How to Use Tiktok for E-Commerce

When it comes to using TikTok shop, most brands are tracking the wrong metrics. They focus on vanity numbers. Likes. Views. Follower count. But real ROI? That's deeper. Here are 3 metrics that actually matter: 1️⃣ SHOPPABLE VIDEO VELOCITY Track daily shoppable video creation rate. 10 videos? 50 videos? 100 videos? Each one is a potential viral hit. More tagged videos = more chances at virality. And here's the compound effect: Higher unit sold = better social proof Better social proof = higher conversion rates / affiliate commission Higher conversion rates / affiliate commission = more affiliate interest More affiliate interest = more shoppable videos 2️⃣ CUSTOMER ACQUISITION COST (CAC) PER AFFILIATE This tells you who's bringing in customers efficiently. Not all 100k-follower creators are equal. Some convert better with 10k followers. Track this religiously. 3️⃣ LIFETIME VALUE (LTV)  The more value you deliver to your customers, the more they'll spend with you. Focus on strategies that increase their lifetime value (LTV), not just their first purchase. Offer bundles to encourage larger orders upfront. Create a seamless and personalized customer experience to boost reorders. Happy customers turn into loyal ones—and loyal ones drive sustainable growth. Your competitors are catching on. They’re using data to refine their strategies and maximize LTV. Want to outpace them? Start optimizing your customer journey now. This isn’t just theory. I’ve seen brands skyrocket their LTV by implementing these strategies. Stop hoping for repeat orders. Start building for them. Your TikTok Shop success depends on it. Questions about implementing this? Drop them below. Let's discuss.

TikTok Shop is not messing around. At Spree, we're building a shoppable video platform, but also a studio where we help brands and creators onboard, market, and sell through social platforms. Think of it like influencer marketing in a post-cookie world: full funnel from awareness to purchase, but all in one short-form video. Recently, our TikTok Shop partnership has been getting a lot of love. A few interesting learnings from this holiday season: 1. 'Viral' products are a shortcut. We uploaded one 'viral product' into the system and started getting sales before we posted our first video. Naturally, we ordered a few hundred more ASAP. 2. TikTok Shop success aligns closely with the rules of great influencer marketing. Get a creator with an engaged, lean-in audience. Find a product they actually like that their audience will actually like. Sell by telling a story, not by telling viewers to buy. 3. Most brands want to be on TikTok Shop but don't know how. It's complex. But once you've done it dozens of times (per day, in our case) it moves fast. I don't care if you're a mom and pop stationary shop, a creator merch brand, or a Fortune 500: you want to experiment here with a team who knows this market. 4. Live is great, but don't sleep on shoppable VOD. A perfect 30 second video of a product can do the work of a one hour live stream. Both are valuable, but too many people are talking about live shoppable and not enough are talking about shoppable shortform. 5. Trends + Product = Sales. Wednesday Addams' dance is popping? Sell the costume. King Bach flashlight dance is trending? Sell the flashlight. Spotify Wrapped is everywhere? Sell headphones. 6. Creators beware: not all audiences want this. If you make gold digger prank content, don't start selling The Feminine Mystique hardcover. If you are a creator and want to try it, make great content first and let a brand ride along. 7. Create like a creator. This is the rule for every brand on every social platform, but certainly pertains here. Don't do one tentpole shoppable live stream on TikTok and judge TT Shop on that. You need to habituate your audience, build a format, and keep it entertaining. In case you can't tell, this is addicting for a social media wonk like me. Smart influencer marketers are already testing this market understanding it will be a huge part of their ecommerce future. And those who haven't need to start today. #ecommerce #creatoreconomy #tiktok https://lnkd.in/e926z8zm

We're going all-in on TikTok this year. But not to maximize TT Shop revenue. Instead, we're building a brand awareness engine that feeds Shopify, Amazon, and our retail channels. After speaking with brands doing 8 figs on TikTok Shop, here is what I've learned and the 7-step creator flywheel we're implementing: Step 1: Cast a Wide Net We source from TikTok's affiliate center with bots, Insense, AI-powered seeding, and Discord communities. Volume creates more testing opportunities. Step 2: Be Generous with Commissions 25-30% base commission + 10% on Spark Ad revenue. Creators earn 35-40% total without extra work. When competing for attention, compensation matters. Step 3: Simple Testing Process Send product → Brief → Creator posts → Boost → Track performance. Briefs include: problem we solve, compliance rules, 2-3 reference videos, Spark requirements. Detailed briefs reduce quality. Step 4: Filter for Performance We evaluate sample requests on posting consistency and actual GMV from previous partnerships. Reliable performers get approved, others decline. Step 5: Build Community Discord server with channels for winning videos, testing hooks, Spark submissions, and campaigns. Keeps creators engaged and learning from each other. Step 6: Run Monthly Campaigns $2K GMV = iPhone. $10K GMV = vacation. Creates excitement and competition that drives more posting and experimentation. Step 7: Amplify Everything We boost every video with GMV Max. Tests performance with real dollars, generates creator commission, provides conversion insights. The Flywheel: More content → Social proof → Sample requests → Better creators → Higher GMV → Bigger campaigns → Repeat Results so far: - Fresh UGC pipeline for all channels - Sustainable TikTok Shop CACs - Creator content adapted for Meta - Self-managing community 💡 Key Takeaway: Don't "control" TikTok's chaos. Build systems that harness it. Start with generous compensation, performance filtering, genuine community, and let the flywheel compound. 🚀 For brands lacking internal resources, I'm happy to connect you with partners who can implement this effectively (DM me). If you like this, save the post. And follow me for more of what's working for Obvi (and what's not). 😉

80k orders into TikTok Shop, here's what I've been surprised to learn.   1. Samples have only driven 7% of our TikTok Shop sales.   40% of orders come from product card. Of the 60% are driven by videos.   Product card: Customers organically finding our product on TikTok. These orders aren't charged commission. 🤌   Video: Most video sales are from affiliates who already have our product or they show our product image. On samples sent to affiliates, we get a 3 ROAS. Factoring halo sales on Amazon & DTC, it's a 6 ROAS (more in point 3). Half of our revenue from samples are from one affiliate. If you remove them, omni-channel ROAS is closer to a 3.   Product drop video posts from our own account can really work. Without commission owed, we can afford to put ad spend behind them.   2. TikTok Shop sales haven’t driven meaningful Simple Modern TikTok followers.   In the 6 months we sold 80k units on TikTok Shop, Simple Modern's TikTok follower count grew less than the previous 6 months.   Surprising to me considering we've driven 186m product impressions.   3. Over 100% halo effect between Amazon and Website.   When a product has a successful video driving TikTok Shop revenue, the bump on other eComm channels is clear. Typically we see more sales driven by TikTok videos on Amazon + DTC than TikTok Shop.   Customer trust is higher on Amazon and brand's websites.   The real magic is when TikTok videos goose Amazon listing placement permanently.   4. Revenue/video is flat once affiliates have more than 50k followers.   Followers: Revenue/video 0-1K: $13 1k-5k: $25 5k-10k: $40 10k-50k: $75 50+: $100   Affiliates with 50k followers have performed the same as 1m follower accounts. We have not engaged multi-million follower accounts with highly engaged audiences (celebrities).   5. Amazon best sellers don't drive our TikTok Shop business.   Products that have worked have had at least one of these qualities:  - Interesting  - New  - Relevant to culture or season  - Niche cult following (ex: Winnie the Pooh)   Our best sellers in retail typically don't have these qualities. These factors make inventory planning for TikTok Shop challenging.   6. Affiliates asking for 4+ samples are taking advantage of you.   We've sent 51 affiliates 4+ samples. Only one generated a sale.   13% of our total samples have been sent to grifters. 🙃   ************* TikTok Shop is a uniquely valuable channel since it's also a marketing engine.   It has required a different strategy from us and has been fun to learn.   I'd love to read what others have learned in the comments.

Here’s why everyone is getting TikTok Shop wrong. Most brands jump in thinking it's just another sales channel like Amazon or Shopify. But after helping hundreds of brands launch on TikTok Shop, I've noticed something critical: The traditional ecom playbook isn’t working. The old approach relies on polished product photos, professional descriptions, and optimized listings. That strategy is bleeding money on TikTok Shop. Why? Because TikTok Shop isn't a marketplace… It's a content-first, creator-driven ecosystem. The brands seeing 5-10x ROI are doing something completely different: • They're partnering with 15-30 nano-creators instead of 1-2 big influencers • They're prioritizing authentic demos over professional product shots • They're letting creators tell the product story in their own voice • They're focusing on entertainment value before selling points The winning formula isn't complicated: 1. Find creators who genuinely connect with your product 2. Give them creative freedom (minimal brand guidelines) 3. Amplify the content that performs, regardless of production quality 4. Repeat with new creators weekly Start treating TikTok Shop like what it really is: A creator-driven content machine that happens to sell products. — Do you agree? Let us know below ⬇️ And follow me → Leo Limin for more insights to stay ahead of the competition. Also check out my company ↓ Joinbrands.com - Hire creators, affiliates and influencers instantly.

I asked David Protein co-founders Peter Rahal and Zach Ranen for their TikTok Shop playbook. Here’s what I learned: They’ve sold over 50K products through TikTok Shop and received over 60M impressions on the platform. They launched nine months ago. TikTok Shop is not just a sales tool, it’s an awareness tool. “Beyond the actual product sold, we believe most of the value from our TikTok presence is the awareness it generates for David.” A big piece of their success has been creating an affiliate flywheel. “Initial creators gain traction when they post videos featuring David, which leads to more creators wanting to copy that success, so on and so forth.” They go live on TikTok twice a week (sometimes more). “TikTok’s algorithm seems to reward creators and brands that supplement traditional video posting with Lives.” They’ve embedded TikTok Lives into their new hire onboarding. “Every employee goes live in their first week on the job.” One insight they’ve discovered is that variety packs and smaller-ticket items consistently perform best. “This reinforces how important TikTok is for us as a discovery channel, not just a sales channel.” There are some data limitations when selling on TikTok Shop. “Email addresses are hashed, so it's harder to build direct relationships with contact like follow-up emails checking in on order satisfaction.” Storytelling and selling don’t have to be opposites. “It’s a hyper-direct and hyper-real form of storytelling. The result of that authenticity is that we sell on the platform.”

We are the alpha partner for TikTok Shop and we’ve compiled the best practices and blueprint to drive business outcomes. Over the last decade, and across all platforms, we have generated over $2.5 Billion in creator commerce, online and offline. Here are Influential’s five tips for leveraging TikTok Shop: 1. Craft engaging content: "Prioritize engaging content that is specific to your vertical and is differentiated from your competitive set, integrate and highlight products to benefit from occasional virality." 2. Ride the trend wave: "Leverage popular TikTok trends like songs, sounds and filters. Trends can catapult your shoppable posts to the FYP.” 3. Product launch opportunities: "Use TikTok Shop for product launches, create anticipation and excitement around new releases." 4. Educational content works: "Show your products in action! Explain all the problems your product solves." 5. Optimize your shoppable posts: "Keep videos between 30 and 45 seconds, showcase product usage, work with top influencers with high ERs, add clear CTAs and use emojis to point to the buy button. #influential