The Top 10 Ways to Succeed on TikTok Shop

Hello everyone. Thanks for joining our webinar today. We're just going to let a few more people start joining, give it a few minutes, and then we'll kick today's session off, which we're really looking forward to. So hope everyone's having a nice, nice wedding day, should I say? How's your day been, Danny? Good, yes, extremely busy but good. What about you? Yeah, it's been good, it's been good. So we'll give it one or two more minutes here, let some more people start joining, and we'll then kick off. Perfect, sounds exciting. OK, we'll kick off and I'm sure people joining can catch up.

But hello everyone and welcome to another one of our Toucan Talks webinars. I'm Curtis Ritchie, our Marketing Manager here at Toucan, and we're really excited that you've all joined us today, and we are really looking forward to running the session for you. If you want to learn what your brand can succeed on TikTok Shop, then you're in the right place. We have Danny, who's Toucan's TikTok Marketplace Manager and an expert when it comes to launching and managing brands on TikTok Shop. The session today will run for around 30 minutes, and we will have a live Q&A at the end. In terms of any questions, please feel free to submit them by typing into the Q&A section at any point during the webinar today. I'll collect all of these while Danny is presenting, and we will then answer as many as we can at the end. So I will now hand over to Danny to take you through today's session.

Perfect. Thank you so much, Curtis. So today we will be covering the top ten ways to succeed on TikTok Shop. I'm going to take you through the agenda for today. As we know, TikTok has grown massively in the last few years, especially since the shopping element has become integrated into the app. So we are going to begin with answering the question on most brands' minds, which is why TikTok, we consistently use the abbreviation FYP. So I'm going to cover exactly what this means and why it's an integral part of TikTok. Then we're going to touch on the power and impact TikTok has, in particular with consumer behaviour, which all leads me perfectly into my top ten recommendations for success on TikTok Shop. And lastly, we will finish off with highlighting the key takeaways from today.

So starting off, TikTok is growing rapidly with established brands such as ASOS now migrating over to the platform. A huge part of this is because of the highly engaging nature of TikTok. Brands can represent their authenticity through content and also build relationships directly with the consumer and through affiliates. You can also push out any of this high performing content further out with TikTok's diverse ad formats and powerful algorithm.

Touching on what the FYP is, it's probably a very common term that you've heard, but FYP stands for for you page. It is essentially your feed of content that's tailored to each user. For example, if I'm on TikTok searching about fitness or any gym workouts, I'm also interacting with those videos by liking, saving and sharing them. The next time I go onto the app, I most likely will see fitness related content, and this is because the algorithm is starting to show me content that they think I want to see. And what this does for brands is it means that you are starting to be introduced to customers and potential users that haven't heard of your brand before, for example, a protein part brand. 78% of consumers believe brands can foster community on social media, and this is why the For You page is so powerful, as brands who can reach their target audience in a very authentic and organic way.

So whilst TikTok is at the forefront, there is an overall growth in social commerce, which is projected to reach 16 billion by 2028 in just the UK alone. We have seen social commerce grow massively due to the fact community engagement and shopping has come together on these social platforms. What this leads to is an increase in engagement and also purchases. But as we know, TikTok Shop influences purchases from many other consumers every single day, myself included. For example, 3 and 4 TikTok users are likely to buy something whilst on TikTok. This already presents TikTok as such a strong marketplace that influences purchase decisions. And due to the fact that TikTok started as a content first app, this has become such a daily routine for people, for example, going on TikTok on the way to work or on the way home or even having a quick scroll before you go to sleep. So as a brand, it means that you can reach users even without them being in market. Secondly, 670% of TikTok users discover new brands and products on TikTok, most importantly in a very authentic way. And lastly, 83% of TikTok users say that TikTok plays a role in purchase decisions. And a huge part of this is going to be due to the fact we have affiliates and also growing to see that influence the landscape that we have today. But we will go into more detail on that later.

So we're going to be going into TikTok's algorithm, and leveraging TikTok's algorithm is so fundamental. On TikTok, you need to make sure that you are landing on users' for you pages consistently, therefore keeping your brand top of mind in users' minds. TikTok gives you the opportunity to do this with their powerful algorithm, but there are different ways to ensure that you are actually succeeding in this. So firstly we will start off with a hook. If you have a strong hook within the first 3 seconds of your video, you are automatically capturing a user's attention, and your aim here is to very much spark interest within that customer. So if you have a shoppable link that already encourages a quick purchase, TikTok has built the whole see it, buy it, want it journey. And if you're not utilising this, you might actually lose a potential customer, and they will just be scrolling on their for you page, missing your brand. In addition to that, you want to make sure that you're sparking the creative side of your brand and also getting involved in these challenges, utilising the sounds and also incorporating any keywords within your hashtags or within your captions. What this does is really start to push your content out to the right audience. The algorithm will favour those also using these sounds that are currently popular at that time and also being shared, therefore creating shareable content, which is a very important part of TikTok. Next, consistency is key on the platform. You want to post at least between 3 to five times a week to boost yourself within that algorithm. And lastly, you want to engage with your audience, so utilise your comment section and see it as an extended opportunity to bring your brand to life. It also allows you to start building a community of loyal followers or customers, and TikTok will also recognise people are engaging and push your content out further, therefore really leveraging TikTok's algorithm here.

Moving on to product listings, of course you know that you need to be retail ready before launching on TikTok Shop or optimising. If you already have existing listings, you want to incorporate keywords into your title that are being searched for, to firstly boost your visibility and increase your brand awareness. For those users that will be seeing your products within the shop tab, you want to ensure that you have high quality imagery on your product cards, starting with, of course, product shots, clear imagery. You want images that call out key USPs and also including some lifestyle imagery to show the relatability of your products to audiences on TikTok. This in turn converts better as it presents your products in the best way possible, especially when customers are in that consideration stage. And then to build further trust, build up your reviews and your star ratings. Use the initiatives available to message customers straight after a purchase. Utilise any UGC content that's been created on the platform to make your product come to life and make it even more relatable for an audience that want to see your product in action. And lastly, you want to use the product description section to showcase any key benefits of your products, not just features. And if there are any customer questions that keep coming up, continue optimising your listings and include any missing information here too.

Perfect. So moving on to live shopping. Live shopping, just to have a brief explanation, is an interactive shopping experience where you will promote your products through a host, and you will also have links available for users to purchase any products during that live. You can reach new to brand customers and also existing users when they are scrolling on that live. Firstly, you want to utilise TikTok's promotions available on the platform, for example, a flash sale. This is a time bound offer that will create a sense of urgency with any users that are watching and shopping on that live. They don't want to miss the offer, and that's the type of atmosphere that you want to create. Next, we have engagement. A great way to do this is through demonstrations and also how to's. This is a huge part of your live strategy that you need to incorporate. For example, if you are a beauty brand, this would be the perfect time to show your products in real life, either on yourself or having a model there for you. What you're doing is encouraging engagement and purchases. People are seeing your product and they're being excited by it too. This in turn is going to spark even more conversations within the comments section from users, and it will also keep them on that live for a longer amount of time, which in turn plays with TikTok's algorithm very well. Next, you want to make sure that you are having a hook and a clear structure for these lives. You want to have a script ready for your hosts, and you also want to keep them engaged as you're going along. So lives, for example, can incorporate themes. If you are a confectionery brand, why not do some live baking or building up your product? Another example is pack your order with me. I spend far too much time seeing people pack orders, but it's a very exciting and engaging way to show your customers that you care about them. If they are purchasing on that live, you can see that right away, and as a presenter you want to utilise that and also just make the live a lot more personal. Write their name down, talk about them, talk to them, overall increasing the engagement in your live. You also want to ensure that you're promoting your live through content prior to the event. You have to treat it as an upcoming event. You want to demonstrate or talk about the products, calling out key USPs, and that's also going to excite users even more and keep them engaged, and then having a good call to action. As mentioned, you need to have this in your scripts throughout for your hosts, readily available. For example, all you need to do is purchase below, purchase now, having these keywords in them reminds the users, and this is only going to encourage purchases and also create that seamless journey for the consumer. And lastly, we want to utilise regularity. So the same way that you should be consistent with posting, you need to host lives regularly too. That's also going to boost yourself within that algorithm. It's also an ideal way to keep customers engaged and continue to bring your brand to life.

Moving on to creators and affiliates. So affiliates hold a huge power in the consumer journey. They drive up to 80% of sales for some brands. The type of content that they post has led to the TikTok made me buy it mindset, encouraging quick purchase decisions. And what this means is that you are consistently reminded of the brand and you are everywhere. That is definitely the aim by building up your affiliates over time. So firstly, you want to make sure that you align your brand with the affiliates that you are picking. This will also help you grow your brand's identity over time and also reach your aimed target audience. You want to make sure that you're widening your net wide enough to reach beyond your target audience too, and this is where you're going to utilise both open and target collaboration. With open collaboration, it allows any creators to add your product to their showcase with a set standard commission that you will set prior to having this open on your account. Then you have target collaboration, where you can pick exactly the creators that you want to work with on the programme and personally reach out to them, already sparking a conversation with them and discussing what you want to do moving forward.

So you may now be wondering what exactly is this content that the affiliates would want to post after receiving their free sample and also agreeing on their commission rate. So firstly, authenticity is definitely key here. These affiliates already have a loyal community, and you want to make sure that their videos are also coming across authentic. Therefore, avoid heavy scripting. You don't want anything to look too forced or fake, and you want to avoid the whole sell, sell, sell aspect of it. You can also encourage specific content from your affiliates, most times they will actually want to have something from you, a short guide as to what these products are, in considering their USPs too. So by allowing your affiliates to have all the information that they need, you're going to avoid that heavy scripting and you're also in turn building credibility. This may spark another similar creator to also see their video and think that this is a brand that they want to work with and reach out to you.

So when looking at your top performing affiliates, you want to make sure that you are also building a long term relationship with them. You can either increase their commission rate as you go along or even reward them with some more samples or bonuses. High GMV earners within your category should also be offered a higher commission rate to help attract them to want to work with you from the very beginning. And lastly, you need to continue to actually reach out to your existing affiliates whilst you also build a new network at the same time, because you of course want all your affiliates to continuously promote your products. But by building up a larger amount of affiliates, you'll be reaching more users on the platform.

Next, we're going to be moving into TikTok's advertising formats. So once you have created your content, chosen your affiliates and have them starting to promote your videos and your products, you also want to make sure that you can utilise these formats. So the two main ad formats that you want to utilise on TikTok are firstly product shopping ads, which push your products on the shop tab for in market users, and then secondly, video shopping ads. This is going to further promote your videos and the content that you have posted, but with a shoppable link, once again allowing that seamless consumer journey. You also want to make sure that you use Spark Ads. So Spark Ads are there to boost any high performing affiliate videos. You want to see how well a video is performing organically before doing this. This is also a reward that you can let your affiliates know about too, in turn boosting their overall views and engagement and sales in commission. So it all returns back to wanting to nurture a relationship with them, and there are so many different ways to do that. You also can retarget users that have already purchased on the platform. And lastly, you want to make sure that you're consistently tracking your analytics in order to optimise where needed. This is very important. You can continuously review your ad strategy and put more budget towards the ads that are already performing well.

Moving into a bit more detail on content and the idea of short form video selling. As we know, content is at the heart of TikTok. To ensure that your content is engaging, you need to make sure that it's fast-paced. This is the whole point of the platform. The For You page is there for you to continue scrolling, so you want to make sure that you're taking advantage of this, and as we mentioned before, not losing a customer. So have that hook within the first 3 seconds of your video. You also need to be able to be unique, stand out from the crowd and stand out from your wider competitors. So avoid using overproduced content. Storytelling is also so important on TikTok. An audience really wants to hear about why you started your brand and what's so special about it. And lastly, when posting these videos, once again you want to make sure that you're utilising the right ones within your ad strategy. Allow them to perform organically before then experimenting with ads.

Moving into all the deals and promotions that we have on TikTok, they have a range of promotional offers and discounts that you can use. You want to make sure that you're going a step further and also increasing your visibility when you're running these promotions, for example, firstly through your content, secondly through your video shopping ads and also your product shopping ads, and lastly your shop page. A lot of people will go onto your shop page to see your extended catalogue and read more about your brand. So what you can do is add a module at the top of your shop page that presents your today deals. So firstly, starting off with product discounts you can make, this is a more attractive discount for users to see, especially on a product shopping tab where they're looking at you and looking at other competitors. It's very attractive because you have a strike through price showing. Flash deals create a sense of urgency, as mentioned before, they encourage quick purchase decisions, and this is because they are limited time deals. This is perfect when you need to sell excess inventory or attract any new customers. Then we have vouchers, which encourage customers to increase their total order value and also boost their overall sales. And then we have shipping discounts. So offering delivery incentives is always going to be a great way to increase your conversions overall and also lower basket abandonment rates. What you don't want is having a £5 shipping fee and then losing a customer. So there are times when you can offer free shipping, for example, a certain amount of time, make it a time bound offer. You can also set a limit, for example, if you spend £9.99 you will have free shipping, and that's also a great way to build your order value. You want to also offer exclusive live deals to incentivise quick purchases during your lives. For example, when you are on a live and you are promoting these products, you want to include either a giveaway or a deal. So make sure you're utilising the promotions within these times. It's going to attract new customers, as the algorithm will continue to push you with the more purchases that you get within that live. And then lastly, buy more, save more, so you can offer product combination deals to your customers. For example, you can do one tier. Tier 1 can be buy 2 items and get 20% off, or Tier 2 can be buy three items and get 30% off.

So TikTok does give you the opportunity to build a loyal community, and authenticity is what a lot of users look for on TikTok. I recently watched an interview with a brand owner, a very successful fashion brand, who was asked the question of what is the biggest trend of 2025, and her answer was simply authenticity. Brands need to expose themselves as very honest and build credibility with an audience, because those are the people who are going to keep coming back and support your business. As previously mentioned before, you want to make sure that you engage with your audience. Utilise your comment section, check your DMs and see if anyone is messaging you, and then as you start to have UGC content arrive, see this as a format of reviewing. So add more followers to your feed. Reposting any videos that anyone posts or that you're tagged in, you can even add it to your story. If an affiliate has posted a video, for example, you may want to choose to run a Spark Ad, as we mentioned before, and push this further, only if this is done well organically. It's a format of organic reviews, but most people won't see it like that, and that's why it's an exciting way to reach customers that way. And then don't be afraid to spark conversations with your customers. It's the perfect time to do this, especially in your live. You can pre-prepare on your live strategy and have your host prepared on exactly what they want to say.

Moving on to trends and challenges. So a lot of brands are boosting their brand awareness through taking part in trends. It has always been, as we mentioned before, TikTok is a content first platform, so trends have been such a huge part of TikTok and what has built such a community of people on the app. There are so many different ways that you can do this, for example, viral challenges. You can have your brand be creative and also incorporate your products into these videos. You can research your direct and wider competitors to see what exactly is working for them, then you can use that as an inspiration to actually build your own content. Trends, however, will only last so long, so it's important to take part in these very early on, of which the algorithm will appreciate. Remember that most people are then going onto the sound once watching a video and scrolling to see who else has posted videos. So it's a great time to once again expose your brand to people that haven't heard of you before. And lastly, when you're also carrying out your competitor research, you can look out for those trending sounds. Use these to fit them into your videos by showcasing any products that you have, and remember, these are also being pushed by the algorithm.

Lastly, we're going to be moving into how you can track performance and optimise. So seeing what works for your brand is very important, and carrying out AB testing will help you compare between content pieces or which ad format you would prefer to use. For example, if there's any promotional activity you can test, does having a brand ambassador talk about the promotions that you have work better? Or is it better to just present the products, have a sound on top and use on screen text? But you won't know how this works until you do that AB testing. Once you do realise that something is performing well, you want to continue to make more of this, double down on it, create more and keep using that to increase your performance. And then lastly, make sure that you're consistently utilising the promotions and show off any discounts that you have on both your shop page and throughout your content.

And that is everything for today, but I will go through the key takeaways of today. So as we mentioned before, TikTok Shop is changing the e-commerce landscape and it very much has for the last few years. As we said, the social commerce market is predicted to be huge, and so it's really the right time for all brands to start taking part in this, because of how much you have the community and the shopping element coming together. You have affiliates driving the majority of sales, as mentioned before, 80% for some brands on TikTok. You are, as mentioned before, building community but also engaging with them in a very authentic and organic way. And this means that users are likely to buy and discover your brand while scrolling their for you page, because of TikTok's very powerful algorithm. You really want to take advantage of that back from the very start. And lastly, as mentioned before, use these analytics and use these insights to keep driving your performance forward.

Thank you so much for listening. I will pass it back to Curtis now, and I think we will jump into a live Q&A.

Thanks so much, Danny. That was great, it was super informative. And we have some questions for you to finish off today's session.

So one of the first questions we have here is, what do you look for when choosing affiliates to collaborate with? So whilst we see them as affiliates, for a regular user on TikTok they are their favourite influencers, and I think that's a huge part to take into consideration here. The fact that they are influencers means that people are organically already going onto their pages and trying to see what videos they are creating. They may be scrolling for over an hour on their favourite influencer's page and then being exposed to your brand in such an exciting way, for example, through an unboxing video. So you want to make sure that you are utilising this, because TikTok has been such a huge part of building up creators at the same time as brands. So people go to these affiliate videos and they're going to be influenced.

Another question we have here is, why are affiliates such a huge part of driving revenue on TikTok? So as mentioned before, you want to make sure that affiliates are always prepared in terms of what key USPs you want to have them show off in their videos. And you want to make sure that they are presenting your brand in the right way and using that identity to push your brand forward. They are in turn building your brand awareness, and that's such a huge important part of it. And by doing so, once again, you're exposing them to who you want to work with, and so in turn that's only going to just push more purchases forward.

Definitely, a few more questions we have here. Can I send customers to my D2C website instead of TikTok Shop? You can do. There are so many different ways to do this. For example, even including a link in your bio that will take people directly to your website, and you can also incorporate that within your content. So have a call to action right at the end. You'll have your hook, as we mentioned, a structure before, and your content is also important. But having that call to action at the end where you let them know that you are maybe running a slight discount on your website and directing them over to there, that's great stuff.

And one last question here. Is it better to have videos that showcase one product or an entire range? What are your thoughts? So when you build out your content strategy, I would look at how many products you have. If products have something to do with each other, it's a great time to actually upsell through your content. For example, letting them know that maybe if you're running any promotions, this second product you'll get for 10% off. But that's only if the products have something to do with each other. If not, I would separate them to allow yourself to focus the content directly on one product. But then once again, another time where you can start to bring all your products in again is through any trends, if you want to utilise your products and showcase them in this way.

That's brilliant, Danny, and that's all the questions for today. So we will finish up the session. Thanks for everyone who has joined our Toucan Talks webinar today. If you would still like to get in touch, if we didn't get round to answering any of your questions or you would like to know more, please do get in touch with us via e-mail at hello@toucanecommerce.com. And we hope to see you at another Toucan Talks event, whether that is online or in person in the future. So thanks and have a great rest of your day, everyone. Thank you.