Strategy for TikTok Shop Affiliate
Advertising expenses can heavily impact a business' budget and may not provide significant returns. The ideal approach would be to pay for advertising only when it results in a sale. TikTok has a solution to this predicament, which they implemented on their Tiktok Shop marketplace called affiliate marketing.
The TikTok affiliate program is my favorite part of TikTok Shop. On this article I will talk about my strategy and how to get started. Below is a print screen on how to acesss TikTok affiliate.
Shop Level Plan
Understanding the plans is extremely important as it will be the first step in developing the strategy to connect to more creators.
👉Shop Plan enables sellers to set a universal commission rate for all products in the Seller Center.
👉The Open Plan is open to all qualified affiliate creators. Sellers can approve creators before promoting products through the Open Plan. The seller selects the products available for promotion and specifies the commission rate, ranging from 1% to 80%. All affiliate creators can access the Open Plan and enjoy its benefits, including the ability to showcase the best-selling items in the product marketplace.
- Within the open plan, you can also offer many samples.
👉A Targeted Plan allows sellers to invite certain creators to promote products on their behalf. Creators can begin promoting products immediately after accepting an invitation from the seller.
- Products: select merchandise from the seller
- Commission Rate: specified commission rate (range: 1%-80%)
- A targeted Plan allows sellers to invite and cooperate with specific creators who can help promote products and generate more sales.
What is the relationship between these plans?
Each product can be set up on multiple plans at the same time. Creators will only be paid one commission rate per product in the following priority: Targeted Plan＞Open Plan＞Shop Plan.
Strategy Talk
Getting Started with Creators & TikTok Affiliate Program
For the first 30 days, you want to go after the lowest-hanging fruit as you learn the process and how to navigate.
Action 1
Start with an open plan at 15% commission + offer ten free samples, but you don't have to approve the samples. I also highly suggest auto-approving those who apply to the open plan.
Action 2
For the creators that start driving sales, you want to open up conversations with them and determine if it's worthwhile to move them into a targeted plan where you can offer them 18% or 20%. I see more motivation from creators when you offer them a higher commission rate.
- Proactive actions on your part will be to review and reach out to the creators to avoid losing momentum. Set aside 2 hours weekly to reach out and network with the creators.
Action 3
By the end of 30 days, you will see traction as long as you invested two hours per week, a total of 10 hours on affiliate marketing. The overall goal is to build out your network that you can use to promote different products per month.
The TikTok shop tracks each sale; see the print screen below. Sales data will be found under Data Compass.
After you have a good handle on the creators on the open and targeted plan, you can move into livestreaming and giveaways. I see brands and sellers starting a live streaming and giveaway strategy six months after they started using TikTok Affiliate. Your goal should be to get there between 30 to 60 days after you begin using the TikTok affiliate.
Suppose you need someone to manage this strategy for 60 days. Our fees start at $499 per month.
