The Ultimate Guide to Managing Your TikTok Shop Affiliate Collaborations

TikTok has transformed from a platform known for viral dance challenges into a significant player in the ecommerce space. 

And if you're a DTC brand looking to tap into their massive audience base, running a TikTok Shop affiliate marketing program can be a game changer for you.

Through your TikTok Shop, every influencer you partner with will be on an affiliate basis, allowing you to maximize your marketing efforts through performance-driven collaborations. Therefore, very less investment.

This article will help you understand how to manage your TikTok Shop affiliate collaborations strategically to reach a wider audience, and the tools you can use to run your affiliate program.

What is TikTok Shop affiliate marketing program?

TikTok Shop affiliate marketing program is a marketing strategy allowing brands like yours to list their products in TikTok Shop and collaborate with the right creators to promote them through engaging user-generated content (UGC) and drive sales. 

It's a great way to enhance brand visibility, increase revenue, and incentivize creators through a structured commission system, making it a win-win situation for both parties. You can manage the program through the TikTok Shop Seller Center.

There are three options for collaboration:

1. Shop plan: Here you can set a single commission rate for all your products, and is ideal if you want to keep things simple and easy to manage.
2. Open plan: In this plan, content creators who are interested can apply to promote your brand’s products. It’s ideal for you if you are looking to maximize exposure and reach a broad audience.
3. Targeted plan: In this option, brands can select specific creators they want to work with. This approach benefits brands who want to build targeted collaborations with influencers who align with their brand values and target audience.

These collaboration options will allow you to tailor your commission and offerings based on your marketing goals and the value of your products.

Here are the top three actions you must take when launching a TikTok Shop, according to Jeremy Locke, category manager for kitchen and dining at TikTok Shop.

Source: LinkedIn

Why should you build strong collaborations with your affiliates

When you put in the effort to strengthen your brand's relationship with your affiliates, you're encouraging them to actively promote your brand in a way that fosters a sense of community among their followers.

Here are three ways it can be beneficial for you:

• It motivates creators to put in more effort and produce quality content that drives sales.
• Creators are more inclined to promote products they love and believe in. This authenticity resonates with their followers, leading to higher conversion rates.
• As creators build successful promotional strategies and earn commissions, they will likely develop long-term brand relationships. This continuity can lead to consistent sales and a loyal customer base for your brand.

The advantage of running affiliate marketing programs for customer acquisition

Affiliate marketing has emerged as a powerful and cost-effective customer acquisition strategy within TikTok Shop. By leveraging the influence of creators and influencers as affiliates, brands can tap into new audiences and drive sales with minimal upfront investment. 

Source: Pepperjam

Here are three advantages of using affiliate marketing for customer acquisition:

• Cost-effective customer acquisition: One of the most significant advantages of affiliate marketing is its performance-based model. You pay commissions only when there is a sale. 

Unlike traditional advertising, this model allows businesses to reduce customer acquisition costs (CAC) by linking costs to performance.

Brands using affiliate marketing can see an average return of $15 for every dollar spent, which is a 1400% ROI. 

In an interview, Noah Tucker, founder of Social Snowball (an affiliate marketing platform for ecommerce brands), says, “You set a commission for, let’s say, $10 per referred order from an ambassador or affiliate. And either people will be motivated to acquire you customers at that price, or they’re not, but you have control over that.”

With affiliate marketing, DTC brands have direct control over customer acquisition costs.

• Niche targeting: You need to target collaborations with creators who cater to specific niches, so that your brand can reach audiences that align with your target market. 

TikTok's algorithm promotes content based on the user's interests and past behavior, favoring niche content. This means brands can connect with engaged audiences who are more likely to convert. 

Rival IQ reports that the median engagement rate by view on TikTok is approximately 3.4%, and brands that target specific audiences often see higher interaction levels compared to broader content strategies.

• Authenticity and trust: When a creator shares a product they love, their audience is likelier to consider that product, leading to higher conversion rates. 

With over 170 million monthly active users in the U.S. alone, TikTok is building momentum for driving sales through authentic, engaging content. Many users purchase after viewing a creator's video, highlighting the effectiveness of influencer-driven promotions.

Source: LinkedIn

Juozas (Joe) Kaziukėnas, founder and CEO at Marketplace Pulse, a business intelligence firm focused on ecommerce, believes TikTok Shop is the future of affiliate marketing. 

4 Steps on how to manage your TikTok Shop affiliate collaborations 

Step 1: Integrate your TikTok Shop with Social Snowball  

You can integrate your TikTok Shop with Social Snowball and manage and expand your TikTok Shop affiliate partnerships from your Social Snowball dashboard. 

This integration lets you add your current and new DTC affiliates to TikTok Shop collaborations from your dashboard. It also enables you to create a simple sign-up process where new affiliates can join your brand and TikTok Shop affiliate programs in one go.

Step 2: Add products for your open collaboration

After you connect your TikTok Shop account to Social Snowball, go to the TikTok Shop tab on your dashboard and click the "Add Products" button. This will show you a list of your current products from TikTok Shop.

Bonus Tip: Make sure to set the same commission rate in Social Snowball that you already set up in the TikTok Shop.

Step 3: Enable open collaboration in Social Snowball

Next, choose a program with affiliates you want to add to your open collaboration or create a new program.

To add your affiliates to an existing program, click on the program (in this case, lets take Vip Influencer), select the "TikTok Shop Collaboration" settings, enable the collaboration, and save your changes.

Now, every affiliate in this program will be able to connect to their TikTok Shop creator account and enroll in the program.

If you want to work with a new affiliate, you can add them from the dashboard by clicking the "Add Affiliate" button and choosing the program you want to add them to.

Step 4: Affiliates connect their creator accounts and showcase your products

After you enable TikTok Shop collaboration for a program, all affiliates in that program can connect their TikTok creator account to Social Snowball from their affiliate dashboard.

Once your affiliates connect their TikTok creator account to Social Snowball, they can see the products you've selected (along with the commissions) in their dashboard, add products to showcase, and create shoppable videos.

Let’s look at a case study where a DTC brand (Tabs Chocolate) partnered with Social Snowball and increased its revenue by 17%.

Tabs Chocolate is a DTC brand specializing in a unique dark chocolate supplement to enhance intimate intimacy. It is an adult product, so paid ads were not an option for them. 

Their primary traffic source was influencers and organic. With many influencer campaigns running at any given time, organizing them on a spreadsheet has been challenging for them. 

Also, tracking influencer sales was complicated. TikTok doesn't let most micro-influencer accounts put a trackable link in the bio, so UTM links weren't practical for them.

After partnering with Social Snowball, Oliver Brocato, the founder of Tabs Chocolate, realized organizing Tabs influencer programs can be simplified and automated to a great extent.

He liked how our Safelinks feature can auto-generate unique, single-use discount codes and affiliate links for every customer who interacts with an influencer's link, eliminating issues with code leaks. 

Using Social Snowball, Tabs Chocolate increased their influencer marketing revenue by 17% and got a 9.8X return on investment.

Here’s what Oliver had to say about us - “Usually when dealing with influencer programs of our size, things get lost. Details get lost, affiliate codes get lost, I don't think the program would have been able to function without these things set in place, which is fully automated by Social Snowball.”

4 Strategies to use TikTok Shop to reach untapped customer segments

Now that you know how to manage your affiliate collaborations to get better results, let's help you build a solid strategy for you affiliate program as well:

1. Set up competitive and attractive commission rates

The commission rates you plan to offer your TikTok creators should be competitive within the industry and reflect the value you expect them to deliver. 

Here are four steps that you should take: 

• Conduct thorough research to understand the average commission rates of other brands in your niche offer. 
• Determine the profit margins for your products to verify that the commission rates remain sustainable for your business. 
• Consider how often your products sell so you can set commission rates that match the value your affiliates bring.
• Categorize your products based on their value—high-value, mid-value, and low-value items. Assign different commission rates for each category to make sure higher-value products provide more significant incentives. 

Bonus Tip ⛄: Remember, establishing clear and transparent commission structures will help build trust and long-term partnerships with creators.

2. Maximize customer acquisition with goal-aligned collaboration

The next step is to optimize performance on TikTok Shop. For that you must align your affiliate commission structures with business goals. 

Here’s how:

• Determine what you aim to achieve through your affiliate program—increasing customer acquisition, boosting average order value, or driving repeat purchases. These goals will serve as the foundation for the commission structure.
• Choose a suitable commission model. Some options include—flat fees for a set number of posts, percentage-based commissions for every sale, or tiered rates. But make sure you set your commissions as per the GMV (gross merchandise value) of your product.

Offer a generous percentage of commission to encourage your affiliates to prioritize your brand over competitors.

• Assess the effectiveness of your affiliate program by tracking the total revenue generated through it, along with the sales generated by your top affiliates. Adjust commission rates and give higher commissions to the ones who drive more customers or hit a certain sales threshold.

Bonus Tip ⛄: Make sure your affiliates understand your business goals and how the commission structure supports them. Provide clear guidelines, training, and resources to help them succeed.

Optimize your affiliate strategies on TikTok Shop by monitoring performance and adjusting commission rates based on market trends and business goals.

3. Identify and partner with high-performing affiliates

To drive sales and enhance your brand visibility, you must identify and partner with high-performing affiliates that resonate with your target audience. 

This will not only make sure that your marketing efforts target the correct demographic but also foster authentic connections that can lead to increased consumer trust and loyalty.

Social Snowball provides an advanced creator analytics dashboard for tracking affiliates’ performance data, allowing brands to make informed decisions based on real-time data. 

Here’s how it enhances performance tracking:

• The platform tracks metrics such as total referral revenue, number of orders generated, average order value (AOV), and commissions earned. This data helps you understand which affiliates drive the most sales and which strategies work best.
• You can export detailed reports on affiliate performance. This helps you to analyze data over specific time frames. This includes the ability to filter results by individual affiliates or collective programs, providing a granular view of creators' performance.

By monitoring key performance indicators, brands can identify which affiliates drive the most traffic and conversions, allowing for data-driven decisions in partner selection.

4. Expand with LIVE

Focus on LIVE Shopping. This is a great way to introduce new products or more SKUs (Stock Keeping Unit) and engage your customers. 

LIVE shopping helps you interact with your audiences in real-time, show off your products, and answer any questions they might have. 

However, do not do it alone. Leverage your affiliate network. They already have an established audience, so they can help you get the word out and drive sales. This approach maximizes exposure and drives immediate sales through trusted recommendations; and your affiliates get a commission in return.

Conclusion

Building strong TikTok Shop affiliate collaborations is a powerful way to enhance your marketing strategy by tapping into the platform's vast audience. Partnering with TikTok creators increases your brand's visibility and builds authentic customer relationships. 

Social Snowball simplifies the management of your affiliate program, providing seamless integration with TikTok Shop. This enables you to track performance effortlessly.

And if you want to know more about what Social Snowball can do for your TikTok Shop business, you can always book a demo and find out.