Let’s Get Your TikTok Going

TikTok is a relatively young but rapidly growing social network where every user can get impressions for free. This feature makes the app a blogger's go-to option. However, it's not the only reason to love this platform: affiliate marketers may find it enticing as the audience there is still growing. In just four years after its launch, TikTok outranked Twitter and Pinterest.

In January, 2023, the situation didn't gravely change:

As you can see, up to this day, this platform remains one of the most profitable options for affiliate marketers. In this article we will tell you how to get more traffic from TikTok, how to drive traffic from TikTok in 2023, and what tools and techniques you can rely on in order to earn more money.

Acquiring Knowledge

We've already stated that TikTok is incredibly popular. By this, we imply that the platform has been developing with as much force and speed as possible. It is still gaining popularity in countries with a solvent audience, including those in Tier 1.

Beginner affiliates can also work with the app, especially in the CIS countries: in this GEO, TikTok overtakes its closest competitors in popularity, Instagram and Facebook.

The audience has been growing, and the pace doesn't seem to slow down. TikTok references appear on blogs, personal pages of other social networks, and in the media.

Exploring the Target Audience

To date, the application is used by more than 1.29 billion people around the world:

• users launch it on average 7 times a day;

• average use time: 45 minutes per day;

• 60% of users watch entertaining and funny videos.

According to the Global Web Index, due to the explosive growth in popularity, TikTok has traffic for offers from all GEOs: its audience is growing all over the world.

High growth rates have attracted affiliates to TikTok: that's the platform where they can find different audiences. Initially, the app was created for people from 16 to 25 years old, but first, it gained popularity among schoolchildren and then lured adults.

Now 50% of the TikTok audience are people under 34 years old, of which 43% are men and 57% are women. The app is popular among all groups of people:

• media personalities;

• politicians;

• entrepreneurs;

• IT specialists and many others.

The main question is how financially stable the target audience is. In fact, the situation is better than you can imagine: 66% of registered users have an income of average or higher.

The majority of users live in the USA. This is confirmed by Business of Apps statistics. Research by this company has shown that there is now a trend towards expanding GEOs and increasing user coverage.

Difficulties

Nielsen reports that 43% of TikTok users believe that advertising on the social network blends with other content. On the one hand, this simplifies the task for affiliate marketers; on the other hand, you need to learn how to create high-quality creatives so that they do not irritate users. At the same time, they must draw user attention with video and music.

Native advertising in the form of short videos works best on TikTok. The social network is not very popular among advertisers; only 5% of specialists use it. The audience does not have banner blindness, and creatives achieve high conversion rates.

The users who see your video are selected by an algorithm, so it’s easy to get to the top in your region.

First of all, you need to choose the right vertical. Normally, youngsters are interested in:

• dating;

• eCommerce, mainly electronics;

• Online service promotion;

• gambling;

• beauty.

The disadvantage of the platform is that despite the paying capacity of the adult audience, leads from this target audience are less likely to interact with advertising. It is also difficult to work with TikTok due to regularly changing rules.

Let's summarize the advantages and disadvantages of TikTok.

Hallmarks

The choice in TikTok's favor is explained by the target audience and its diversity, but there are still a few unpromising products that cannot offer an outstanding performance:

• drugs that increase sexual function;

• premium segment eCommerce;

• B2B;

• rheumatism ointments and the like.

The listed product won't do well on Instagram either, as the audience there also consists of young people yet unfamiliar with this type of problem. If you promote things like that, you can resort to Facebook instead.

However, the situation is constantly changing, and the platform gains popularity among older people as well. For example, in Tier 1 countries, the average annual income of 51.8% of the users is $75,000. Still, avoid focusing on specific products that can be interesting for the audience of 55 and older: this category is not omnipresent on TikTok, and they barely respond to advertising on this platform.

TikTok traffic is different from Facebook and Instagram: creatives should always be your top priority. Moreover, make sure your creatives are unusual, clear, and interesting. For a very short period of time, it is expected to:

• pique user curiosity;

• talk about the promoted product or service;

• surprise.

As TikTok recommendations depend on an algorithm, the traffic flow can unexpectedly boost or, on the contrary, experience a galvanic decrease. With that in mind, try various promotion strategies, change methods, and alter creatives after a profound analysis.

Algorithm at Work

The mystery of the algorithm hasn't yet been unraveled: both bloggers and affiliates fail to fully comprehend the principle. The developers rarely reveal their secrets, occasionally throwing a bone to the audience by introducing updates and changes. For instance, For You videos get in the tab based on the GEO: a user sees a video closest to them in terms of location. This knowledge is important for organic growth. There are other things we can deduce:

1. When selecting content, AI registers GEO, user interests, and audience engagement: the number of reposts, comments on the video, and likes.

2. Videos made in the built-in editor are more actively promoted. You don’t have to use professional tools or do it to a minimum.

3. New accounts are strictly moderated. If you can surprise users immediately, the moderation process may become more lenient.

4. The algorithm is constantly changing. You will not cheat by catching one trend. Try different approaches to maintain audience growth on TikTok.

5. Be regular. If you stop uploading videos, the promotion of all videos on your account will be suspended.

6. Promotion is mostly conducted through recommendations. Initially, the video will receive a small number of impressions. If the audience responds well, promotion will begin across thousands of accounts.

7. Organic promotion is facilitated by recommendations based on the last interactions with the video. If a person likes a video on a certain topic, similar ones will be shown to him more often in the feed.

8. Trend filters and popular hashtags are perfect for effective promotion.

9. Properly selected music or sounds will make it to the top of the list of recommendations.

Film TikTok videos with real people, as they resonate more with the audience than videos created with screen capture or animation. At the same time, you should not include lengthy monologues or a boring list of advantages: after all, it's an entertainment platform. Make bright pictures that attract attention.

Select Your Offer

It's not too difficult to choose the right offer for TikTok if you follow general rules:

• Create high-quality content in a niche that is interesting and close to you.

• Pick a vertical in which you already have experience on other platforms.

• Choose a reliable affiliate program that counts your leads properly and pays without delay.

• Focus on Tier 3 countries. These developing countries have low traffic costs and high conversion rates, which gives you more opportunities to run a powerful campaign, especially on TikTok.

• Don’t neglect spy services. They can help you watch and analyze campaigns launched by your competitors. Evaluate creative effectiveness and examine the marketing funnel to use similar ideas, making them more engaging. If you need more information on the topic before implementing the tool in your daily routine, read the article dedicated to spy services:

Read more Breaking Down Affiliate Marketing Tracking Software

21 minute to read the article

Learn from the offers with small payouts and follow your manager's advice to make a minimal profit in the first stage and eventually grow and expand. When you understand the sources of traffic, you can choose more profitable options and change the GEO.

Working with Offers

The audience should also be interested in the promoted products. You can resort to the following options:

• eCommerce offers. Gadgets, fashionable clothes, and shoes; everything stylish and popular among young people. White offers can be set up in the advertising account; if you work with gray offers, choose other approaches.

• Beauty products and services. Korean cosmetics are the best. Premium brands and anti-aging products sell poorly, so if you consider working with these options, you can only use TikTok as an additional traffic source.

• Dating. Mainstream dating works fairly well; the adult response is much worse. TikTok account farming, comments, subscriptions, and likes are the best methods of promotion.

• Gambling and betting. Such offers are officially prohibited on the platform, but there's one thing you can do: create a channel where you can talk about your success in gambling and betting. The content has to be useful, so you'll have to reveal successful schemes and ways to earn money.

Landing page links can only be attached in one place on TikTok: in the profile description. Keep that in mind and create profiles for each offer.

TikTok in Affiliate Marketing

In the past, the platform used to belong to large brands in terms of advertising, but now the situation has changed: you can create an advertising account, but you can only use it for white offers. In gambling and betting you can only drive organic traffic through your TikTok channel or bloggers.

You can additionally use other methods:

• limited spam: subscriptions to bloggers, comments, and likes;

• cloaking for impressions on social networks.

One of TikTok's advantages is that you can get banned only for gross violations. It is possible to create several accounts from one device. You can subscribe to 200 profiles per day, leave up to 500 comments, and place up to 5 hashtags under one video.

Setting Things Up

Affiliate marketing on TikTok isn't as time-consuming as it is on other platforms. Even a beginner can get into trends with 5-6 videos, receiving tens of thousands of views.

The ideal advertising method for beginners is music stickers. If the ad is attractive to the public, it will bring conversion. The only inconvenience is that you cannot insert clickable links into the video description, and many users will not be able to copy them or simply will not want to do so.

That's how you can hack the system:

• Create a funnel by linking your Instagram profile or YouTube channel to your account. Here's a detailed material that explains how funnels work and what stages it should include.

• Use multilink or URL shortening services.

• Connect a business account.

• Use promotional codes instead of links. Just make sure that they are associated with your personal ID.

A TikTok account for organic arbitrage can later be connected to paid functions. In this case, you will receive greater reach, and some options will be provided for free. By the way, active affiliates have recently started to connect Pro accounts through profile settings, thus unlocking additional tools, for example, analytics.

Bloggers on Deck

The idea is simple: you buy a mention of your profile in a video released by a popular TikToker. The audience, trusting it, clicks on the tag and eventually goes to the advertiser’s website.

Polish your profile before you start:

• insert a link to the landing page in the description;

• add several videos, and tell about your product in a couple of them.

The most important thing is to evaluate the profiles of bloggers you're about to work with. The number of subscribers must not be a fake. Evaluate previous integrations; check out the views and the likes. If the audience is active, negotiate cooperation.

Paid Advertising

As these methods have recently become available, affiliates resort to them in their work constantly, choosing to support several formats at once.

Brand Takeover

This tool allows you to display a banner during the application launch. The picture is shown for 3 seconds, and the GIF or video is shown for up to 5 seconds. You can offer users:

• go to the website;

• view your profile;

• download the application.

The size of the picture or video must be up to 2 MB. You can use static images with a minimum of movement. Ready-made templates will also work.

TopView

Another thing you can try is a video ad (from 5 to 60 seconds) during the app launch. The video will be marked as Sponsored. This format is suitable for brand promotion:

• increases awareness on the Internet;

• searches for clients that would visit the site;

• increases profile subscribers.

However, if you are a beginner, stay away from this option, as the cost per display is too high to deal with at this stage.

In-Feed Native Video

What is it: looks like IG stories, behaves like IG stories, but is not IG stories? This one. In-Feed Native Video offers to watch a video up to 60 seconds long. Users can interact in several ways:

• comment;

• like;

• subscribe to the profile;

• use music from the video for their videos;

• go to the landing page.

As such videos emerge on the feed and look organic, you can frequently bump into them.

Another reason to use the app is that there are several payment options:

• for views;

• for clicks (regular and optimized);

• for impressions.

You can run advertising on TikTok through the for Business account, and the cost of the action depends on the auction results.

Hashtag Challenge

That's where large brands win. Together with bloggers and celebrities, they start a challenge: they induce you to film a video on a certain topic and mention a specified hashtag below. Of course, additional conditions may pop up: the organizers may insist on placing the product on camera or using a specified soundtrack.

A Converse campaign didn't skip a beat: launched in England, it expanded to the entire world. Users painted their sneakers on camera, received their fair share of subscribers, and the winners were awarded. In just 6 days, the challenge ad got 24 million views. It would be almost impossible to run a regular campaign with such reach.

Branded Effects

An unobtrusive promotion option. The plan is the following: the company’s designers create stickers, filters, and special effects.

Additionally, you can launch a challenge for people to use these filters and effects in their content. As a result, the company will receive additional mentions and increase audience loyalty and awareness.

How to Drive Traffic from TikTok

If you have ever worked with the Facebook advertising account, TikTok's a child's play. Prepare an ad, set up targeting, undergo moderation, and launch the campaign. All formats support the placement of links and the selection of a specific target audience.

A business account may not be available in your GEO, but there's a shortcut: select another country when registering. In this case, a virtual number will help you confirm your phone number.

Preparing an Ad

Creatives contain images, videos, and texts that users see. You can upload a ready-made solution to the platform or create a video using the built-in editor. It is best to use a previously made banner or video and apply the effects from the application.

Creative advice:

• the video lasts up to 20 seconds;

• the image is positioned vertically;

• shots change quickly;

• energetic music accompanies the advertisement.

Prepare your video and save it; it will be sent for moderation. Moderators will check if the video complies with the rules.

If you want to increase the effectiveness of your advertising campaign or simply don’t know how to promote your offer on TikTok, use spy services. With their help, select creative options, get inspired, and do better.

Undergoing Moderation

Knowing the platform rules will help you pass moderation. The restrictions are similar to those of Facebook and Twitter.

Forbidden:

• Use attributes and symbols of prohibited criminal organizations in music and hashtags.

• Promote drugs, including footage of drug use.

• Advertise weapons, poisonous, explosive, and toxic substances.

• Call for violence by any means.

• Incite hatred on national or religious grounds, including speaking negatively towards other TikTokers.

• Promote fraudulent services.

• Use spam and advertising of other platforms (Instagram and Telegram, for example.)

• Include footage of erotic or pornographic content in the video.

It is not advisable to post videos with children under 13 years of age: they are subject to strict moderation. Rules violation will result in video deletion as well as the ban of the account.

Before launching a campaign, check out the prohibited symbols in the GEO of choice. In China, Peppa the Pig was banned. Be careful.

If you work with gray offers, farm accounts and resort to cloaking.

It is better to promote such offers organically by advertising profiles, changing them after bans, and actively interacting with other users.

Setting Up Your Campaign

There's an algorithm that will help you work with advertising campaigns.

1. After registering and verifying your account, you will be able to create campaigns. Top up your account with the required amount, including the service fee.

2. Specify the goal you want to achieve: attracting traffic, installing an app, getting conversions, or maximizing video distribution.

3. Choose a budget or skip this step. Specify whether ads will be broadcast automatically or whether you will make manual settings.

4. Set basic options: add a link, select a promotion type, enter a campaign name, and profile image, and indicate how users will interact with the ad.

5. With automatic optimization, the system will independently generate presets based on the content. Several options are created for the ad, after which the algorithm will select the most effective ones.

6. Set standard targeting settings: GEO, target audience — age, gender, interests.

6. Set rates for impressions; determine the budget and impression schedule.

7. Add creatives. AI can be trusted to generate content, but in this case, the ad will not work effectively.

Wait until your ads pass moderation, and start tracking the campaign.

Analyzing Ads

TikTok offers you a built-in tool for tracking ad statistics, but its functionality is limited. For example, there is no A/B testing of the campaign, so you will not see the full portrait of the audience that responded.

Resort to third-party services instead:

• Tune;

• Appsflyfer;

• App Metrica;

• Volume and others.

Tips

First of all: DO THAT. TikTok is a developing social network with a solvent audience for each GEO.

To get traffic, follow these tips:

• Design your account correctly: use short links, attract users, and link to other social networks.

• Make interesting vertical videos and post them regularly. Take part in challenges.

• Don’t forget to use hashtags, no more than 5 per video.

• Connect to Pro status if you are promoting a gray offer. It will allow you to track how your audience reacts to your video.

• If you use paid promotion, use third-party tools for testing and tracking campaigns.

• Advertising videos on TikTok should be as natural as possible.

• Before you start, study your competitors’ campaigns with spy services. With their help, you will discover creatives that have already been moderated and are generating profit. Make your own ad based on them, and there will be no problems with advertising. Not sure where to start? Check out the list of the best spy services here.

• Try to bypass bans: when an account is blocked, the money deposited into the account is not returned.

If you do everything right, working with TikTok can pleasantly surprise you. Precise campaign settings will allow you to get high conversions, and built-in and third-party tools will make it possible to quickly optimize it.