaign. Here are some important key metrics you need to track:
- Sales generated: Measure the total sales generated by affiliate promotions.
- Conversion rates: Determine the percentage of clicks that lead to purchases.
- Affiliate engagement: Evaluate the level of engagement from each affiliate partner. You can do this by observing Affiliate Marketplace on Affiliate Backend.
5 Affiliate Marketing TikTok Ideas for Sellers
Knowing how to start with TikTok affiliate marketing is not enough for you to implement the best affiliate programs for TikTok store. That’s why we are here to provide six effective ideas for you to boost your TikTok affiliate marketing efforts. As follows:
Build a relevant audience
To ensure that your investment in TikTok affiliate marketing is not in vain, it is crucial to have a clear understanding of your target audience. Only when you know your target audience on this platform can you choose the most suitable creators for your brand. Otherwise, you might obtain great reach and engagement, but it won’t convert into sales.
Although TikTok is clearly for younger audiences, you still need to dig a bit deeper than that to identify your brand’s audiences specifically. You should:
- Consider the demographics you wish to target
- Conduct your own market research on various social media channels.
- Create a comprehensive customer persona that accurately reflects your business’s target audience.
Create compelling videos
Compelling content is one of two key aspects for promoting brand and product on TikTok, a step of TikTok affiliate marketing strategy, as we mentioned above. But how to produce compelling content to support your TikTok affiliate marketing campaign? Here are some tips for you:
- Hook viewers early: The first few seconds of your video capture attention and prevent viewers from swiping past. You should use a strong hook, such as a surprising fact, a funny quip, or an eye-catching visual.
- Keep it short and snappy: TikTok videos are typically short, ranging from 15 seconds to 3 minutes. So, it is important to aim for concise and engaging content that delivers value in a limited time.
- Edit and enhance your videos: Adding filters, transitions, text overlays, and music can make your content more visually appealing and engaging.
- Show brand personality: This will help the audience pin your brand image. And, when you see your brand again in the creator’s video, they will readily accept it and be more likely to consider purchasing.
Use paid advertising
Now, let’s check out the rest of the aspects mentioned in promoting the brand and product before running the TikTok affiliate marketing campaign, which utilizes TikTok Ads. Currently, there are 6 types of TikTok ads you can consider, including
- In-feed ads are the most well-known type of TikTok ad. They appear as native videos in a user’s “For You Page” (FYP). These ads are up to 15 seconds long and can include a call-to-action button.
- TopView ads are full-screen videos that play for the first 3-5 seconds when a user opens the TikTok app.
- Brand takeover ads are full-page ads that appear on the top of the FYP for 24 hours.
- Branded hashtag challenges encourage users to create and share videos that use a specific hashtag.
- Branded effects are custom filters and effects that users can apply to their videos.
- Spark Ads are a type of native video ad that appears in the FYP. These ads have a longer video length (up to 60 seconds) and can include a call-to-action button.
Utilize TikTok Creator Marketplace
TikTok Creator Marketplace refers to an official collaboration platform that connects brands and creators on TikTok. It offers seller benefits such as
- Official support from TikTok on brand campaigns
- Access to collaboration tools
Thus, it would be a mistake if you did not take advantage of TikTok Creator Marketplace in your TikTok affiliate marketing campaign. Below is a rundown of actions on how sellers can leverage this marketplace:
- Step 1: Go to the TikTok Creator Marketplace website and choose on the Create Account button. Then, you need to fill in the required information to create your account.
- Step 2: Use the search function to find creators that align with your industry, budget, and business goals. You can explore the profiles of different creators to see their content and engagement levels.
- Step 3: Once you find a creator that you would like to work with, you can invite them to collaborate on a campaign.
- Step 4: You can view insights about your campaigns’ performance and track your collaborations’ success inside the TikTok report tool.
Please note that TikTok Creator Marketplace is currently available to businesses and creators in the following countries and regions: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Egypt, France, Germany, Great Britain, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United States, Vietnam.
Consistency is key
Maintaining consistency between a brand and its affiliates in a TikTok affiliate marketing campaign is crucial for fostering a cohesive brand image This also ensures effective messaging. Here are some key strategies to achieve consistency:
- Establish clear brand guidelines: You need to provide affiliates with comprehensive brand guidelines that outline the brand’s voice, tone, visual identity, and messaging guidelines. This ensures that all content created by affiliates aligns with the brand’s overall aesthetic and messaging.
- Onboard and train affiliates: It is important to conduct onboarding sessions for affiliates to familiarize them with the brand’s values, mission, and target audience. Training on the brand and promotional strategies is necessary to ensure consistent information. If your budget allows for it, you might also give affiliates sample products for use in their videos.
- Provide creative assets and templates: We suggest you offer affiliates access to brand-approved creative assets, such as logos, graphics, and templates. As a result, you can maintain visual consistency across all affiliate-generated content.
- Foster open communication: Please maintain open communication channels with affiliates to address any concerns, provide feedback, and encourage collaboration. This fosters a strong partnership and promotes consistency in the affiliate campaign.
TikTok Affiliate Marketing: FAQs
Yes, both creators and sellers can engage in affiliate marketing on TikTok. Affiliate marketing on TikTok involves creators promoting products in their TikTok videos and earning a commission for each sale made through their unique affiliate link. This form of marketing: To get your commission on TikTok affiliate marketing, you need to: There are a few steps to becoming an affiliate marketer:
Let’s Launch Your TikTok Affiliate Marketing!
Overall, six key steps and some additional ideas are what online sellers need to launch their TikTok affiliate marketing campaign. It sounds simple, but it’s better to read this guide carefully to make sure you don’t miss any important information.
Additionally, boosting sales involves more than just TikTok affiliate marketing. Inventory management can also be a challenging aspect. That’s why we offer the TikTok Shop integration and LitCommerce tools. To get a peek at these amazing tools, contact us now.
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