More and more brands are launching themselves on the social network phenomenon! Selling on TikTok offers the possibility to promote your products in a playful way, through videos that reflect your image. You can easily take advantage of all TikTok’s services to reach specific age groups, linked to people in your target audience.
Your online store can then benefit from increased visibility, even worldwide, if your videos are lucky enough to break through and go viral on international news feeds. Other levers can support your marketing actions on TikTok, notably by choosing the types of ads adapted to your products.
Want to launch a business on social media networks? To do so, you need a platform on which you can offer your products. Have you thought about using TikTok? In this article, find all our tips to succeed in boosting your product sales with the help of the social network that’s a worldwide sensation.
Why should you sell products on TikTok?
TikTok: the social network of all records
Perhaps you’re already using other platforms in your social media marketing strategy, such as Pinterest for ecommerce or Instagram for ecommerce, to help expand your reach. While these apps can be great for business, you may be missing out on product sales if you’re not also on TikTok.
The social media network has experienced unprecedented popularity in 2020, and the TikTok statistics don’t lie: +442% in revenue, reaching $1.9 billion. In September 2021, a billion active users were reached, while in 2018, only 200 million users were present on the platform.
In 2021, Statista tells us that the most realized action on the web was the number of views of TikTok videos: 167,000 per minute!
In Europe, by the end of 2020, no less than 100 million users will have logged on to the application. According to Statista, the country with the highest number of users in 2020 was the US, with approximately 65.9 million active users per month. Coming in second and third place were Indonesia and Russia, with 22.2 million and 16.4 million monthly active users respectively.
A highly engaged audience and sales opportunities
The audience on TikTok is very loyal to the application: 90% of users open the app at least once a day, according to Alioze. TikTok users also stay on the platform in large numbers: on average, they connect for 48 minutes worldwide.
The social media network also presents a great opportunity for all creators and also for brands: the algorithm is more open than other social media networks. On your TikTok channel, you’ll certainly have the chance to reach new customers in an organic way. Your videos should be original, inspired by the platform’s trends and feature viral music from the music library.
Original content to present your products
Unlike other social media networks, the app doesn’t allow for many different formats. Everything is based on video: you can post videos of up to 3 minutes.
Only video is welcome: your news feed is divided into two parts between the videos discovered “For you” or those of the accounts you subscribe to.
Within this space of expression, billions of possibilities are offered to you to offer original video content based on your interests, your brand, and your ecommerce products.
Video tutorials of your articles, content focusing on your life as an entrepreneur, before/after, viral challenges, video contests... Your creativity will be a great way to promote your business on TikTok!
How do you create an account for your store on TikTok?
Set up your business account
Creating a TikTok account is good but creating a professional TikTok account for your online store is better!
You just have to create an account and then access your settings to transform your personal profile into a business profile on TikTok. With this status, you’ll be able to start to add various types of information to your profile in order to maximize your conversion rate.
Important detail: you’ll be able to add your website URL in your branded bio (that description at the top of your TikTok account) in order to invite users to connect to your business.
To perfect your branded professional account, add your company’s logo to your profile picture and create a biography adapted to your interests: a great way to attract new customers who’ll want to discover you and visit your website because of your original productions!
Think about your marketing strategy
At the moment, TikTok is a social network that allows you to boost your visibility in a viral way, provided you create original and creative content. The full-screen videos that scroll on users’ smartphones must evoke emotion.
To do this, similar to when you want to sell on Snapchat, it’s necessary to create videos that will capture the attention of your audience in just a few seconds. However, this can be difficult to accomplish: there are billions of videos out there for people to watch. Thus, your marketing strategy on TikTok will be to play with your originality and your authenticity while highlighting the products you’re selling and your brand in a professional and qualitative way.
Think of new formats, do live shows to present your new products, carry out a marketing watch on the content that’s currently popular, get inspired by the content of other brands but also by influencers in order to increase your visibility and have fun at the same time!
Need help with your marketing strategy on TikTok? Many applications and platforms have been created in the past few months to help brands find various marketing tools to reach their goals on the app.
To assist you, one of the most used options by brands is influencer marketing: by offering your products on platforms like Hivency or Findly, influencers will be able to appeal to your brand by highlighting it in their next content, either with a budget or simply the exchange of products.
Create a hashtag challenge and include your terms to find content that fits your brand. You’ll then be able to see the progress of your influencer campaign on the dashboard managed by the chosen platform to help you in your marketing.
TikTok is mainly the “feel good” app: be yourself, be happy, and be engaging in all your posts!
Promotions, sales, offers: how do you promote your brand content on TikTok?
Using TikTok For Business
TikTok has launched its platform dedicated to Ads: TikTok For Business. Here, you’ll be able to introduce all the ads on TikTok that you want. The platform takes care of connecting your brand with your target audience through your ad campaign but also of introducing your business to other user segments: this will depend on the configuration of your campaign.
On TikTok For Business, log in to your business account to start an Ads campaign. You’ll then be asked to choose from five objectives:
- Awareness
- Traffic to your website
- Application installation
- Display
- Conversion
In the next step, you’ll need to define the budget allocated to your Ads campaign on TikTok. When it comes to delivery, you can choose between automatic delivery of your ads by letting TikTok choose the locations where your ads will be displayed, or you can manually choose the locations you want.
If you need help making sure you reach the right people, let TikTok’s artificial intelligence help you get in front of qualified audiences.
Once you’ve made these configurations, you'll be able to build your ad with the images, title, redirect URL, etc.
It’ll then be time to choose the audience segment you wish to target: interests, age, gender, language, etc. Obviously, it’ll be beneficial to have determined your persona beforehand in order to make it easy for you to select the precise audience you’d like to target and optimize your advertising budget for maximum conversion!
Types of ads on TikTok
TikTok offers several advertising solutions and ads. Need help to see them clearly? Here are the five most accessible formats:
- TopView
TopView is an image or video that appears on the user’s full screen when they open their application. The content must last between 5 and 60 seconds. This format is unique: only one brand is highlighted on a single day via this format.
- TopView Lite
This format is similar to the previous one: the video or the content opens entirely on the user’s screen as soon as they consult the application, and this for 5 seconds. These ads aren’t targeted, so all users are affected.
- In-feed Ads
These ads are standard formats: a vertical video of 5 to 60 seconds is displayed during the user’s navigation on TikTok. These ads are shown on the “For You” part of the website and are naturally added as native content on this part of the platform. These ad formats are less invasive. You can add a CTA, including “learn more,” “buy now,” or “download the application.”
- Hashtag Challenges
Create a challenge by crafting a hashtag to invite users to make a video about your products. If you have a large community, this type of content will help you reach users who don’t know you yet. Moreover, your brand image will be boosted because you’ll appeal to your community, who will feel flattered to bring you authentic content, and you’ll share an image of your fun creations, in tune with the times.
- Branded Effects
If you want to surround yourself with a state-of-the-art technical team, why not imagine using a filter with your image? Thus, users will be able to adorn themselves with your content in augmented reality when recording their content. This service is very engaging, especially with Generation Z and allows you to position your brand as an expert in new technologies.
What's the budget for your ads?
Advertising campaigns on TikTok have a relatively high cost compared to other social media networks. For instance, if you want to sell on Pinterest, you’ll find that ads generally cost between $2 and $5 for every thousand views (CPM). However, ads on TikTok have a CPM of $10 per CPM. TikTok ads require a basic investment that cannot be below $50.
It’s hard to compete with the colossal marketing campaigns of the biggest brands that are ready to spend up to $300,000 to promote their products...
However, TikTok advertisements prove to be very good conversion levers. To do this, the application offers three types of bids:
- Cost per click (CPC): the advertiser pays for each click produced on its ad by internet users
- Cost per click optimized (CPCO): the advertiser pays for each customer conversion
- Cost per 1,000 (CPM): you pay from 1,000 impressions on your ad
These costs are linked to a marketing strategy around the advertisements that you can publish on TikTok. Nevertheless, the application allows you to evolve rather quickly thanks to a relatively open and positive algorithm for all the accounts present on the application. To succeed on TikTok, the investment in time will be much more beneficial than a financial investment over the long term.
If you build a good strategy natively, posting videos every day, offering lives to your followers to showcase your brand, advise about your products, and answer live questions from your followers, this investment will pay off, provided you don’t give up.
If you want to start to invest money outside of traditional advertising, you can turn to influencers and influencer marketing to give your brand additional visibility with the help of these TikTok marketing experts!
Finally, another strategy can be used: if you have a database of customers and or local influencers, for example, you can send them directly your products for free, as small gifts that will make them happy, to build excitement around your brand and possibly get published on their TikTok account as a result of your attention to them.
Can I add links to my products?
To sell their products on TikTok, online retailers must find a way to promote their catalog in video. But can we add links to our products to go directly to the purchase from TikTok?
For the moment, apart from the link that you can add in your account's bio, it’s not possible to create a direct link to a product, for example.
However, the lives will soon become Live Shopping: TikTok has announced that it wants to introduce this original format within its features.
When the user watches a live video from a content creator, if the author of the live has imported their catalog into the application and has configured their live beforehand, it’ll be possible to display links to online products directly from the live video. This is an innovation that will soon appear elsewhere, to sell on YouTube or sell on Instagram in particular.
Selling on TikTok will then be easier thanks to this type of page specially configured for ecommerce and online product sales. The number of views on the videos and on the live streams can be converted more easily into customers on the online stores. Other platforms like Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube have lots of competition with the TikTok app, the app of all possibilities.
