There’s no denying that social media platforms like TikTok and influencers on those platforms have revolutionized digital marketing.
But they are also changing users’ shopping habits and experiences.
Let’s take the TikTok Shop as an example.
Forget about TikTok influencers referring their followers to your Amazon or Shopify account or e-commerce website and then waiting for them to make a purchase.
Users can now buy your products in real time without even having to leave the TikTok app.
Still, to get the most out of this shopping feature, you need to find the right influencers for the job and know how to work with them.
Don’t worry; we’ll show you how to do it.
Let’s delve in!
What are TikTok Shop Influencers?
TikTok Shop influencers are TikTok users with high engagement rates who create user-generated content to promote your products and encourage their viewers to buy them using your TikTok Shop link.
For every TikTok Shop sale generated by an influencer’s UGC, they receive a commission, which makes this a form of affiliate marketing.
But what is a TikTok Shop?
The TikTok Shop is an in-app shopping feature that allows brands to showcase and sell their products directly on TikTok through:
- Livestream events
- Product showcase
- Shoppable videos
- Shoppable ads
- The Shopping Center tab
It all started with the #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt trend where TikTok users posted videos of products they purchased after seeing them on the platform.
Given the success of this hashtag and the fact that, according to TikTok, four in ten users buy a product after seeing it on this platform, it’s no surprise that they decided to incorporate social commerce into the app in 2023.
So, they created TikTok Shop for creators and sellers alike.
That’s all well and good, but why should you work with influencers to sell on TikTok Shop?
Find out next.
What are the Benefits of Working With TikTok Shop Influencers?
Setting up a TikTok Shop for your brand is a good first step—8% of American online consumers have used this feature since September 2023.
However, getting people to buy your products is still tricky, so you should use influencer marketing.
Just take a look at some of the benefits of working with TikTok Shop influencers, and you’ll see that it’s worth it:
- Reach new audiences. TikTok influencers have high engagement rates, which means collaborating with them will expose your brand to their followers.
For instance, TikTok is notorious for attracting Gen Z users which is not exactly true for Meta’s Facebook and Instagram.
On top of that, if you find TikTok influencers in your niche with the right audience demographics, you’ll get immediate access to your target audience.
- Convert leads. According to a 2023 Matter survey, 69% of consumers trust product recommendations from friends, family, and influencers over recommendations from the brand itself.
So, when users see their favorite influencer raving about your products in their TikTok videos, they’ll want to try them for themselves.
- Boost sales. Besides converting leads into paying customers, these TikTok Shop affiliates also boost sales by driving repeat purchases.
According to a 2024 study, social media influencers were the most vital determinant of online repurchase intention.
- Improve return on ad spend (ROAS). Launching ad campaigns on TikTok can be quite affordable and profitable.
According to Gupta Media’s Social Media CPM Tracker, in the first quarter of 2024, the average cost per thousand impressions on TikTok was $2.49.
On the other hand, according to a 2024 Statista report, the average cost per thousand on Facebook in the US, during January and February 2024, was $4.29.
Likewise, you can find micro-influencers who produce unique UGC or allow you to run Spark Ads on their TikTok accounts for a minimum of $40–$80.
Finally, given that four in ten users buy a product after seeing it on TikTok, you’ll have a good return on ad spend.
Still, to enjoy all these benefits, you must first find the right collaborators.
Next, we’ll show you how to do this.
How to Find TikTok Shop Influencers and Creators for Your Brand
First things first, choosing a random content creator to work with probably won’t bring you the desired results and could even hurt your brand.
So, you need to find TikTok Shop creators and influencers who align with your brand.
And always consider pricing to avoid overspending on influencer marketing.
Now, here’s how you can find TikTok Shop affiliates for your campaigns.
Use the TikTok Creator Marketplace
TikTok Creator Marketplace is a collaboration platform where you can find TikTok content creators to work with.
The best part is that this platform works both ways, so it also allows creators to get in touch with your brand if they’re interested in promoting your products.
So, how does it work?
It’s quite easy!
You only need a TikTok Ads Manager account, then use the Creator discovery feature to search for collaborators.
Once you find TikTok users you’re interested in, you send them invites and wait for them to reply.
But before you decide to use TikTok Creator Marketplace, let’s look at some of its pros and cons:
TikTok Creator Marketplace pros
- Extensive search capabilities. You can search for TikTok content creators by region, audience demographics, and engagement rates.
- Detailed creator profiles. Before you invite a creator to collaborate, you can check out some of their core performance metrics.
- Campaign reporting. You get detailed reports on the performance of your TikTok campaigns, including views, likes, shares, and viewer demographics.
TikTok Creator Marketplace cons
- It’s hard to communicate with creators. Once you find the right TikTok creators and they accept your invite, you have no way of communicating with them through the Creator Marketplace platform.
So, you have to use email, TikTok messages, or other platforms to relay important information or feedback.
- Time-consuming contracting process. After finding a TikTok user willing to collaborate with your brand, you have to negotiate and draft the contract terms for each creator.
Unfortunately, this can delay the launch of your TikTok campaigns.
- Unscalable campaigns. You are limited to collaborating with 20 content creators per campaign, which means the UGC you receive is also limited.
Now, check out what our Insense platform can do for you.
Use the Insense Creator Marketplace
Insense is an all-in-one creator marketing platform that enables you to find the right collaborators and manage your campaigns.
The best part is that the Insense Creator Marketplace offers access to over 20,000 vetted Instagram, TikTok, UGC creators, and micro-influencers, so it’s not limited to TikTok.
All you need to do is create an account and start searching for TikTok Shop creators.
One of the things that our clients love most about the Insense Creator Marketplace is its advanced search filters.
Basically, you can narrow down your search by:
- Industry
- Creator and audience demographics
- Follower count
- Engagement rate
- Creators with TikTok Shop accounts
Still, you don’t have to do this all on your own!
You can simply fill in our Creative Brief with information about the type of campaign you want to launch and the type of creators you’re looking for and we’ll find the best matches for you.
On top of that, once you partner up with the right TikTok creators or influencers, you can easily keep in touch with them using our Direct Chat.
Use Insense to create your TikTok campaign
Besides matching you with the right TikTok Shop creators, Insense also lets you collaborate with as many creators as you like and launch multiple campaigns simultaneously.
But since we know this can be daunting, we’ve created a centralized Campaign Management dashboard to make things easier for you.
And you can even invite your team members to join and help you manage your campaigns.
We even offer you a cheat sheet on how to brief for TikTok Shop campaigns. 😉
On top of that, Insense allows you to integrate TikTok Shop products with Spark Ads.
More precisely, you can use Spark Ads codes offered by your creators to showcase specific products from your TikTok Shop.
But enough with the bragging because we’ve got other important things to tell you.
Keep reading to find more about alternative ways to find TikTok Shop creators.
Use hashtags
Besides using cool tools to look for TikTok Shop creators and influencers, you can also do this manually using hashtags.
You can do this in two ways:
- Search by popular industry hashtags. For example, you can search by #skincare to find beauty TikTok creators.
However, you’ll likely get a large number of results to sift through.
To narrow it down, you should look for niche hashtags, like #antiaging.
- Search by #ad. This will help you find TikTok creators who are already posting sponsored content.
But, once again, you’ll get countless results with no way to filter them.
The main problem here is that you’ll have to vet all potential collaborators yourself by reviewing their content and followers.
Use keywords
TikTok also allows you to search for content using keywords manually.
All you have to do is identify some of the most popular keywords in your niche and add them to TikTok’s search bar.
But even though you’ll find lots of TikTok users posting videos that align with your niche, it doesn’t mean they are all professional content creators or influencers.
So, you’ll have to check out their TikTok accounts individually and, most importantly, check the quality of their video content.
Ultimately, while these manual strategies are free, they are also very time-consuming and unreliable.
So, you should weigh your options well before deciding.
Next, we’ll give you some tips on working with TikTok Shop influencers.
Best Practices for Working with TikTok Shop Influencers
It’s not all about identifying TikTok Shops influencers and creators in your niche.
You also have to follow some best practices to maximize the results of your campaigns.
Choose your TikTok Influencers wisely
Of course, every brand that uses influencer marketing wants to collaborate with big-shot macro-influencers, but this is not always feasible or advisable.
According to a 2023 Statista survey, micro-influencers with 5k-10k followers registered an average engagement rate of 76.23%, while macro-influencers with over one million followers registered 12.69%.
On top of that, micro-influencers are more niche-oriented and less expensive than macro-influencers.
We believe these strengths outweigh the weakness of having a smaller reach.
Plus, you can always hire multiple micro-influencers simultaneously to compensate for that.
Use TikTok Spark Ads
TikTok Spark Ads allow you to use organic TikTok posts from your account or other user accounts (with their consent) in your advertising campaigns as many times as you want to.
Here are some of the benefits:
- Builds trust. Since you’ll be using user-generated content that is more trustworthy and authentic, users will start trusting your brand as well,
- Increases ad performance. According to TikTok, Spark Ads are getting better results in terms of video views, engagement rate, CVR, and CPM compared to non-Spark Ads.
- Uses innovative features. Spark Ads are much more engaging for users as they allow duet, stitch, and sticker features.
And in case you forgot, with Insense you can integrate TikTok Shop products with Spark Ads for maximum campaign results.
Build long-term relationships
Don’t think of TikTok Shop influencer collaborations as one-off marketing strategies.
Instead, you should try to build long-term relationships with influencers as this will help them familiarize themselves with your brand and generate more authentic content.
You can use the Relationship Management feature to set up long-term campaigns on Insense and work with the same creators whenever you want.
By nurturing these relationships you make influencers trust your collaboration and want to continue working with you.
And that, in turn, will also build their followers’ trust in your brand and promote TikTok shopping.
It’s a win-win-win scenario!
Track performance
You should always track the performance of your TikTok Shop influencer campaigns to identify their strengths and weaknesses and optimize accordingly.
Some of the key performance metrics you should track include engagement rates, conversion rates, click-through rates, and return on investment.
All these metrics will show you if the TikTok Shop affiliate program and the individual influencers are generating the desired results.
You can even identify top performers for long-term campaigns and allocate resources accordingly.
Note that with the Insense Performance feature, you can get real-time performance insights into your influencer campaigns. 😉
But we don’t want to bore you with any more details.
It’s time for you to take action.
Over to You
TikTok Shop influencers can help you enhance your marketing efforts in more ways than one.
However, finding the right collaborators to work with can prove tricky, especially if you’re trying to do it manually.
So, why not make your life easier and use our all-in-one creator marketing platform?
If you need any help or more info, just book a demo with Insense.
