What Is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing is a model in which people—UGC creators, influencers, and customers—promote your products or services in exchange for a commission.
It’s a win-win situation: you offload some marketing work, and creators earn while doing what they love. They can promote the items on any platform, such as social media channels or websites.
A popular example is this Amazon Haul video on Instagram, in which the creator showcases different products and includes a purchase link in the bio.
Every time someone clicks the link and buys a product, they earn a commission.
It makes sense, yeah?
Now, let’s break down how this marketing model works on TikTok.
How Does TikTok Affiliate Marketing Work?
As a seller, running an affiliate marketing campaign on TikTok requires just three things:
- Sign up for the TikTok Shop Seller Center — Create an account and set up your TikTok shop.
- Select the Affiliate Marketing option—Once you’re in the Seller Center, click the Affiliate Marketing button at the top to begin.
- Choose your preferred affiliate plan — You have three options to pick from:some text
- Shop plan, where you set a flat commission rate on all products.
- Open plan lets you create a specialized pricing option for every creator.
- Targeted plan allows you to invite specific creators to promote certain products.
With your affiliate program set up, creators can apply to promote your product. All they need is your permission to start a marketing campaign. Once approved, they can feature your products in their video content and add clickable links in the caption, including any discount code. This way, people can purchase your products by clicking on the link in their video.
Next, let’s talk money 🤑 —more specifically, how brands and creators can earn from affiliate campaigns on TikTok.
How to Make Money with Affiliate Marketing on TikTok
With over 900 million users on this social media app, TikTok provides proven ways for brands and creators to earn through affiliate marketing.
There’s the paid route and organic strategy. Let’s break them down a bit.
Organic traffic
Running an affiliate campaign organically on TikTok means creators produce videos to share on their page. The good thing about this approach is that TikTok’s algorithm doesn’t rely on your existing network to reach other users.
Instead, it targets users based on their interests in similar content. To make your organic campaign successful, the key is to create engaging, captivating videos that compel the audience to watch and take action. However, to generate profit with organic affiliate videos to generate profit, you’ll need to:
- Add affiliate links to the videos or a link-in-bio URL if you have multiple products.
- Share promo codes in the captions and as text overalls to encourage people to buy the product.
- Design an omnichannel funnel to drive traffic from TikTok to a landing page, website, or YouTube.
TikTok paid advertising
Do you know how Facebook lets you launch paid ads campaigns on Meta platforms?
TikTok offers a similar approach with multiple options to choose from, such as:
- In-feed ads — Advertise with vertical videos sprinkled with interactive add-ons and sound to improve engagement.
- TopView — Create an instant connection with the audience after they open the TikTok app with TopView ads.
- Branded effects — Allow users to get creative by designing custom effects with advertising tools.
- Spark ads — Boost your videos or ones created by creators or some other TikTok user so it has more reach.
- Branded Mission — Gather engaging content from various TikTok affiliate and creators to boost them as ads.
- TikTok Promote — Increase your organic videos’ reach for more engagement and sales.
The good thing about this strategy is that you can target those who see your content based on interests, behaviors, and demographics instead of hoping the right people engage with it.
But the real question is whether brands make money from any of the two approaches?
The answer is a resounding yes! Several brands, such as Love & Pebble, a beauty business, have and still do.
This small business, for instance, started with organic traffic and later added paid advertising to its campaign. The result?
There has been an over 1k increase in sales since they started and a 3.2x return on ad spend (ROAS). That’s quite impressive!
What strategies helped them achieve such results in their affiliate marketing campaigns?
We’ll highlight some of what they did so you can replicate them in the next section.
5 Tactics to Maximise TikTok Affiliate Marketing Revenue
You want to run an affiliate marketing campaign to increase your reach and revenue.
So, in this section, we’ll get practical and unpack proven techniques to help drive revenue.
1. Partner with the right content creators
Imagine targeting a Gen Z target audience but working with creators who appeal to Baby Boomers.
Do you think the campaign will resonate with your audience or inspire them to take action?
Probably not, because the creators aren’t right for the job.
So, how do you know who’s right? Here’s how:
- Check if their follower demographics align with your ideal audience.
- They create appealing content that captivates your audience.
- Their engagement rates are through the roof.
- The creators have experience collaborating with brands like yours.
- Their tone, values, and personal brand mirrors your brand’s style.
Let’s take things a step further and show you how to find the right creators without the usual manual search stress involved.
Ladies and gentlemen, introducing Insense—a platform that simplifies finding and partnering with experienced, top-tier creators.
The Insense Marketplace allows you to discover affiliate creators across different markets, demographics, audience sizes, and categories. Its extensive filtering feature allows you to find creators who meet your needs.
After getting a shortlist of potential creators for the campaign, you’re provided with their comprehensive portfolio that shows their ratings, performance history, and detailed audience and account information.
Insense also offers a direct chat feature to communicate with the audience. You can share affiliate links and coupon codes and complete negotiations on the platform.
The bottom line is you can find the right creators for the affiliate marketing campaign in no time. And if there are creators you’ve worked with in the past, you can invite them to Insense for more streamlined communication and management.
2. Craft compelling and engaging content
Want to boost your affiliate revenue?
The secret starts with creating videos that captivate your audience. By engaging content, we mean you entertain, educate, or inform them so they’re encouraged to engage.
Let’s see how Kaeli Mae, a TikTok influencer, nailed this tactic in the example below.
In her video, she starts by arranging all the products to be showcased, sparking curiosity in viewers. Then, she builds excitement through unboxing, making her audience feel involved. Looks simple, yeah?
Yet the video has over a million views and 672 comments, with several people saying they’re off to get theirs, especially the uggs she showcases.
Now that you’ve seen an example of engaging content, here are some tips brands and creators can follow to create content like Mae:
For brands:
- Craft a strong creative brief clearly outlining what you expect from the creator. Insense has a powerful brief feature specifically designed for this.
- Give creators the creative freedom to be genuine and authentic. Encourage them to try the product and share reviews or tell personal stories.
For creators:
- Use captivating hooks within the first five seconds to keep viewers from scrolling away.
- Aim for short, impactful videos so they hold attention.
- Add text overlays to keep viewers engaged before they play the video.
- Show personality so viewers find you relatable.
- Join trends and engage with your audience.
- Remember to add a call-to-action (CTA), directing them where to purchase the product.
3. Leverage TikTok’s trends and features
There’s almost always a trend on TikTok—a dance challenge, a song, or a hashtag. To increase your brand’s reach, get involved by hopping on an existing trend or create one from scratch with creators.
It’s what brands like GymShark have done. They launched a 66-day exercise challenge, encouraging participants to share their transformation over nine weeks and tag GymShark on TikTok. The challenge quickly gained traction, inspiring people to participate and increase the brand’s popularity.
Here’s the twist: The challenge has since ended, but people are still joining, racking in over 300 million views.
You can do the same—collaborate with creators to design or promote trends that align with your brand. This would help you drive awareness and boost sales, too.
4. Track performance metrics for continuous improvement
Remember Love & Pebble’s case study? The small business that leveraged organic traffic and paid ads for their affiliate marketing campaign?
One thing they did before adding a paid strategy was track the performance of their organic content. This helped them identify which pieces were doing well enough to boost with paid advertising.
To ensure your affiliate campaign’s long-term success, tracking the content’s performance is important. How many views, shares, or comments does it have? What about click-through rates or conversion rates?
Here’s how you can track performance: Use Insense’s performance analytics feature.
It provides real-time comprehensive campaign analytics via an intuitive dashboard, so you can monitor the numbers and understand how your content is performing.
5. Build Long-Term Relationships with Creators
Creators are the backbone of your affiliate marketing campaign. Their job description ranges from creating videos to inspiring the audience to purchase your product.
Want to get the best of them? Nurture your relationship with them.
Treat creators as partners—not just as people doing a job—so they feel valued and motivated to give the project their best.
You might be thinking, “They’re being paid already; what more motivation do they need?”
Well, remember when your boss treated you with respect, was concerned about your well-being, and perhaps asked after your loved one or furry friend?
It made you feel special and seen, motivating you to give the job your best. The same goes for your creators.
To help you nurture a lasting relationship with them, here are some ideas to try:
- Use Insense’s relationship management tool to manage communication and streamline creator collaboration.
- Share or comment on their posts, even if they are not made for your brand.
- Find and share a resource or opportunity you think would help them.
- Send personalized messages instead of generic DMs. Let it be authentic, just like you want them to be.
- Beyond compensation, offer value like free training or exclusive access to your product.
- Ensure you communicate expectations ahead of time.
- Request feedback from creators; they probably know the audience better than you.
Okay, folks—the moment of truth: Is running an affiliate marketing campaign on TikTok worth it?
Let’s find out!
What Are the Pros of TikTok Affiliate Marketing?
What makes running affiliate campaigns on this video-sharing app a good option for business owners and creators?
The following does:
- High engagement rate — According to a report by Rival IQ, a social media analytics tool, TikTok has the highest median engagement rate above other channels. You know what that means? A better chance of people clicking the affiliate links leads to more conversions.
- TikTok’s algorithm—Do you know how most social media platforms promote content posted by accounts with large followings by showing it to more people? TikTok doesn’t work that way. Instead, it recommends content to users based on their interactions. This way, affiliates with even small followings can reach their target audience as long as they keep creating engaging content.
- Short-form video format — TikTok’s video-first format makes it perfect for showcasing products. Affiliates can create product reviews, product demos, unboxing videos, before-and-after content, and videos. This makes it easy for viewers to examine your product and be motivated to buy.
While there are many good things to say about TikTok affiliate marketing, it has some disadvantages.
What Are the Potential Drawbacks of TikTok Affiliate Marketing?
If you decide to launch an affiliate marketing campaign on TikTok, you need to accept how quickly ad fatigue envelops the audience.
Check out the thriving creators on TikTok; you’ll find that they must keep producing new content to stay relevant. Your audience wants to see fresh content more regularly, which can be time-consuming and stressful.
Secondly, you have limited link placement opportunities—in videos and bios. You can only add one link per bio, which means customers would have a hard time finding specific affiliate products if there are several of them.
Lastly, popular niches like beauty, fashion, and lifestyle are super crowded. If you’re going to thrive in any of such categories, you’ll need to develop a different content strategy to stand out and capture people’s attention.
That brings us to the end of this guide.
Over to You!
With the strategies we’ve covered, you’re all set to launch a successful affiliate campaign on TikTok.
But remember, folks—the secret to real success is finding the right creators.
And that’s precisely where Insense shines.
Think of Insense as your matchmaker, helping you find the Robin to your Batman, Lois to your Superman, and Iris to your Flash—in just three steps.
Wondering if it’s true?
Book a demo with Insense to see how easy it is to find your perfect creator match!
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