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- [00:01]
A
Welcome to TikTok Shop Insiders podcast, your source for actionable news, trends and strategies.
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B
If you want to build a thriving.
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A
Brand or Creator presence on TikTok shop.
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B
This is your essential listen. Let's get started. All right. Hey, everyone. Welcome to TikTok Shop Insider podcast, your source for the latest news and strategies for TikTok shop. I am your host, Ivan, and we have my buddy Pat here. What's up, dude? How you doing?
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A
What's up, Ivan? It's good to be back.
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B
All right. Your screen black for a second, but you're all good. All right. So right now we are experiencing in our household something pretty cool. Our kids are back to school, so that's pretty awesome. Amazing.
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A
It's amazing.
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B
Yeah. Sorry, do you hear that on my side? Yeah. No.
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A
Oh, yeah.
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B
Because it's complete silence. There's no nothing. Yeah, that's right. But how's it been? How's that first week for you going?
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A
It took some adjusting. My oldest just started middle school and so we were like scrambling, getting like last minute supplies. Of course he's adjusting to going to multiple classes. We're adjusting the drop offs in two schools, but on days was a day three. Now I think we're. We're good. We've gotten to the groove. My son loves middle school so far.
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B
Sweet.
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A
So that. How about you? How about you guys?
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B
Pretty good. We still have two school drop off. Adjusting nicely, getting great compliments or kind of feedback from the teachers. Like, one of my daughter's teachers was like, can I clone your daughter? Like, she's been so amazing. I was like, dang. Okay, go for it.
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A
Yeah, right?
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B
Yeah, yeah. When you get that feedback, it's really cool. So, yeah, good so far. And then kind of. We're new to this podcasting game, but we recently just crossed 7,500 downloads.
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A
So.
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B
Awesome. Obviously on. On the back of a new topic, a new hot topic like TikTok shop, but it's been great. You know, I think a couple episodes ago I told you I was gonna get you a dinner at the 10k mark. So that's on the horizon. And soon to come.
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A
Almost there, guys. Keep downloading. I'm ready for dinner. Keep downloading the podcast.
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B
So you start to, you know, make your list of the places you want to go. Well, we'll do that. Yeah. And then kind of. Oh, go ahead.
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A
No, I was just thinking it's just kind of crazy. We've had. We're at 7,500 downloads. When we started, we were just kind of like, well, let's just put something up there and see what happens. I never thought 7,500 downloads would happen on a podcast a month, so it's pretty nice.
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B
To be honest, I don't even know what 7,500 means. I guess if you're looking at a room and 7,000, 7,500 kind of, let's call it, people were to kind of be listening to you, that'd be kind of crazy. So maybe a little bit of that. Obviously it's multiple episodes, et cetera, but you're kind of reaching that many people, so. Awesome. And then something that I'm also gaining from this whole process is like the network that I'm developing. Right. So people are listening to it, they see kind of our passion on everything and they're reaching out to us. Like, hey, what do you think about this? And all walks of kind of e commerce backgrounds and communities. Right. So it's like agency owners, people are killing it on TikTok shop. 10 figure sellers, you know, all the way down to like kind of newer people that are asking me all these onboarding questions. So, yeah, I think just continuing this over time, it's just, I feel like we're going to be a powerhouse in the TikTok Shop space and I, I can't wait for it.
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A
Yeah, I mean that network is everything, right? You're, you're having these conversations with people that are in Tik Tok Shop and that we're, you know, constantly learning things from people for, with all different kinds of backgrounds with regards to Talk Shop. So we can bring that content to the podcast and share with everybody who else listens, right?
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B
Yeah. So people internally at TikTok, we got people from Fast Moss shop plus Callow Data reaching out to me on LinkedIn, you know, big, big sellers, kind of talking about strategy and the latest and greatest. So pretty awesome, man. So, yeah, I guess.
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A
Love it, love it.
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B
All right, so we always like to start with some news and we, this is kind of, you know, we haven't spoken in a while and there's always been some crazy things going on on TikTok Shop. But the first thing we have, a quick note here is UK hiked or Tik Tok Shop in the UK has increased their seller fees. I think it was, I don't know what it was from, but it's at 9%.
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A
So yeah, 5%. 5%.
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B
5% to 9%, which is kind of huge. As some of you may know, UK TikTok shop has been alive, I guess for a lot longer than the US I think two plus three plus years now. So yeah, I think the summary here is like we all know that TikTok is going to raise its fees. Right now it's 6% but I don't anticipate it kind of raising anytime soon as they kind of build their network of sellers and buyers. But it's going to go that route where they're raising their fees over time.
- [05:06]
A
Yeah, absolutely. I mean they can only take losses for so long. I mean we kind of see it across the board. We talked about the removal of the free shipping incentive and going to a co funded shipping. The other one was recent. Like just this week they ended the, what's it called, the affiliate like credit program for samples. Like it used to be able to earn points to request samples And I think TikTok was funding those orders and that's gone now. You have to rely on ransom and invites too. So yeah, it was only a matter.
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B
Of time really for sure. Up next in the news, this is kind of has had my blood boiling for a little bit just because of lots of conversations that I've had. And yeah, this is Amazon opens up purchasing directly through Pinterest and TikTok. And here Amazon is making it more convenient for customers to shop on social media by expanding in app shopping. Customers can now shop on Amazon, can Now Shop Amazon's TikTok or Pinterest ads and check out with Amazon without leaving TikTok or Pinterest. Another note here is in app shopping with Amazon is available for select products advertised on TikTok or Pinterest and sold by Amazon or by its independent sellers. So yeah, the reason I get so hot and bothered about this is there's a lot of kind of LinkedIn conversations about this. But a lot of people use the term game changing very frequently and often and loosely.
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A
Loosely.
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B
And yeah, it's like it's to me this, if you read the headline, it's game changing. But when you drill down to it, it's much to do about nothing. And for me, especially with our history and Amazon and game changing projects coming out frequently, like you just become numb to them and you're kind of just like, let me just see it in action. That's kind of how I feel about it. But yeah. Pat, what were your initial reactions when you kind of saw this?
- [07:07]
A
Yeah, I mean we had clients asking us about this too when the news came out and we're kind of wanting to do a wait and see. At first it didn't really make sense because of the emergence of TikTok shop why would they allow Amazon to sell within their platform? And I think you broke it down. So it's really about the ad dollars, right? There's nothing. And the product availability because it's not all products that are going to be available for this program.
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B
Right. So for me it's like TikTok has the eyeballs, right? Amazon doesn't have the eyeballs or that's where it starts. Right. Amazon has the infrastructure, the listing and the fulfillment. You know, if someone is watching a video on TikTok, they see it and they get an Amazon ad for it, you know they'll buy it there. Right? But why would TikTok allow a Amazon product on their platform or category on their platform if they already have it on TikTok shop? Like they would just keep that TikTok shop revenue, right? So I, you know, there's benefits in that. You know, they have Amazon's network and fulfillment and of course they could do that, but only for products that they can't fulfill themselves. Right. So if they have the network, why would they forego that? You know, TikTok shop fees and etc. So I could be wrong. This could be an amazing integrated environment. But I, from my experience with Amazon, it's like no, this is just much to do about nothing. So wait and see for sure on this one, how it pans out. Yep. Another thing we have here is Yuka, the bots and automation tool that we use for TikTok shop affiliate outreach. They have a kind of a cool addition of targeting based on language. So as you might know, on TikTok shop there's a heavy Spanish speaking kind of affiliate network and they just seem to be buying more than the average person. The Spanish speakers on, on TikTok. So they have a in Yuka. When you're searching for affiliates you can search by Spanish speaking, which is awesome, right? If that's one of your objectives as a brand, that's something that kind of Yuka makes it easy to look for that something here is fraudulent orders on TikTok shop. This is something that we're seeing more and more. But let me read you a, a post that I saw. One of our partners is having issues with fraudulent orders. Have you seen this issue? 3 orders that are 10 times the normal order value, all from different TikTok users but using the same shipping address. And it looks like almost a bot was placing the order and someone said that they could be placing orders during a live where it kind of makes the GMV look Good. And then cancel the order after the live. So, you know, where there's money to be made, there's going to be people kind of manipulating everything. So another instance of kind of TikTok and fraudulent activities going on.
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A
Yeah, people are always kind of trying to push the envelope.
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B
Right.
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We saw with Amazon and you know, being Tik Tok being a new platform, they're going to push envelope to see how they can hack, you know, the algorithm a little bit to get maybe more views on their lives or, or something like that. So that's definitely.
- [10:37]
B
Yeah, yeah. It's kind of, you know, definitely part of the process. You know, our job here is kind of tell you this as a seller so you guys can keep an eye out for it. But yeah, it's kind of crazy and, you know, kind of expected in a way. So one thing up next that I want to talk about is YouTube taking on TikTok shop. And essentially YouTube is now creating their own affiliate network and connecting affiliates selling brands products. Right. And we all knew this was coming. Facebook meta is in development of their own and it's just like, yeah, I think we called our podcast TikTok Shop Insiders. But now it's going to be kind of social commerce. Right? There's good. It's not just TikTok shop. Every single social media platform is going to have some e commerce element added to it. Excited to see how it rolls out, but yeah. Pat, what are your thoughts on like YouTube and TikTok shop?
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Yeah, I mean, it's writing was on the wall. We talked about this like in our early episodes, I think of the podcast.
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B
Right.
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Your big bet is on social commerce, obviously, when you kind of see it throughout the history of social media, when vine was popping, that's when Instagram added videos. Right. So a lot of TikTok shop is popping YouTube videos. YouTube shorts is coming with their. It's a partnership with Shopify. Right. To offer e commerce on their platform. So kind of expected. You know, I think this is the reason why we focus heavily now on affiliate cultivation. Right. Building that network of affiliates, making sure you have creators who have presences on all these platforms to make sure that in your network of affiliates. And that's super important for us for sure.
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B
Yeah. I think more to come as we develop out our YouTube strategy. Anyone doing any kind of great, good moves on YouTube hit us up and love to talk about it. And yeah, up to the meat and potatoes of this episode. So Pat can attest more than anybody. But the last couple weeks for us, last Two or three weeks have been insanely busy. Lots of inbound leads turning into inbound clients, turning into, you know, inbound kind of performance. And it's really, in a way, like, pressure tested us. We knew it was coming, so we were prepared as much as possible, which made things a lot easier, but essentially onboarding a handful of clients and kind of figuring out TikTok for them, and, you know, we've been doing that pretty hot and heavy last couple weeks, and we kind of have some learnings from that, and we wanted to share that with you guys to hopefully kind of ease your TikTok journey or, you know, smoothing out, get you. Get you guys some sales. Right. So starting up that it's like getting better at our processes and procedures. When we're kind of starting a client on TikTok shop, like, what does that kickoff call look like? What is that? You know, first steps? How fast can we get those steps from zero to, you know, getting affiliates or getting that sales? So, Pat, how are you finding that, like, when we're onboarding these clients, like, what are your kind of thought process on?
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A
Yeah, I mean, all. All of the brands start in different places. As far as TikTok shop, like, some. One brand didn't even have a TikTok shop set up yet, you know, so we had to help them through the process of, like, just even applying and getting their shop approved. Others have shopify sync issues with their inventory, so we troubleshoot that. So they all kind of start in different places. But at the end of the day, you know, we've kind of had to be organized, set expectations with clients to lay out. Like, these are the hurdles that will happen. This is how long we expect it to take. This is, you know, how long we've been accomplishing from the kickoff call to getting your samples out and kind of laying out those expectations for them has been helpful. And then getting more organized on, like, exactly. All the information we need when we need it from the client has definitely been. The new process has been helpful for sure.
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B
And I think some of those off the top of my head that matter the most, it's like a kickoff call to establish where we're at. And then the next phase is how fast can we get to affiliate outreach started, right? And then after that, it's how fast can we get to that first sale? But that last part that I just mentioned is a big, long journey, right? It's like, you know, four to six weeks. So some of those things that, you know, what happens is we onboard a client, we Start at, you know, week zero. From week zero to like week six, there's this kind of nebulous period of like, I don't know, right. Both, both sides, right. Like is my product going to work? I'm sending out all, all these pieces of samples and I'm not getting any sales. Like what's going on? It's week four, five, six. We're sending out client samples to this, you know, like 100, 200 per week. And you know, it's a hard point in time but you know, I think trust the process if you will. We, we, we kind of, we were in those conversations and we kind of didn't have a direct answer. But we've fortunately been able to boil it down to a couple things. Right. Like you know, we are sending out those samples, they are getting to them, their videos are getting made. We're not getting any sales but X, Y and Z. So we want to break that down for you of like what are, what are some of those improvements that we're seeing and kind of building up to those sales on TikTok shop. So some of those KPIs. So Pat's kind of the kind of spearhead on this. But Pat, I'll let you run through like what are the things we look like we'll look at kind of pre sales post launch on TikTok.
- [16:13]
A
Yeah, I'd say pre sales post launch. So we've sent out hundreds of samples. We're getting, you know, we're at the 80 to 90 video mark, so we're getting a good amount of content coming back. Obviously not all 90 videos coming back, not 100% of those are going to be the top quality content. So what do we look for as far as what to highlight with the client? You know, the main thing, the main thing we've been telling them, and this is kind of like a macro trend on TikTok overall is the days of like posting a video and getting a thousand organic views are pretty much done. You know, it's TikTok's way of forcing creators and sellers to pay for advertising they need to monetize the platform. And this has been a big push. It's becoming more of a pay to play platform now versus just relying on organic traffic. We do occasionally get pops of organic traffic, but when you look at like the entire list of videos, maybe less than 10% of them have over a thousand views. Everybody else has, you know, less than that. Right. So that's. So once we identify that, we try to find the top videos that are eligible for like advertising, right? What we find out, okay, hey, this video only has 800 views, but the click through rate is 20%. Like of the 800 people that view the video, 20% of them click through. And it's crazy how high compared to everybody else who's at like 2, 3%. So that video, we highlight that video as an example for, you know, show it to the client and we recommend running advertising. So we say, hey, this video looks great, the quality is great, they're selling the product correctly. It's getting a very high click through rate. We should run advertising on it because the only thing holding it back is it's not getting the eyeballs right. So that's kind of one of the main factors I look at when looking at all the videos that are coming back from the sample set.
- [18:02]
B
Yeah, that's great. So I mean click through rate is a huge variable that we look at and it tells us like, you know, if you just look at sales, you know, we have 80 videos and none of we got no sales. That's not a great report to give. But hey, look at this sessions graph, you know, trending upwards and to the right. Look at this, you know, click through rate of these videos that, you know, these four videos that have a higher than average click through rate. And you can show them the video and say, hey, this is actually really good. Like let's put some ad dollars behind it so we get more sessions behind those videos, right? And then another variable that we look at is conversion rate, right? So we're getting the sessions, we're getting the click through rates and man, wait a minute, it's not converting like what's going on, right? So double clicking on that. There's a couple things we look at, right? Like some of the main things are social proof on dot on your dot com and Amazon. Like if you're a buyer on TikTok shop and you see a video and you're like wait a minute, this is cool, I want this or my, my son can use this. You're going to go to Amazon to see the review or to see, you know, the pricing, et cetera. So does it have great reviews on Amazon? Is the first kind of thing that I do. I know my wife does, right? So social proof on Amazon on your dot com, making sure that's there. Something is also coming of related but social proof on TikTok shop, you know, number of units sold, does it have good reviews? Does it have any reviews? Does it have zero product sold, zero reviews? Like I wouldn't buy off there. I know most people wouldn't. Right. So getting that initial, you know, number of sales and that number of views is important. Right. We like to always say, like, use friends and family to get, you know, 1 is better than 0, 5 is better than 1, etc. So starting there with the social proof and, you know, that'll help with the CBR for sure.
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A
Yep.
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B
Just pause me pat, if you kind of see any kind of points.
- [19:57]
A
No, this is great. This, this is basically. Yeah, I mean, this is basically our checklist that we go through.
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B
Right.
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A
If we notice, you know, whatever brand is not getting sales, we kind of go through this checklist to see what is it that, what, what variable are they missing? Is it social proof on Amazon? Do they have reviews? Do they have units sold on TikTok shop another one Is their brand content? What does their brand page look like? Because obviously on TikTok specifically. Yes. So if you see a product on TikTok, right, but the brand itself has zero posts on their account, they get zero engagement. It's hard for a new customer who's just heard of this brand to trust that brand enough to buy the product without content. So that's one variable. Obviously it happens. We have some clients with no brand content and are still making sales, but it's more rare. But definitely one thing to have on your checklist to look for. Yeah.
- [20:46]
B
I also think it plays with the algorithm, like, not only from the customer point of view of like the brand is there, but the algorithm. I think TikTok looks at that just like they look at lives and etc. Right. So important for TikTok as well, have.
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A
You been noticing that the brand content, like content from the brand itself is getting better views than content from affiliates about that brand?
- [21:10]
B
I would put it at slightly better. I would put it at slightly like, I would say, you know, if. Let's call it average on an affiliate is like 200 or 300 views. A brand will be like 400 to 500 views. This is all kind of like ad hoc as I'm perusing, but something for us would be good for us to kind of track over time and see how that looks. Yeah, essentially more views for sure from the brand. Now that you kind of ask me.
- [21:37]
A
The question, I mean, even when we look at competitive brands out there on TikTok, right, like if you're researching a new client and we look at other products within that same category, we start to notice like the, the big videos that are making the most money for that brand. Come from the brand itself and not necessarily affiliates, but that might be a, like a smaller sample size that we're looking at.
- [21:57]
B
Yeah, and I know, so coming from someone who's got to kind of launch their own product, you know, brand content isn't necessarily something that everyone is comfortable with or can afford or kind of hard to come by. Right. Like, you know, people, you know, most, most brands that are successful have their own brand content social media team, but also a good number do not. Right. And so you know, us, you know, being as a priority of, of having brand content, we work with our brands to, you know, use platforms to make brand content for them. Right. So Incense is one and other kind of UGC platforms to make brand content for them. Right. So essentially what that looks like is you. Actually we also reach out to affiliates that we that do well, that do well in their network. So it's like, hey, affiliate or hey, UGC creator, we need 30 pieces of content. What's your monthly rate for that? You know, between $1,000 to create 30 pieces of content. Let's say, you know, that's, that's, you know, essentially a way to create that, that brand content for your TikTok. Another thing we like to see is the cheapest price should be on TikTok shop. And I'll tell you why. Right. So if a person goes on TikTok, they see your product video, they want to buy it, as mentioned earlier, they go to Amazon to look if it's cheaper on Amazon and they're probably going to buy it. Right. Like I know I do because returns, etc. And so they don't have any incentive to buy it on TikTok shop. But what happens when they don't buy it on TikTok shop is that now TikTok doesn't have that sales signal from the video and it doesn't promote that video anymore. So the sale happened on Amazon, you get the money. But TikTok doesn't know to promote your video anymore. It doesn't know that it got a sale and it, you know, the performance could be better if it did. Right. So any type of, you know, price promotion that you can give on TikTok shop all the better, especially in this testing phase of, you know, TikTok shop if you want to continue with it or, you know, if you're figuring out if it's the right platform for you. So cheapest on TikTok shop is something that kind of I like to lead with for sure.
- [24:12]
A
Yep, absolutely.
- [24:15]
B
Other thing to think about is like commission rate. Like if you're know we, we've been talking about the customer and the selling side but also now the affiliate side like taking a like look at your affiliate KPIs like are you getting enough, you know, are you saying you're sending out the messages but you're not getting the right affiliates or you're not getting, you know, quality affiliates but like you want to look at your commission rate like is that competitive in the category and adjust accordingly. So those are kind of some quick notes that we've kind of built up after, you know, months of working with brands and launching them successfully on TikTok shop.
- [24:49]
A
So yeah, I mean this is a great kind of checklist to, to go through. Making sure you check all your boxes if you're not seeing sales, you know, if you just started on, on TikTok shop on your own product, make sure you have all these things right. Just kind of going through the list making sure you have the. So I'll recap it right? Making sure you have the social proof on on.com or Amazon social proof on TikTok shop, your sales units sold and reviews. Making sure you have your brand content in place on TikTok shop so people can learn about your brand. Making sure you offer the cheapest price so that the sale stays on TikTok shop and people don't go over to Amazon and purchase and then are you offering a competitive commission rate to get the good affiliates to create content about your video and then looking at the video content itself, you know, KPIs look at our what are the click through rates looking like? What are the video completion rates looking like for those videos? Identifying those and maybe the reason why you're not getting sales is even though you have a good video, they're not getting the video views necessary to push to the point of getting a significant amount of sales. And so elect to possibly get spark codes and run advertising to get those eyeballs.
- [25:58]
B
Cool man. Yeah, that was a lot more info filled than I expected it to be. I think this is a great. We have a lot of new to Tik Tok Shop brands out there that want to sell and maybe troubleshooting why they're not selling and kind of a little insight and I'll hopefully get you guys on a better track. So yeah, that concludes it for today. Pat, appreciate you for joining me again for sure. I think the next time we have our conversation will probably be post dinner, so let's see about that.
- [26:31]
A
So come on guys, keep, keep downloading.
- [26:33]
B
The podcast, keep downloading. Leave those reviews. I've done a lot of great reviews or feedback saying like they love it and you know, if you do feel that way, please leave a review. That'd be awesome. I love reading them and seeing what people think. Joining our our Slack group Free Slack group that you can join and kind of have lots of conversations around TikTok shop. And you can see that@tiktokshopinsiders.com there's a button there to kind of join that Slack group. And yeah, thanks guys. Till next time.
- [27:04]
A
See you.