An Overview Of Using Tiktok for Affiliate Marketing

By Tom Seest

How to Use Tiktok As an Affiliate Marketer

Whenever a new strategy or platform erupts onto the world wide web, affiliate marketers analyze it for ways to tap into it for increased commissions. Some prove harder to master than others, but with TikTok, it’s become an easy route to profits.
This is a social media app that doesn’t have big demands from you in terms of exhausting content that takes hours to create. You aren’t burdened with having to compete with mega-corporations and brands who can outspend you or develop better, professional graphics and copy than you can.
Instead, TikTok is a platform where ordinary people like you have as much sway and influence over consumers as big ad departments do. On this app, people want to know what their peers think about something, and this is where your affiliate income can soar.
Below, you’ll discover some strategies and tips that you can immediately integrate into your promotions and use these to get ideas for what you can promote and gain better exposure for your short-form content.

This photo was taken by Leef Parks and is available on Pexels at https://www.pexels.com/photo/silver-and-gold-round-watch-3809175/.

How to Use TikTok’s Creative Center For Affiliate Information

TikTok wants you to succeed on its platform. It’s in their best interest for you to do well. So they’ve created the TikTok Creative Center that basically delivers tons of important data to you on a silver platter.
First, they give you an up-to-date peek at what is trending in your country right at that moment. You can look at the past seven days, 30 days, or even 120 days, depending on which metric you’re looking at.
It also helps you with some creative ideas and strategies if you’re going to run an ad campaign. What’s cool about TikTok is that you don’t have to employ the use of paid ads at all.
You can simply learn what’s working for advertisers and then apply the same concepts to your organic short-form videos to see if you can get the same results. You can also use their tools, like video editors and templates, that help you hit the ground running.
In order to fully use the TikTok Creative Center and get all of the insight you need, you need to swap over to a business account. That doesn’t mean you have to pay for your posts.
But it lets you get more data that you can apply to your future video creations so that you get better results. If you don’t want your main account to be a business one, you can create a second, separate business account to use for all of your research and keep your main affiliate account as a personal profile.

This photo was taken by Pragyan Bezbaruah and is available on Pexels at https://www.pexels.com/photo/round-black-analog-watch-displaying-7-15-time-1697570/.

How to Look at the Top Trending Items On TikTok

You can go to the TikTok Creative Center and gather information on four important things that can give you insight into what you need to create to have effective affiliate campaigns.
First, hashtags can be of good use. If you look on the center at the last seven-day trend on December 18th, 2022, you’ll see that #dentistry is the most popular hashtag, with over 21 million views in a week.
It’s also trending high, with consistent growth over time. You can see the important audience insight about each hashtag. For example, 68% of the people looking it up are between 18-24 years old (29% are 25-34 years old, and 3% are over 35).
They also tell you related interests the people searching for this hashtag have ‘ including other beauty topics. If you wanted to, you could go to ClickBank and look for a dentist’s product.
On this same day, ClickBank’s #2 product is called ProDentim (a supplement for healthy teeth and gums), which is paying up to $130 per conversion. So this might be something you want to build a bridge page to and then create a TikTok video to drive traffic to.
You could also go to Amazon’s bestseller page and drill down to the Oral Care section and see that the Philips Sonicare Power Toothbrush is ranked #1, so that might be a good product for you to review.
Take this information back to TikTok and conduct a search for other videos about this product to see what’s performing well. For example, an unboxing video with a voiceover about this toothbrush is part of the “30 days of tech” series the user did, and it has over half a million views.
Look at the other hashtags the user has on their videos, and then go through and read the questions people are asking about it to ensure your video hits on some of the main points of interest.
Other slants that are popular are things like ‘TikTok Made Me Buy It’ and ‘Impulse Buy.’ People also like slants such as ‘The secret to” (which in this case would be whiter teeth).
You can choose any industry you want and just look at the top hashtags and products being promoted for it. Songs are another criteria TikTok provides for you to consider for your affiliate promotions.
These aren’t as important to choosing what to promote as an affiliate, but you can use trending sounds and songs within your videos to help them gain traction. TikTok shows you what’s the most popular at that time and what just cracked the top 100 list.
They also give you a list of the top creators at that point in time. You can search by region and sort by the number of followers they have, the engagement they get, or their popularity.
On this report, a Pokemon card account is the most popular in terms of engagement, so this might signal to you that Pokemon card products might be popular to promote.
Videos is the fourth section they give you data about. You can see what’s hot right now, what has the most likes, what has the most comments, and which videos got the most shares.
If you don’t see anything affiliate-worthy for the 7-day trend, look at the 30-day data. You might see (on this day) that a TikTok for the Google Pixel7 phone was one of the hottest videos this month.

This photo was taken by Tomas Williams and is available on Pexels at https://www.pexels.com/photo/white-petaled-flowers-on-blue-wooden-desk-beside-mantel-clock-1826076/.

How to Spy on Competitors on TikTok Using Ad Performance Data

Even though you may not want to use paid ads, the data your competitors are delivering to TikTok to show you is going to benefit you as an affiliate marketer leveraging this site organically.
You can look through the top-performing auction ads and get inspired by these creatives. You’re able to sort by industry, objective, region, likes, and duration. When you see the ads listed, you can click on each one for further analytic information.
For example, there might be an ad for a nonstick frying pan. You can click on It and see the CTR (click-through rate) and what’s cool about this is that it will show you exactly where in the video the consumer made the click.
The objectives you can sort by include the reach it got, the traffic, app installs, video views, lead generation, and engagement. TikTok also has ad showcases, so you can read the study data about certain ads.
Here, they’ll give you some background about the company, highlight the objective of the brand and how they went about creating their ad campaign, and then the performance results of it ‘ including the CTR, CPC (cost per click), and the reach it garnered.
TikTok has a place in the Creative Center where you can even search the ads by typing in the brand or product keywords. So if you wanted to see what other beauty products were selling, you could use that hashtag to see what related products would help increase your affiliate income.

This photo was taken by Lưu Đức Anh and is available on Pexels at https://www.pexels.com/photo/groom-holding-bride-s-hand-walking-near-cathedral-1295983/.

Is Short-Form Video Creation On TikTok Better?

TikTok has specifically said: ‘Don’t make ads. Make TikToks.’ That statement is a very important one because it explains how you steer clear of ad blindness and have people scroll right past your content.
Many marketers who have been online for years tend to ignore trends and developments when it comes to advertising and stick to what they know and what they feel will work.
They might see that they’re able to record slightly longer videos and try to max out their available time, for example. TikTok users prefer videos where a product is recommended to be 21-34 seconds, and according to the app, those get 280% more conversions than videos outside of those parameters.
What you have been doing on Amazon or Facebook – or even Instagram is not the same thing you need to be doing on TikTok. This is a unique platform when it comes to being well-received by consumers.
Your affiliate promos should not be blatant in-your-face promotions. In fact, it should seem as if you are an ordinary person making a TikTok about your life that happens to have a recommendation in it.
You have to be very strategic when it comes to your creatives. TikTok gives you the precise data you need to make videos that will go over well with their users. Remember, this isn’t about what you’re used to or what you prefer ‘ it’s about the people using their platform.
Your videos should be vertical shots (not horizontal ones like you may have used on other platforms). You want it to take up the entire screen, and if you’re using text, make sure it’s not too big or too small ‘ or covered up by the other information already on the outer edges of the screen.
If you scroll through TikTok, you’ll see that video quality matters, but that doesn’t mean you have to invest in expensive equipment. A smartphone will work just fine ‘ just make sure it isn’t blurry or that your recording isn’t moving all over the place.
If you’re doing a hands-on affiliate promo for a product that you own and are reviewing, make sure the room you’re recording in is clean and well-lit. You don’t want to cause the consumer to struggle to watch the video.
You also don’t want to be competing for the audio between yourself and a popular sound. Many people use popular music or sound to record their videos, and this is fine ‘ but know how to turn the sound you chose down so that people can actually hear what you’re saying about the product when you’re reviewing it.
Many consumers also like it when you include closed captions (CC), so they can read what you’re saying. You can use a voiceover effect and combine that with CC to appeal to all of your viewers.
Remember, you’re not just creating TikTok videos ‘ you’re hoping to ramp up your affiliate earnings, so you still have to deliver a strong CTA (call to action). TikTok lets you verbalize or use text on the screen as your CTA, telling them what they should do next ‘ click on the link in your bio, apply a coupon, sign up for a free trial, etc.

This photo was taken by Kai Pilger and is available on Pexels at https://www.pexels.com/photo/photo-of-brown-painted-church-1354037/.

How to Apply Information from TikTok’s Trend Report to Your Business

TikTok has published a report defining what they see as specific concepts that will shape the content on their app. For affiliate marketers, you need to consider how you can wield this information to your advantage.
The first thing they tout is Actionable Entertainment. For this aspect, you want to focus on ensuring your short-form videos are palatable visually and that you have mastered the art of storytelling.
Your content should be consistent and relatable in order for them to be entertained enough to stay with the video to completion and then take action on it in the end, according to your instructions.
Making Space for Joy is second on their list of trends that will have a strong impact. If you’re in the self-help or personal development niche, TikTok is one of the main social platforms you need to be using.
They look for ideas on how to bring more joy to their lives and how to stress less or create peaceful surroundings for themselves. If you can use your profile to promote products and give tips on how to improve their well-being, you will thrive on TikTok.
The last trend they want you to look out for it Community-Built Ideas. Part of what makes TikTok so infectious is that people share their everyday lives. Regardless of where they live or what income level they’re on, they are on a level playing field on this app.
Anyone can present information, ask questions of the experts (you, the affiliate), and engage with one another to provide solutions and insight that help people. The communities a user can belong to are varied and vast, so you can tap into a myriad of affiliate niches just by being part of the community and sharing what you use and like.
Being successful as an affiliate and increasing your earnings on TikTok requires you to do three things: Be willing to pay attention to trends and data, get creative with your content but deliver what the audience wants, and be consistent so that your audience feels as if they know and trust you.

This photo was taken by Anete Lusina and is available on Pexels at https://www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-shot-of-an-electronic-device-4790255/.