#483 - TikTok Shop Advertising & Promotion Guide

Best practices [music] for Tik Tok shop GMV Max ads. How to reach out to creators. This and more on today's Tik Tok themed episode. Hello everybody and welcome to the AM podcast. My name is Bradley Sutton and I'll be your host. And this is the show where we discuss all things Amazon Tik Tok shop and Walmart private label and how to generate recurring revenue streams [music] 24 hours a day during the AM and the PM. Hence the name of the show. Get it? AM [music] PM podcast. And as a matter of fact, this last weekend, I flew to Korea to meet with some Amazon [music] K beauty brands and even went to a K beauty clinic for myself. And even though I wasn't working in e-commerce while I was getting my face poked and prodded, I was still making money. How cool [music] is that? Pretty cool, I think. Hello everybody and welcome to our workshop here. This is a monthly series we do and it's called Tik Tok Thursday. We've got monthly shows uh for advertising. We just had one last week, a really good one with Carrie and Destiny. So AI advertising and then our other other topic is Tik Tok because this is a platform that here as we now are in 2026, this is something we need to be focused on. An interesting aspect I just mentioned last week we had a workshop on advertising Amazon advertising but the reason why Tik Tok is important and is different especially is because of advertising. So so you know the way you advertise or get your products out there is so different than on Amazon and the advertising in particular is completely different. you know on Amazon the PPC or ads advertising is like one of the most intricate parts right of the whole journey and um on Tik Tok completely different it's probably one of the most simple parts uh as far as the kind of advertising platform they have so a lot of differences just because you know Amazon advertising doesn't mean you know Tik Tok advertising and vice versa now I don't have too much experience on Tik Tok shop and so I can't do these trainings just by myself I uh want to bring on experts and so we uh this this month we are bringing uh somebody back who's been on the Serious Sellers podcast before. Now this is going to be broadcast on the AM podcast. Her name is Tamara and she's coming to us from Serbia. So let's bring her on to the stage. Tamara, welcome. How's it going? >> Hi. How are you? I'm great. Thank you. Thank you. and thank you very much for bringing me in again and can't wait to to chat more about Tik Tok and you know share what we what we know by now. >> Awesome. Awesome. Now, what's your experience like on Tik Tok shop? Because when I met you, I don't even think I'm not even sure Tik Tok shop was a thing, but I know you weren't doing Tik Tok shop. Um so, so how long have you been now involved in working with accounts who that sell and advertise on Tik Tok shop? Yeah, it's been I think around three years because uh we have started you know from the day one let's say in Tik Tok shop uh in the UK first and then US and yeah it's it's been a wild ride let's say since the Tik Tok shop has started and you know they're still um adding it to other countries in Europe it's a new thing from this year and even Brazil and other countries so it's growing you know and um as you said uh since we know each other the Tik Tok I think uh was not even a thing and then later on like Tik Tok shop became a thing in the in the last year or two for sure. So first of all what is important for you to understand if you don't have a Tik Tok or don't know how to start and it's a new thing for you or you are afraid or skeptic you know the first thing first you need to know is that Tik Tok is a platform that will um you know sell your brand for a longer term and if you're not present on Tik Tok you're not let's say not fully 100% but you are not um you know cool or in the trends. So if you want to get to know to to to get to more audience and more new um users and you know your um buyers you will get that on Tik Tok for sure. If you're starting on Tik Tok please don't expect that you will sell from the day one and even if the in the first few months because on Tik Tok people need to get to know you. The algorithm needs to learn about you, about your brand, about your product, about what you do, and what actually works for you. And what works for you, you will know by the views you have and interaction with the audience on all of the videos. Um, even if it's from your profile or if you're doing it with influencers and affiliates, you will know by their views and comments and interactions, of course. But as I said, please don't expect like to to, you know, be a boom on on TikTok for since day one. Um it really needs to start in your head like that you are actually building a brand there on a new platform and to you know get to new users there. So it's a fully brand awareness in the beginning. It's not like you list your product even on Tik Tok shop if we're talking about that you list your products you have everything you optimize it like on Amazon you start with some ads and it will sell. No, it will not since the day one because again you need the brand awareness. People need to get to know you there and of course if you're doing the affiliates um algorithm needs to learn about you the affiliates people around the the platform as itself. So um again please uh you know bear that in mind. So if you're starting on Tik Tok, I would give you an advice to start with your Tik Tok profile to have your Tik Tok profile, not to go straight to Tik Tok shop. You're having an Amazon and you're successful there and yes, Tik Tok shop is somehow similar to Amazon, but it's totally different behavior, totally different algorithm and how you should start there actually. So basically uh to open your Tik Tok profile and start with the videos so you can learn or your team depending of who is you know taking care of your Tik Tok to learn you know what will work for you. As I was saying the work is actually views and interaction but to try to film and post as much as you can different types of the videos that are maybe UGC or in trending like the style that will be good fit for your brand. So not to be uh a lot tick tockable, let's say to follow the trends or the dancing challenges or something like that. It's not about it. It's to fit it to your brand and to Tik Tok narrative actually to be more, you know, fit to a platform. uh and for you to to understand how the Tik Tok algorithm actually works um and how you can improve your you know content quality and what you will ask in the future affiliates or you know influencer and similar why I'm talking about this uh it's because videos are literally 70 80% of for sure um success of your overall Tik Tok you know um ads or your Tik Tok shop and everything that you do on Tik Tok um and Tik Tok overall it's the videos. So you need to know how to do videos for yourself what will work and to be consistent on it like not to start like with one month two three months and you know just having a videos and you see after 3 months nothing specially happens people are not going to I don't know link in the bio like Amazon your website or people are not asking that much it's because you're still building your brand and you know building brand awareness on Tik Tok. I would recommend at the beginning to start even with a follower campaign like just to build your network there and have like a good and nice image on on Tik Tok as itself. So uh it's important to have a good numbers of followers and what is a good number? It's like from 2 3k let's say and above because you will have that better look on Tik Tok when someone is checking on you. It's like on Amazon when they are checking your reviews, A+ content and you know everything else. So you want to see a goodlooking brand on Tik Tok when you're checking you know the profile. So build the network and of course the real followers you will get with just advertising for it. So let's say you're posting for around three to six months and you're building the network. You can have at the same time Tik Tok shop like to list your product, optimize um you know reach out to affiliates uh so they can post about you so you can push more and more algorithm to actually get to know you and to push you more and more. And why is that? It's because when you're starting on Tik Tok, you have let's say you're in one basket of the beginners, let's say in the of the new uh new users of a Tik Tok and the algorithm will show you to certain amount of people which is let's say I don't know like 100 people and then when you post more and more and more and more people are having interaction it's you know showing to more and more people that looks more like the ones that have looked at your content. So, it's the similar with affiliates. If they're going to talk about you, the algorithm will push on that side. And if you have an influencers as well and somebody else, you know, talking about you. Um, so you need to have all of these things to push yourself more and more and not to expect anything in the first three months just to build it up. So, I think I have enough talked about like how to start and how to build your brand and you know, brand awareness. Of course, when it comes to advertising on Tik Tok, you can even start with the campaigns which are brand awaren awareness campaigns like just to show your videos as much as you can for you know that purpose. But um when you're starting a Tik Tok shop, it's um uh it's important also to understand like the importance of affiliates. So you have already open you know opportunity to reach out to affiliates through the Tik Tok shop and I highly recommended to start at least doing you know at the beginning and of course then something that you should not do but you can actually is to get in contact get in touch with some good affiliates that have sold after few months you know of um working with you. you can get them aside and you know create the content. They can create the content for you. You can you know communicate easier and not spend that much money on on on Tik Tok shop for them. But of course it will take time for it. Okay. So when it comes to affiliates it really really can take your time. Uh you need to reach out to them. You need to tell them which videos are working as you will know by your profile and what you have tested by then. So when you're coming to the topic that we actually want to talk about today, it's the GMV Max campaigns on Tik Tok shop, you will have to have everything here already tested like the videos for you, the videos for affiliate and um you know have set up the Tik Tok shop of course and good optimized product. So um every product has to be good enough as on Amazon, good-looking and you know have a few reviews u at least. So when you start pushing with the campaigns which is a GMV max for Tik Tok shop not not any other it was possible before June or July this year but now on Tik Tok advertising for advertising to your Tik Tok shop now you can do only GMV max and this is a topic actually I want to cover with with Bradley today and with you guys um is when you're starting with GM max campaign I know a lot of people talking like experts are talking um about like lower amount of budget or high amount of budget. I would say that the budget that you need to start with on GMV Max, it's like at least from 500 and above to be able to sell a lot and to see what works. Of course, you can set your GME max campaign to like 50 or hundred US dollars like per day or euros depending where your shop is, but it will not work, you know, um that much. Why? It's because when you're setting up the GMV Max campaign, you need to have a lot of videos like at least 15 20 videos, you know, added to the campaign and maybe build up in the future, you know, enable few more, disable uh some that have not worked and it will be a mixture of your videos and affiliate videos. So, um uh to when you're setting up the campaigns, everything needs to be included and for you to check out what's going on. So if you have a lower amount of budget, it will not work 100%. It will not push you. It will not have enough budget to push to all the people, let's say on TikTok, especially if you're selling in the US or UK, which are the bigger marketplaces than the than the other in Europe. So I would highly recommend to start with at least 500 a day. So when I'm saying of 500 a day, it's not necessarily that it will spend fully 500 at the beginning. when it starts to pick pick up and your campaign works yes it will it will spend but in the beginning not so it's important for you to understand like uh what are the budget to start with and how the campaign will work um what is the cool thing that I want to mention here that the helium 10 has like amazing tool for a Tik Tok shop so you can use it even you know to follow the ads and something is coming up in the future I don't know how much I can talk about it today but um they have some very very cool features that I haven't seen on other tools like for Tik Tok and we are using a few different tools for Tik Tok shop and Tik Tok ads. So the helium 10 has like amazing one that we have tested in the in the last month and in the last few months actually when it comes to you know um building up the affiliates reaching out like you know filter them out and u in the in the recent days we have been testing something about um GMV max as well. So it will help you for sure to understand it better to see the numbers uh much closer let's say than on Tik Tok because it can be confusing sometimes. So for those of you who are using a Helium 10, you will be able to do to see these features soon. So what is like somehow like um you know questions like how to scale my brand on Tik Tok even if I'm present on how to you know understand like the platform and fully grow on it slowly. It's like taking in mind all the things that I have said in the in the last few minutes. Um it's important for you to be present from your profile. It's important for you to work with affiliates and influencers and as I said something that you like shouldn't do but you can is like from time to time when you realize what affiliates and influencers are working for you to you know make them aside and contact them and work with them aside because it's important for people to talk about you not all the users and your buyers and new customers will film you know about about your brand about your product on Tik Tok and post it but you can do that through through other you know sources and you should continue because if you stop with some of the things at one point you say okay now I'm profitable I'm selling I can see the good numbers on Tik Tok shop or on Amazon or anywhere else like the full impact of Tik Tok don't stop because if you stop or like cut it you know sharply the the the quicker you will disappear let's say somehow on Tik Tok because if you're not posting on your profile your videos will show less and less and will will stop at some point and if you decide after a year or two to turn back to Tik Tok it will start from zero almost so you shouldn't you know start um you shouldn't stop sorry and start like after year or two so be consistent and don't give up of it because believe me it will pay off as we can see the success with a lot of clients that have been on the platform for more than a six months so the first six months it's very very hard on Tik Tok And I have to be honest and transparent here 100%. And it can be that you're saying it's going very slow. It doesn't show me any results. But as I said, please be consistent. So you're having the profile, you are having the affiliates. And if you can, it will be great. And it's of course it's easier if you're living in the country where you are having a shop. But I know that a lot of sellers are not living in the country. They are mostly selling and that is their main marketplace. Um but um you know you need to um try to you know build it up as much as you can in that same country and uh be consistent there. The one part that we didn't talk too much about that you referred to and is interesting for people to understand is actually how you got started on Tik Tok before there was a Tik Tok shop cuz you know you were working with customers with Tik Tok before you know uh Tik Tok shop became a thing and in those days you were like sending traffic to to other like websites and just general advertising and things like that. And so even still now, even though you know maybe the the most no-brainer thing to do is to send traffic to your own Tik Tok shop if you have it, you you did refer to sending traffic to like Amazon. And so what how does that work? Like what kind of advertising is that called? And then what's the experience like for the customer? Like do they just see uh a button or or a link where it actually goes directly to Amazon? Does the you know does the Amazon experience come right up in the Tik Tok app? Like how does that even work on on the consumer side too? >> Yeah, thank you. Thank you very much. like uh so my background actually and from people in the team is in the beginning it was Amazon PPC and then when I opened my own agency it was fully for Tik Tok and it's still um so I have to say like I think me and my team are fully understanding how the Amazon work because we have a lot of experience in it and we have actually started with a lot of Amazon sellers in the beginning. So how that works, it works very similar to how it worked in in the from the day one when the Tik Tok you know has started. So you just need of course to create an attribution link in order to you know um send the traffic to to your Amazon product page. Um of course implement that um link to to the campaign but the user experience it's is different you know thing and it can be a different thing. There are few tools and you know helpers let's say online that can help you to track 100% what's going on on Amazon but I have to say that I think this still till today like Amazon doesn't allow you to fully understand who really came from Tik Tok when and why and you know have that all of the kind of informations. So when you're creating the campaign in Tik Tok and want to send the traffic to your Amazon product page, you set up the attribution link and you create actually the traffic campaign. So it's not a conversion campaign because we cannot connect it as we can easily for the website with the pixel or Tik Tok shop. So um the the advice is actually to create an instant page in between. So to set up all the you know cool good images of your product about the product and a few CTA buttons like buy now or visit. So you can you know exclude all the people that are just looking around you know and not going to buy because you don't want to harm your product listing with bunch of unnecessary traffic because it's traffic campaign. So they can click on a few CTS button and be led to your product page. So the user experience can be somehow off sometimes. Uh mostly it will let them to your Amazon product page and they will be able to click opening app and opening app and it will track. But it happens sometime that it doesn't give you that option or it opens in Safari or in Google or similar and the users are not logged in into their Safari or Google. They're in their app. So they pop out from the you know ad and go to your to their Amazon app and just type the keywords they have remembered like uh the product name or a brand name that you should mention on the videos just to be memorable you know for people to when they're searching type that or some keywords that you want to rank for um that are easy to remember. So they will type in into Amazon search find you hopefully because they will remember the brand name and buy from there. So what most of the Amazon sellers are seeing of course it's impact of Tik Tok more and more sales coming since there's have started you know Tik Tok campaign Tik Tok traffic campaign but not uh they will be not able to see 100% you know real data they will see on attribution link I don't know like uh 20 sales and a bunch of impressions and clicks but not like literally sales but overall like sales on Amazon they will see the increase and the brand keywords increase or some product name increase you know in a search term report or in other reports when you check them out since you have been you know working on Amazon and uh yeah we have been talking about it I think in in the podcast in the last few sessions that we had and we have like a success story with one of the clients so yeah I hopefully have you know explained step by step how you should do it >> all right we we've got a number of people here who are selling on multiple platforms which is Great. So, especially those of you selling on Amazon and Tik Tok, hopefully you just uh you know, picked up a couple tips that you could um do for sending indirect traffic as well uh to Amazon. Uh a couple questions. Uh Kareem says, "How important are reviews on Tik Tok and a conversion rate?" Well, interesting thing is is on Amazon reviews are so important on um on conversion rate on Amazon so important, you know. But just remember, if you're talking about just the listing page, the the conversion rate and your listing quality is not as important as as on Amazon because by if somebody's going to buy from your Tik Tok shop page, they already made the decision when they're watching the video. Like, it's not like, oh my goodness, I clicked on this page. Um, you know, there's not eight images and not a detailed bullet points. I don't think I I I changed my mind. You know, I'm not going to buy, you know. know. So, and the same thing, not as many people look at the reviews because on Amazon, like that's a big factor in, hey, do which product do I buy? They look at the reviews and are like, all right, who has positive, you know, how many reviews do they have? Again, on Tik Tok, if you're going to buy from the shop, the decision most of the time was already made when they watch that that video. And maybe they need to see the listing just to make, you know, like like check, hey, does it have the right plug or or something like that. So, of course, there you got to make sure you got the the right the right details and and and then if you have 10 one-star reviews, yeah, probably that's not going Yeah, that's not going to help. But don't worry as much on TikTok about those those things as opposed to Amazon because again, it's a it's a different um game. Another question here. Somebody had issues with like, you know, the the creators and influencers not following their instructions and thus when they make a video for the product, they're like not using their product uh incorrectly. What is advice to people in general, not not just this uh person here who who asked this question, but how can you make sure that your creators you're working with are presenting the product your products in the in the best way? Yeah, that's the most common issue in the beginning and that's why I'm saying like you need to be consistent. You need to see which one will be a good fit for you. Most of the actually affiliates are starting to be affiliates because they want some extra money of course but most of them are um you know thinking about the Tik Tok and other brands that they will send them a free product they will just create whatever and that's it that they don't even read the message properly and that's the biggest issue of everyone not like the the person that have asked this today it's for everyone did the same thing. So what you need to do is like my advice in the beginning try to pick a little bit better looking profiles. When I'm saying a little bit better looking is like check their videos how they do the videos like do you like the content they are actually creating. Is it like a poor quality camera like uh talking about the products? How they're talking about the other products they have you know been working with and do you like the the affiliate overall and their style. So that's the first thing I would check and we are checking like if it's a good fit for you and your brand. I would start with you know the affiliates that already have experience and have good amount of followers not like just someone who is really beginner because as I said they're mostly thinking it's very easy they will create it and goodbye. So, um, good-looking profiles and experienced profiles at the beginning. And of course, you can, you know, play with the newbies and if it looks good, you know, enough for you to try with them, but try to be consistent with the messages that you're sending to them, like please read this and, you know, be consistent with sending them how the video should look like. Um, and I would say the good thing is that you can even, you know, uh, make them like buy your product and then they will get in return some money if they make some sales and if they're, you know, doing this and that. Some, you know, filters that you can do when inviting affiliates and when approving. It's a good thing to avoid that they will just do boring product review and use them unproperly and everything. So I would say start with experienced affiliates and then when you realize how it works and when you find a good fit it will be better. It's literally a lot of work and it's it's hard and it's like you know a little bit painful in the beginning to understand how everything works and find a good ones but don't give up. >> What tools do you use to find products to launch on Tik Tok shop? I mean Helium 10 definitely most of you listeners out there are probably already Helium 10 users. You might not realize you have full access to our Tik Tok product finder and our hot videos tool which allows you to kind of like see, hey, what are the top videos that are out there that's working for others? Hey, what are the hot products that that's that's trending? Um, you know, if you're already selling a product on Amazon, you want to kind of get an idea on on what other people are doing, you know, you can use that tool to to look it up. So, even if you're on the platinum plan, you'll be able to use Helium 10 in that way. uh has our full access to our uh Tik Tok shop products. Cheryl says, "What kind of video should we start with when I'm selling their product from day one?" So, I'm not sure if she's referring to like what should the um you know, the creators you're working with, what kind of videos they should they should do, but let's assume she's talking actually about the brand itself in my own branded Tik Tok account. And of course, you know, those are those are videos I'm going to promote in GMVAX as well. But me as a brand, my product, what kind of content should I be doing? You know, like funny content, is it unboxing content? Is it dancing videos? Like what should we be doing? >> First of all, yeah, you will know, of course, your product and your brand like uh the best like how you want to represent yourself. You don't have to necessarily like create dancing videos or like singing or all of the memes and funny videos. Yes, you should use them if it's a good fit for your brand. If your brand stands from a point that allows some content like that, but if you're on a more serious side, like then you can be more like on educational videos, how to properly use it like UGC side. So, first of all, think about it like how you want to represent yourself and then when you you you know like how you want your brand to look like on on Tik Tok, then you can play with the bunch of different style of the videos. But I would say the most let's say selling videos are um how to properly use them like uh from a user perspective and the most important thing is hook like uh for them not to skip the video in the first two three seconds like they need something that they will catch for and of course to be u interesting for for the rest of the video but the hooks are let's say different approaches for a different category I have seen this year like that a lot of supplement brands, let's say, are selling for somehow I I call them a cringe, you know, hooks, but it works, you know, like um this is how I boost my energy, you know, for the bedtime or, you know, something really some like you wouldn't even think about maybe at the beginning, but um you should see like how other competitors are doing and if they are selling from those videos that they're having as well like a lot of views on those videos and maybe try to not literally copy it but to recreate something similar that matches you you know your story and not even to like just look up at the competitors in the US if you're selling in the US check you know worldwide if you know Spanish in Spanish Portuguese whatever you know German see uh how others are doing it you will get some ideas and uh what style of videos as I said like you you you need to think about it but the sky I you know is the limit and u just be creative. >> Maria says, "What if we can't spend $500 a day? I don't have a $500 a day budget for GMV Max ads. Maybe it's $50. Maybe it's $100. Should I just skip doing GMVX ads altogether? Focus on outreach to creators. Uh is it okay to have only a $50 budget or $100 budget? What's your advice?" >> It's okay. like it's okay to have it, but it will need to, you know, it will take more and more time. And I'm not 100% sure it will work, but you can try it out. As I said, it will not necessarily spend all of your budget. Maybe it will spend just a few dollars, but the videos needs to be extra, you know, on point in order to have like a 50 or 100 um budget a day. So, yes, you can try it out. And it worked for some of the brands we have worked with. But I'm just saying, you know, the average and what works the most is with 500 and you know above the budgets, especially in the Q4, uh, you know, the competition is higher. The budgets are much much higher for for everyone else. So I'm saying just because of that, but yeah, you can try it on and it worked for some. >> JC says, "What's a good rule of thumb to pay affiliates?" I'm assuming JC is talking about like maybe what's the the offer, you know, like the the commission offer. Um because as far as paying affiliates or the commission that's all done through TikTok. Um but JC's other question might be like maybe maybe you know some really good affiliates you want to pay a retainer or an upfront. So what about you? Like are you strictly for your clients uh Tamara like commission based where no we're not paying you $1,000 just to get you on board or some special ones you're giving like a bonus above and beyond just the commission. How we are doing it mostly is start with at least it depend of you know if you're a new one I would stay with 20 to 30% giving them commission you know but if you're already established seller on Tik Tok shop and after some time you can even lower it because you're already you know famous enough for them to reach out to you so you can give them less um some brands are even after a year giving like 8 to 10% max you know but you should start with 20 to 30 uh in order to you know um you know get them to you for them to accept you as a new brand and you know them as a good affiliates too. And what we usually do is 30 to 60 days um you know work around with them let's say uh why because in 30 days it can be sometimes like u you know um not that much of a days because since you start to work with them it needs some time for product to arrive to them for them to create the videos and it can happen that they are working with you only 10 days and they start to sell in the next 10 let's say so you're not having like the full clear image of how they're selling for you. So I would I would say like a 60 days is something usual that we do um with with affiliates and of course u yeah I hope that I have answered to this question. >> All right. If people want to reach out to you and your company and find you on the interwebs out there uh I know we still have some more questions here but we don't have enough time. So how can they find you out there? Yeah. So you can check out our website or find us on Instagram as well. Uh it's add to ads like add to cart. So uh add to ads like advertising um.com and yeah there is a contact us button you can uh you know uh contact us and for all the Helium 10 users like um every time I'm here it's a 10% off for our services. >> Okay. So, Tamara, gracias, obliga, thank you for coming on here. Uh, we appreciate all the knowledge you dropped. Thank you guys very much for tuning in and we'll see you next month for next month's Tik Tok [music] Thursday training. Bye-bye now.