Affiliates Manager Lia Fenwick walks us through establishing your business on TikTok by leveraging existing strategies and content to maximise your success on TikTok Shop.

TikTok has quickly transformed from a fun video app into a global hotspot for online commerce, boasting over 1 billion monthly active users worldwide. What started as an entertainment-first platform now offers businesses a golden opportunity to showcase their products in new and exciting ways.

With social commerce growing four times faster than traditional e-commerce, TikTok is the perfect place for businesses to connect, grow, and sell. Whether you’re an established brand or just starting out, TikTok offers unique opportunities to reach your audience with actual, tangible results. For example, the beauty brand Made by Mitchell saw 4x growth in just three months using TikTok Shop for custom product bundles and exclusive discounts.

Let’s find out how to make the most of this game-changing platform.

What is TikTok Shop?

TikTok Shop is an e-commerce platform within a social media app. It has soared in popularity throughout 2024, becoming the fastest-growing e-commerce platform this holiday season with a 200% increase in year-over-year sales in the United States alone.

The platform is revolutionising e-commerce by merging the fun and creativity that TikTok is known for with the convenience of handheld shopping. It offers brands a unique way to show off their products, keeping users entertained while they browse and buy directly within the app without needing to navigate away to complete their purchases.

TikTok Shop offers two core features for businesses: the Seller Centre and the Creator Marketplace. Let’s take a look at the benefits these offer your brand.

Seller Centre

The TikTok Shop Seller Centre is your one-stop hub for managing your account, including monitoring your stock levels, analysing your target market behaviour, and providing customer service.

Here’s what it offers:

  • Product management — TikTok Shop allows businesses to list, manage, and promote their products directly within the platform. The Seller Centre offers a central dashboard where businesses can see product listings and make updates as needed.
  • Order and inventory management — The platform includes tools to help businesses track stock levels and fulfil orders efficiently. This ensures that sellers can manage their inventory in real-time and prevent overselling.
  • Customer service — Businesses can handle customer enquiries through TikTok Shop’s built-in customer service features, allowing them to respond to queries and manage customer expectations.
  • Marketing features — TikTok Shop includes advertising and promotional tools that businesses can use to increase product visibility. These tools enable sellers to run targeted promotions and campaigns to reach potential buyers.
  • Integration with TikTok features—The platform allows businesses to incorporate their product listings into TikTok’s video and live-streaming features, allowing sellers to showcase products more interactively.
  • Analytics — Businesses have access to analytics tools that provide insights into sales performance and customer behaviour. These insights help sellers track trends and adjust their strategies accordingly.

Creator Marketplace

Connecting with the right influencers can make a huge difference when you’re trying to reach a wider audience, and TikTok’s Creator Marketplace makes finding the perfect fit for your brand a lot easier without needing to manually scroll through your feed or carry out external research.

You can effectively think of the Creator Marketplace as a catalogue of active content creators on the platform, outlining their location, average views, content style, and even audience demographics. This lets you easily choose who you want to work with as a business.

Using the Creator Marketplace, you can:

  • Discover creators — The Creator Marketplace helps businesses find influencers whose audience, engagement, and content style align with their brand. The platform’s filters let you refine searches based on relevance and performance metrics.
  • Collaborate effectively — Brands can use the marketplace to initiate partnerships with creators, from one-off sponsored posts to longer-term collaborations.
  • Track performance — Campaign performance can be monitored in real-time, giving businesses access to data on views, engagement, and conversions — so you can see how successful a partnership is.
  • Approach to promotion — Creators on TikTok often produce content that reflects their style and audience preferences, opening the door to more unique promotion methods.
  • Organic content opportunities — Some creators might choose to feature a brand’s products on their own, while others are open to receiving samples in exchange for potential content. Unlike paid partnerships, this organic promotion offers less control but can lead to more natural engagement.

TikTok Shop for customers

TikTok Shop isn’t just designed for businesses; it also changes how customers shop by blending content and commerce into one platform.

  • In-app shopping — Users can discover, browse, and purchase products without leaving the app, keeping the shopping journey contained within TikTok rather than redirecting to external websites.
  • Entertainment-first experiences — TikTok’s format encourages a content-driven approach to shopping, where product showcases are integrated into videos and creator content.
  • Live shopping — TikTok offers real-time live streams, where creators and brands can showcase products, answer questions, and engage with potential buyers directly.

How to maximise TikTok performance using other marketing channels

Even if you haven’t set up TikTok Shop yet, you can still make TikTok work wonders for your business by leveraging your existing content strategically. By repurposing your current content to integrate TikTok into your marketing strategy, you can improve your presence on the platform and deliver impressive results for your sales team.

Here are some practical ways to maximise your TikTok performance using other marketing channels:

1. Repurpose content across platforms

One of the easiest ways to extend the reach of your influencer collaborations is by adapting successful content from other platforms to suit TikTok’s algorithms. High-performing videos from Instagram Reels, Facebook Stories, or YouTube Shorts can all be repurposed for TikTok, allowing you to maximise the value of your existing content.

Here are two of the simplest ways to maximise your content across channels:

  • Adapt successful content — Identify your top-performing content from other social media channels and tailor it to TikTok’s unique short-form video format. This might involve tweaking the length, adding TikTok-specific filters and voice effects, or incorporating trending sounds to make the content more engaging.
  • Negotiate UGC rights — When working with influencers, make sure you secure the rights to repurpose their user-generated content (UGC). This lets you promote your products across multiple platforms without incurring additional costs.

2. Collaborate with TikTok creators

TikTok’s Creator Marketplace is a powerful tool for brands looking to boost their presence on the platform. You don’t need a TikTok Shop to benefit from collaborations with influencers, and your business can still use affiliate links through an alternative platform by linking through the content creator’s ‘bio’ or via influencer networks such as LTK.

Image source: jordanlipscombe

By collaborating with content creators, you can tap into their follower base and create user-generated materials that feel more genuine and relatable than standard paid ads, driving stronger engagement and better results for your brand.

Some common examples of influencer partnerships include:

  • Sponsored content — Partnering with TikTok creators to create posts that naturally highlight your products. Authenticity is key on TikTok, so working with creators who genuinely resonate with your brand values will likely achieve better results.
  • Affiliate programmes — Offering creators free samples or increased commissions through affiliate programmes. This incentivises them to promote your brand more enthusiastically, driving traffic and sales through their affiliate links.
  • Spark Ads — Use TikTok’s native ad format, letting brands use organic content from their own or other creators’ accounts to create advertising campaigns. This ensures your high-achieving content reaches an even wider audience while feeling natural, blending seamlessly with other user-generated content (UGC) on the platform.

3. Integrate TikTok with digital PR

Integrating TikTok into your digital PR strategy can create a multi-faceted approach to promoting that helps to drive organic traffic to your brand.

Image source: israajnasir

TikTok’s dynamic video platform works well alongside most online PR efforts, offering new avenues for product placement and storytelling — including:

  • Long-term media relationships — Using TikTok to build long-term relationships with big publications and content creators by encouraging influencers to use TikTok’s greenscreen feature (as shown above) to include editorial content in their videos. This creates valuable, expert-backed content in a bitesize format that resonates with your online audience.
  • Editorially backed content — Ensuring the content you create on TikTok is not only entertaining but also backed by expertise. This enhances your brand’s credibility and ensures that your marketing efforts are as informative as they are engaging.
  • Product placement — Using TikTok to showcase your brand in engaging ways that align with your overall PR narrative. This can include behind-the-scenes looks, product demonstrations, or storytelling highlighting your brand’s USPs.
  • Multi-channel campaigns — Pairing influencer-driven TikTok content with wider journalist media coverage to create comprehensive campaigns that reach audiences across multiple touchpoints.

7 factors to consider if you’re considering TikTok Shop

TikTok is actively shaping the future of eCommerce. By embracing TikTok Shop, you can reach new audiences, drive sales, and future-proof your business. 

However, before you take the plunge and onboard onto TikTok Shop, there are several important considerations to keep in mind:

1. Target audience

TikTok’s audience is predominantly younger, with the largest portion being aged between 25 and 34. Additionally, male users within this age range are slightly ahead of their female counterparts, making them the largest user group on the app.

Ensuring your products are relevant and appeal mostly to this demographic is essential. You should also assess whether your brand’s values and messaging resonate with TikTok’s community-driven environment. Authenticity is key to success, so ensure your brand can genuinely connect with its audience.

2. Content strategy

TikTok thrives on entertaining content, and those who see the most success are able to jump onto new trends quickly with an appropriate response. Think about whether you’re prepared to create authentic videos or live streams that interest your audience without feeling like traditional ads.

It’s also crucial to ensure you have the necessary resources, including creative talent and the tools to produce high-quality, engaging content tailored for TikTok. While product promotions are the end goal, adopting an entertainment-first approach is vital for resonating with TikTok users and keeping them engaged with your brand.

3. Operational considerations

Inventory management is crucial when using TikTok Shop.You’ll need to use the Seller Centre to keep track of stock levels and ensure orders are fulfilled on time; fast and reliable shipping is equally important to maintain positive customer feedback and visibility on TikTok Shop. Additionally, be prepared to provide excellent customer service by handling enquiries and support efficiently to maintain customer satisfaction and loyalty.

4. Sales commissions

Like any eCommerce platform, TikTok takes a commission of around 9% on each completed sale through TikTok Shop. It’s important to factor this into your pricing strategy and adjust your pricing accordingly to account for these commissions while remaining competitive within your market to avoid deterring customers.

5. Marketing and budgeting

TikTok requires investment in both organic and paid marketing efforts. When you plan your budget, include costs for creator partnerships, Spark Ads, and other promotional activities to maximise your reach on the platform.

Additionally, set out clear metrics to measure the ROI for TikTok campaigns. This will help you determine the success of your strategies and make informed decisions moving forward.

6. Compliance and regulations

Familiarise yourself with TikTok’s policies and guidelines to ensure your content and sales practices comply with their standards, avoiding any potential issues or penalties.

On top of TikTok’s own regulations, you’ll also need to make sure your business complies with local eCommerce regulations and consumer protection laws — such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Consumer Rights Act 2015 — which entitles any customer to return products in exchange for a refund. Staying compliant protects your business and builds trust with your customers.

Regulation changes and the ‘TikTok ban’

It’s also worth keeping an eye on any regulatory changes that could impact TikTok’s availability in the countries you’re targeting. 

For example, in early 2025, the U.S. introduced a ban on TikTok due to national security concerns. Although the ban was delayed for 75 days to allow time for a potential restructuring or divestment, the possibility of blocking access to the platform on U.S. soil will be revisited in April 2025.

This highlights how quickly regulations can shift, and staying informed ensures that you’ll be able to adapt if similar changes arise in other countries in the future.

7. Learning curves

TikTok Shop’s interface might take time to master, especially if you’re brand new to the platform. Invest some time learning how to use these tools effectively to optimise your shop’s performance. 

Follow industry news, attend webinars, and engage with the TikTok business community to stay updated with TikTok’s latest features and best practices. This will help you stay ahead of the curve and jump on new opportunities as they arise.

Bring your business to TikTok Shop

Leveraging TikTok Shop alongside your existing marketing channels can significantly boost your business’s reach, helping you increase sales and ROI. By integrating creative strategies and collaborating with influencers, you can tap into TikTok’s dynamic platform to connect with a highly engaged audience.

Are you ready to kick-start your social strategy? Get in touch today to discover how our incredible Paid Social team can help you maximise your social-led commerce opportunities.

Or, for more insights from our team of experts, check out the Bring Digital blog.