TikTok Shop's New CRM Feature—Here’s What You Need to Know NOW

Summary

Podcast Summary: TikTok Shop Insiders Episode Title: TikTok Shop's New CRM Feature—Here’s What You Need to Know NOW
Release Date: December 6, 2024
Hosts: Ivan and Pat
Podcast: TikTok Shop Insiders

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Introduction

In this episode of TikTok Shop Insiders, hosts Ivan and Pat delve into the latest updates and strategies essential for thriving in the competitive landscape of TikTok commerce. The conversation seamlessly transitions from personal anecdotes about holiday decorations to critical insights on navigating TikTok Shop's evolving features and market dynamics.

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1. Website Update and Cease and Desist Notice

Ivan initiates the discussion by addressing a significant setback:

"TikTokShopInsiders.com is down. I believe we mentioned in the last call that TikTok essentially gave us a cease and desist on the word on the website."
(Timestamp: [02:00])

Ivan explains that while the domain name remains usable, the content within the website needs adjustment. They are actively working to restore the site and, in the interim, have updated the show notes to include Ivan's Calendly link for brands interested in partnerships.

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2. 2025 TikTok Shop Strategies

As the year draws to a close, Ivan and Pat pivot to discussing future strategies for TikTok Shop in 2025.

a. Increased Competition and Sample Requirements

Pat observes a shift in the platform's ecosystem:

"The landscape has completely changed since early 2024. [...] Nowadays, we're getting closer to 300, possibly 400 samples with 200 plus videos coming back before we start to get a good sign of videos."
(Timestamp: [03:23])

Pat attributes this change to the surge in both creators and brands on TikTok Shop, necessitating a higher volume of samples to achieve meaningful engagement and sales.

Ivan adds:

"A lot more samples are needed. Right. Before we were 100. Now we need like 300 to 400 is what we advocate for our clients."
(Timestamp: [04:23])

b. Marinating Time for Videos

Ivan introduces the concept of "marinating time," highlighting the delay between video creation and sales impact:

"There’s now a month to two months of marinating time where you have those 200 videos made and they're kind of just sitting there and there's not a lot of sales."
(Timestamp: [04:50])

This period allows TikTok's algorithm to appropriately showcase the content amidst the increased volume of videos, eventually leading to potential virality and sales.

c. Quality of Affiliates and Shift to Flat Fee Offers

Pat emphasizes the importance of partnering with high-quality creators:

"Be prepared to have flat fee offers for creators... Brands are looking for those high-quality creators that they can lean on."
(Timestamp: [06:48])

Ivan explains their strategy of transitioning successful affiliates from sample-based collaborations to flat fee arrangements:

"We'll reach out to them for a flat fee plus retainer for 20 videos... It's kind of a win-win all around."
(Timestamp: [07:46])

This approach ensures consistent, high-quality content while optimizing costs for brands.

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3. Advertising Budget Recommendations

The hosts discuss the necessity of allocating a budget for paid advertisements on TikTok Shop.

Pat states:

"The days of just relying on organic traffic on TikTok are pretty much over... You have to have some level of ad budget to support your videos."
(Timestamp: [09:01])

Ivan inquires about specific budget recommendations, to which Pat responds:

"You want to recommend at least A$200 a day... and you can scale from there depending on the performance."
(Timestamp: [09:38])

The consensus is that beginning with a budget of $100 to $200 daily allows brands to test and optimize their ad campaigns effectively.

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4. Importance of Live Content

Ivan highlights the growing significance of live-streaming within TikTok Shop:

"Lies and lives and lives and lives. [...] Having your internal team going live with content is always going to help."
(Timestamp: [10:22])

Pat concurs, suggesting that affiliates proficient in live content creation can form paid partnerships with brands to enhance visibility and sales through live demonstrations and interactions.

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5. Affiliate Academy HQ

Ivan introduces their latest venture, Affiliate Academy HQ, aimed at fostering a community of top-performing affiliates.

"Affiliate Academy HQ is where you'll find all that info... We interviewed this girl... she has had $500,000 of affiliate commissions."
(Timestamp: [12:05])

This platform serves as a resource for affiliates to learn from the best, and for brands to connect with high-caliber creators.

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6. TikTok Shop Enhanced Seller Protection

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to discussing TikTok Shop's new seller protection features.

Pat elaborates on the enhancements:

"TikTok shop sent out emails to sellers... automatic refund rejections... blocking risky buyers."
(Timestamp: [15:41])

Key features include:

• Automatic Refund Rejections: Minimizes losses from fraudulent refund claims.
• Blockers for Risky Buyers: Identifies and restricts users with histories of high return rates or frequent refund requests.
• Proof Requirement: Sellers must provide evidence to validate refund requests, reducing scams.
• Extended Return Periods: Higher value products receive additional days for review, and undelivered returns have a 30-day window.

Ivan shares a specific issue these protections aim to tackle:

"Someone would buy something expensive, like a laptop, and they would return a box of books... Now TikTok is keeping a closer eye on those type of shoppers."
(Timestamp: [16:27])

These measures are designed to create a safer and more reliable marketplace for sellers on TikTok Shop.

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7. TikTok Shop CRM Features

The centerpiece of the episode is the introduction and exploration of TikTok Shop's new Customer Relationship Manager (CRM) feature.

a. Overview and Eligibility

Pat outlines the eligibility criteria:

"You need to have a higher than 80% 24-hour response rate to customer messages... at least some GMV over a dollar."
(Timestamp: [19:26])

Eligible sellers gain access to two main functionalities:

• Manual Plans: Mass outreach to various customer segments using templated messages.
• Automated Plans: Dynamic messaging based on customer behaviors, such as abandoned carts or price drops.

b. Manual Plans

Pat describes the manual outreach capabilities:

"Recent customers, repeat customers, lapsed customers, frequent customers, and potential new customers."
(Timestamp: [20:46])

Sellers can deploy templated messages to these segments, with options to include coupons and highlight additional products.

Ivan compares it to traditional email marketing:

"It's like retargeting... similar to your experience on a DTC site with follow-up emails."
(Timestamp: [21:00])

c. Automated Plans

Pat explains the automated messaging strategies:

"Abandoned cart customers... incomplete checkout customers... post-purchase thank you or a price drop reminder."
(Timestamp: [22:20])

These automated messages dynamically target customers based on their interaction with the shop, ensuring timely and relevant communication.

d. Implementation and Benefits

Ivan emphasizes the ease and effectiveness:

"Once you set up the plan, you'll see metrics like how many messages were sent, opened, and converted."
(Timestamp: [25:20])

Pat adds that engagement rates are comparable to successful email marketing campaigns, often achieving 30-35% read rates.

To access these features, sellers navigate to the Seller Center under the Marketing tab and select the Customers section.

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Conclusion

Ivan and Pat wrap up the episode by reiterating the importance of leveraging the new CRM features and other discussed strategies to enhance TikTok Shop performance. They encourage listeners to engage with their new Affiliate Academy HQ and emphasize the value of high-quality affiliate partnerships.

Ivan concludes:

"Keep an eye out for Affiliate Academy HQ and leave a review if you found any pieces of information helpful."
(Timestamp: [26:00])

Meanwhile, Pat humorously signs off amidst talks of holiday decorations, keeping the camaraderie alive.

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Key Takeaways:

• Enhanced Competition: Increased number of brands and affiliates necessitates higher sample volumes and quality content.
• Marinating Time: Patience is required as TikTok's algorithm adapts to the influx of content, potentially delaying sales.
• Quality Over Quantity: Focusing on high-performing affiliates through flat fee models can optimize content quality and brand relationships.
• Advertising is Essential: Allocating a budget for paid ads is no longer optional for success on TikTok Shop.
• Leverage Live Content: Live-streaming remains a powerful tool for engagement and sales.
• Protect Your Business: Utilize TikTok Shop's Enhanced Seller Protection features to safeguard against fraudulent activities.
• Utilize CRM Features: Implement TikTok Shop's new CRM tools for effective customer engagement and retention.

By integrating these strategies, brands and affiliates can navigate the complexities of TikTok Shop, driving sustained growth and success in the dynamic world of social commerce.

Transcript

[Host]

Welcome to TikTok Shop Insiders podcast, your source for actionable news, trends and strategies. If you want to build a thriving brand or Creator presence on TikTok shop, this is your essential listen. Let's get started.

[Ivan]

All right. Welcome to TikTok Shop Insiders podcast, your source for the latest news and strategies for TikTok shop. I am your host, Ivan. We have my good friend Pat here. What's up, man?

[Pat]

What's up, Ivan? Good to see you again post holidays.

[Ivan]

Oh, yeah. So right now we're sitting in between Thanksgiving and Christmas. When did your Christmas decorations go up? Because mine went up. Oh, April. Thanksgiving.

[Pat]

No, mine went up, I think the day before Thanksgiving. So I had already.

[Ivan]

Yeah, mine was. I think ours. Some of our Christmas stuff came out the day after Halloween.

[Pat]

So it is a short window this year because. Because Thanksgiving was so late in November, there's only like three weeks until Christmas, which is crazy.

[Ivan]

Yeah, my, My methodology is like, if you're gonna put up, put in a lot of work to get, you know, your Christmas decorations up, you wanna enjoy it as long as possible, so.

[Pat]

Exactly.

[Ivan]

Yeah.

[Pat]

When do you guys take yours down?

[Ivan]

Pretty soon. Like the week after.

[Pat]

Yeah, no, typically you leave it up until like New Year's, New Year's Eve, New Year's Day. I'll take them down.

[Ivan]

But so, so we have two trees, like the family tree and then like a kids tree in like the, the. The. The family room in, in the bonus room. And that was up until July one year. That's. Yeah. All right, so a lot of. Lot of stuff. We. You know, one of the things I want to start with is our website. TikTokShopInsiders.com is down. I believe we mentioned in the last call that that TikTok, you know, essentially gave us cease and desist on the word on the website. So I think we can still use the domain TikTok shop insiders, but we just have to kind of adjust the items within the page. So we're working on getting that up and running. But until then, I have updated the show notes to include a link to my calendly. And if you're a brand interested in wanting a partner and, you know, show TikTok shop how. How it works for you guys. You know, the. My calendly link is below. And if you're listening to this, I've removed it, probably because I'm getting too many calendly appointments. But yeah, while the. While the TikTok shop insiders.com is down, go ahead and access my calendly link. We'll see how that goes. Another thing, right, so we are approaching the end of the year, right. You know, Black Friday, Cyber Monday has now passed us. You know, now we're approaching holiday season. But you know, naturally after holidays there's a new year in 2025. And what does 2025 have in store for, for TikTok shop? Right. You know, a year ago the strategy was way different than it is this year or, or now. And it's going to be, you know, a little bit different going into 2025. So we wanted to kind of review, you know, what's a 2025 strategy. What we see works, what we see is needed to happen to kind of going on TikTok Shop for new brands. So Pat, what are some things that stick out to you? Yeah. For that strategy?

[Pat]

Yeah. I mean the landscape has completely changed since, since early 2024. Right. You are able to send out 100, 200 samples. The videos that come back would get a ton of organic traffic, no problem. And then, you know, easier route to sales. Nowadays it's, you know, we're getting closer to 300, possibly 400 samples with 200 plus videos coming back before we start to get a good sign of videos. And it's mainly because my assumption is there's so many creators and brands out there now, right. Everybody's putting up TikTok shop content and so like the eyeballs. I don't, I don't know if the traffic on TikTok Shop has increased as much as the TikTok Shop content has increased on, on the platform. So you know, you're competing with a lot more TikTok Shop content out there nowadays than you were, you know, back in early 2024. Which is probably why you're seeing, you know, that you need 300, 400 samples, videos in the 200s to start seeing some organic traction.

[Ivan]

Yeah, A couple things there. Along with more brands and kind of competition on TikTok Shop, there's a lot more affiliates, right. A lot of newer affiliates that are kind of not as experienced or don't know how to make higher quality selling videos. Right. So a lot of that percentage of, you know, number of, of samples going out is going to like videos that aren't necessarily performing the best. So you kind of have to account for that. Like you have to spread your net wider to get that higher quality affiliate and kind of weed out those lower quality affiliates. So cool. Yeah, more summary, there is more samples are needed. Right. Before we were 100. Now we need like 3 to 400 is what we advocate for our clients. Another thing I want to bring up is same lines, but marinating time. We've kind of dubbed this phrase internally of like, we have those couple hundred videos made. Where are the sales? You know, before you would start to see those sales signals and you know, sessions and conversions and you know, it's, it's, you see it right away. Now we're finding that there's like a month to two months of marinating time, quote unquote. Marinating. Marinating time where you have those 200 videos made and they're kind of just sitting there and there's not a lot of sales. But you know, as we're getting more and more products, as we're getting more and more affiliate videos into, let's call it the, you know, TikTok atmosphere, TikTok now needs to take some time and figure out when to show those videos, right? And so you get the video made. TikTok needs to kind of figure out where the connections are, right? Like what are the categories, you know, what are the age groups and kind of do the algorithm rhythm thing and like let it marinate to know, to show that, that video and you know, hopefully get viral, right? So marinating time is something that we've been kind of preaching to our, to our clients of like, you know, we're noticing more and more time from video post to video kind of getting viral and getting those sales. A specific example is, you know, we, we posted a video and two months later it started to gain traction and get sales, right? And so, you know, if you're one month in and you're like, why is this video, why are these videos not performing and you were to stop at that point at one month, then it's like a losing battle. But you know, you want to keep on continuing and fil in that top of the bucket with videos to kind of, you know, keep that, you know, atmosphere going.

[Pat]

Yeah, for sure, we, we try to, yeah, definitely do that. And in the meantime, as we get these videos in, we're flagging all the top quality content creators, right? We're always on the lookout for doubling down as much as we can on the best content coming back in. That kind of leads into our next point of be prepared to have flat fee offers for creators, right? It's because the, the market for content creators is so competitive now. You know, you need to find those creators that are able to create top quality content. And that's good advice to affiliates in general too, right? Like if you're an affiliate creating videos, definitely do your best to create the best quality content that you can. I know there's definitely creators out there that just want to get the free sample, throw up a quick video and throw it up there. But I think more and more brands are looking for those high quality creators that they can like lean on. Right. With some sort of paid partnership or something like that on top of the regular affiliate commission.

[Ivan]

Yeah. One way we like to, you know, put this into play is let's say we send out 400 samples of those 400. We take a look at the data, we take a look at the videos and see how they perform. Do they get high sessions rates? Do they get high conversion rates of those? Higher performers will reach out to them and say, hey, you know, we love your video because of X, Y and Z. Would you like to make more for a flat fee plus retainer for 20 videos? Right. And then we'll kind of negotiate from there. And the thought process behind that is, you know, let's say they make 10 videos. Right. We gave them flat fee for 10 videos. Well, now those 10 videos, we don't have to give 10 samples to 10 different affiliates to get 10 videos. We can just have one affiliate that we know is going to do a good job, make 10 videos for the same kind of flat fee. Right. The product cost is going to be one instead of, you know, the 10 different people. Yeah. So it's, you know, kind of win, win all around. You get the, the brands, get the high quality videos. The affiliates get a flat fee. They're also incentivized with commissions. And, you know, we kind of try to maximize our, our relationship with, with these affiliates. So cool. You have your, you're our ads guy. And one of our next points is ads budget.

[Pat]

Yeah, I mean, the days of just relying on organic traffic on TikTok are pretty much over. I think we've said it before in past podcasts, but you have to have some level of ad budget to support your videos. Now TikTok is definitely becoming a little bit more of a pay to play type of space. I know for the campaigns we've run, especially around the holidays, CPMs have been really, really high. But there's ways around it to optimize those campaigns. But definitely having an ad budget going into 2025 is super important to have success on TikTok Shop.

[Ivan]

I'll be the average listener. What type of ad budgets are you looking at, Pat?

[Pat]

I mean, just to start usually between, you know, if you have, if you're considering GMV Max for example. And you have 50 pieces of content. You know that's generally been the guideline for from TikTok ad reps that, that have, that we've talked to, they want to recommend at least A$200 a day, 100 to $200 a day budget to get started and you can scale from there depending on the performance that you start around there and then scale or scale as needed. Easy to see fit. Yeah.

[Ivan]

Cool. So 50, at least 50 pieces of content, you can go lower but 50 pieces of content is recommended. And then starting at a hundred dollars a day and then increasing or decreasing as numbers allow you to.

[Pat]

Yep, cool.

[Ivan]

Another piece of requirement that we're finding is lives, lives and lives and lives. That's all we hear from our reps. That's all we hear from kind of my TikToks. I know I don't know the exact number but the live community or the live buying mechanism in China, in Asia is like overshadows what we are doing here. And I know TikTok is pushing towards that. So having you know, your internal team, your social team going live with content is always going to help. Right. They TikTok pushes it in their algorithm, in their feed and you know, you're obviously more best to be in that position versus not having that vibe. So one way like you know, not every company has a social team or you know, you know, resources to have a lives crew. But so what we do suggest is when you do send out your samples, half of those, I'm sorry a portion of those people are going to be going live with your content. Right. So similarly to finding affiliates that are making videos, taking a look at that lives data and seeing what pops. Right. Who's getting this? Like did anyone get a sale? Well let's reach out to them for a flat fee, dollars per hour plus commissions to have lives for your brand. Right. So using kind of the wide net and filtering down to who's ever working to kind of make those lives for you.

[Pat]

Yeah, that's another great tip for affiliates out there trying to make content.

[Ivan]

Right.

[Pat]

If you are good at doing lives, brands are looking for resource apps to do lives on their behalf. So there's definitely opportunity for affiliates out there who are great at lives natural on camera for you to have some sort of PA partnership with with a brand to do lives on their behalf.

[Ivan]

Yeah. So I am actually use this moment to plug our new project affiliate academy hq.com it's been mentioned in the past but as we kind of talk about a lot in this podcast. The real kind of key to this whole mechanism of TikTok shop is the affiliates, right? And how is how you can find affiliates, how you can get them to create great videos, how you can find amazing affiliates, not just kind of any affiliate.

[Pat]

Right.

[Ivan]

We want to find the ones that are selling pretty well. So we went on, you know, with this podcast being, you know, relatively successful, we started a new one, affiliate Academy HQ, where we interview the top 1% of affiliates and get their story and strategies on what, what works for them. There's different styles and, you know, if they're in down moments, how do they get out of it? But yeah, it's really just interviewing them and creating a group outside that of affiliates that can sell product. Right. So affiliateacademyhq.com is where you'll find all that info. And yeah, I mean, so one of the stories I have, I interviewed this girl. She's amazing. She has had $500,000 of affiliate commissions in. She's a college girl, like under 22, making buku bucks. And it's just amazing. So we get her story, what works for her, making videos, her relationship with brands, et cetera. So, yeah, just keep an eye out for Affiliate Academy hq and if you're a brand that wants to partner with our community, let us know and, and, and we'll help you on that way. Something pretty cool when we mentioned this in the last call, but with the, you know, current events going on about Puff Daddy, I was perusing one day and I was freeing TikTok and I got this ad for Diddy Oil, right? And it's just kind of. I don't know if we can flash the item on, on the video, but yeah, essentially it's baby oil and it's branded as Diddy Oil and it sold 300 units. And the video I got was like this guy kind of like spraying himself with oil and kind of just like capitalizing on today's news, right?

[Pat]

I don't, I don't want to know what's in your algorithm. The heck.

[Ivan]

Oh, yeah, don't know what it is. Maybe I was looking like diddy stuff, I imagine. I mean, I hope so. I was looking at like diddy news and like going down that rabbit hole. But yeah, Diddy, Diddy. And then the same thing with kind of the election stuff, right? Like, I noticed a huge part of TikTok shop and what's selling is current events, right. And you know, it. I want, I do want to tread advice, to tread lightly because I know that TikTok is, you know, banning sellers who sell, like, Trump stuff, Cala stuff, just because it's, you know, I don't know if it's copyrighted or whatever, but, you know, it's. It's definitely not. You can't. You can't be selling stuff with their name on it. So capitalizing on current events, definitely a strategy for sellers.

[Pat]

And they're so fast, too. Like, the event happens, and then within less than 24 hours, they have, like, merch, like the assassination attempt on. On Donald Trump. Right? They. Yeah, like, within 24 hours, there was T shirts being printed. People doing lives of screen printing the shirts and selling it at the air. How fast people move on bitcoin.

[Ivan]

I know, I know. I enjoy stuff like that. I'm like, oh, man, this guy's a genius. And you see, like, oh, 5,000 units sold. It's like, jesus, I made a hundred.

[Pat]

Thousand dollars from 20 bucks a pop.

[Ivan]

Yeah. All right, so one of the items here, it's kind of an update from TikTok, helping out the sellers. It's called TikTok Shop Enhanced Seller Protection. What do you think about that one, Pat? Describe it a little bit and then kind of. What are some thoughts?

[Pat]

Yeah. So TikTok shop sent out emails to sellers, kind of just describing. Describing these new seller protection features that they have available. So it's another, you know, win for. For sellers on the platform just adding extra protections, things like, you know, automatic refund rejections. So you're. They're basically looking out for sellers just to minimize losses because there's a ton of fraud and kind of sketchy activity. Another thing that's added is, like, you can. They. They're running blockers for risky buyers. So they're taking a look at the shopping history of certain users, like if there's maybe a high rate of return or they're doing a lot of refund requests. You know, TikTok is keeping a closer eye on those type of shoppers and. And blocking them from making purchases. Yeah, go ahead.

[Ivan]

Now, I was going to say one of the stories we reported on before I. Now I remember is someone would buy something expensive, let's call it like a laptop, and they would return a box of books, right? And they would get the. Keep the laptop and they would get the refund because the TikTok's policy was so lenient. And it. Now the sellers lost the money because they got the refund and they don't have the product. They never got it back. They got a bunch of books and they had no recourse. Right. And so now it's like. And I'm sure if they do it once, they're going to do it a million times. Right. And it's becoming a scam and a problem and obviously you don't want that as a. You got TikTok shop. So this is a way for them to kind of police that.

[Pat]

Yeah. One additional thing they've added is proof. You have to submit proof to in order to get a refund. Now like so in that, that situation, right. Somebody would have to provide proof on like the product being either defective or whatever it is to, to get your refund. So there's all these, you know, added protections, which is great because TikTok is definitely trying to clean up the marketplace as much as they can. And it happens with every new kind of shopping marketplace. Right. People out there, opportunists are going to find their way to skirt the rules and take advantage as much as they can. And now this is TikTok shop's effort to clean it up.

[Ivan]

Right. And so just to review here, automatic refund rejections. You know, like you said, the bad actors automatically reject them. Blockers for risky buyers. Similar tone, proof of refund requests, like you were saying earlier, just making sure it's an actual refund. The reason is correct. Filter to remove abusive feedback. Return refund approval extension. So extra time for how high value products. So if your product is over $100, you get four extra four business days to review the refund. Extended auto decision for undelivered returns. So yeah, undelivered returns extended to 30 days. So yeah, yeah, it's all like, you know, before a couple months ago it seemed like everything that was coming out of TikTok was just to kind of punish the seller. But now we're seeing a couple in the row that's kind of helping out the seller.

[Pat]

So I love that.

[Ivan]

All right, that goes on to our next section. The bulk of it. There's a feature that rolled out to the public a little bit ago, maybe a month or two ago. It was available during beta, it was available in a beta phase. So some of our clients did get this before the public. But it is CRM, like a CRM Customer Messages Customer Relationship Manager, where you can communicate with your previous customers and potential customers. So we've implemented this throughout all of our clients and seen great success and something we want to bring out to you, make sure you have it turned on. But Pat, why don't you go a little bit description of what exactly it Is.

[Pat]

Yeah, absolutely. If you, if you run a TikTok shop you should definitely have the, and these are customer messages is available to you. You should definitely have this, these features turned on. So the first thing is whether you are eligible or not. Right. So just to cover the requirements for eligibility you need to have A higher than 80% 24 hour response rate to customer messages. You have to have less than 12 shot violation points and you have to have at least some GMV over a dollar essentially to in order to qualify. And what that opens up is customer messages. You have two options. One are the manual plans and then second are the automated plans. So we'll start with manual plans first. Manual plans are essentially a, like a mass outreach that you can do in customer chats or DMs via these, these plans to various audiences. So the audiences that are available to you under the manual plans are recent customers, repeat customers, lapsed customers, frequent customers and potential new customers, you know. So these are various audiences that will be compiled based on the traffic that happens in your shop. TikTok assembles these audiences and then you're able to create a plan to reach out to these customers with a basically a templated message that reaches out to all these people all at once.

[Ivan]

Yeah, I love it. I mean this is super. I mean it's just retargeting, right. Like someone has spent the time is interested, they've added to car or they've repurchased in the past and you're just reaching out to them. Right. It's like a, it's like not turning on your email campaigns when you have.

[Pat]

Them as a DTC store.

[Ivan]

So definitely something to turn on and it's automated, really easy to implement.

[Pat]

So I love it.

[Ivan]

Another item here is like how do promotions fall into that? Can you go into a little bit detail and like how we use it and involve promotions?

[Pat]

Yeah. So you can, like I mentioned, you're not able to customize the messaging. You have to select from templates basically that are available within the platform. But the couple of custom customizations that you can make for, for like manual plans, for example, you can select a coupon if you wanted to. Right. You can add a coupon to any of these messages. The only caveat is that coupon is essentially available to all customers so it appears on your listing. TikTok hasn't figured out a way to make it just like hidden just for these messages, which is what I would like to see them be able to do. Very similar to like your experience on a DTC Site. Right. Your common like, you know, follow up email that gives a promo code for a certain discount just for use and it feels a little bit more special. So that's the only thing you can add a coupon and then you can also select additional products to highlight in that dm. So this is a great way of like cross promoting other products that might be selling well in your shop but that customer hasn't seen yet. So you'll know they saw one product that you can highlight. You know, I think it's up to four products that you can select to highlight in the message itself.

[Ivan]

Cool. So a way that we use this recently is Black Friday Cyber Monday sales is traditionally cheaper than or traditionally lower price than previous prices that we've had. Right. So this is a great opportunity to say hey, we have a Black Friday or whatever the canned message is, but there's a lower price now go get it while you can. Right. So the thought there is when the customer is in their evaluation phase of the product, you know, maybe a discount will push them over the edge and have them buy it, which they have. We've stated so definitely turn.

[Pat]

Yeah. The, the pro. There's a. So on the other side of manual plans is automated plans. Right. Automated plans are a dynamic group audience that gets regenerated. So for instance, for example, let me pull one up. The first one you can do is a abandoned cart customers. Right. So just to describe that group, it's customers who have added your items to their cart but haven't completed the purchase after 48 hours. So that group, that audience will refresh essentially, basically every day based, you know, as people fall into that category of added to cart but haven't purchased. And then so this is a, an automated message that goes to these customers daily essentially. Right. This a follow up email. So on the automated side you can also target about beyond abandoned cart customers. You can do incomplete checkout customers, send a post purchase thank you or a price drop reminder which is what Ivan was alluding to. Is anytime like a price of one of your products has a new discount, there's an automated message that can go out for, for those products to a group.

[Ivan]

Are there any limitations like how many messages per session or time period?

[Pat]

I believe it depends on the account. Manual plans, you'll see a quota, a weekly quota of how many you can send per week. So for one client I'm looking at it's you know, one. They get one manual plan that they can send per week. Automated plans are obviously dynamic and they just send as, as Needed the manual plans like the big blasts, it's once a week.

[Ivan]

Yeah. So I mean with the automated plan, I don't see any reason to keep that off. Like you should always have that on. Right. Abandoned cart, incomplete checkout. Kind of want the same post purchase. Of course, we want to kind of thank them and then price drop. You know, it's good over there.

[Pat]

So absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Turn those on. You'll see, you know, it recaptures some gnv the metrics that you can see once you set up the plan. So they, they provide some insights. So it'll show you know how many messages were sent, how many recipients received your messages, the how many recipients of the messages opened them and read them. What I've been finding is this is kind of like the old, old email marketing days. Right. You were seeing like 30, 35% read rates on these messages. So very high, high engagement on these messages because they get sent through their dm so people notice them in, you know, in their notifications on the app. And then from there you'll also see how many conversions and how much DMV that that message has generated.

[Ivan]

Right. And so once again, this is the CRM customer messages. And then how do you access this?

[Pat]

Yep. So under the so you go into seller center, you go into the marketing tab and you'll see a section called Customers. You click on that and then there'll be two tabs where you can set up your manual plan or your automatic plan.

[Ivan]

Love it. Okay, cool. So awesome. Yes. So turn on those customer section for your seller center.

[Pat]

Yeah, easy.

[Ivan]

Ignore that. Yeah, great. Okay, well, yeah, that wraps it up for today's episode. I wanted to remind everyone again, check out our new podcast affiliate Academy hq. You can find it on the all and all your places where you download podcasts and join that community and hopefully want to build and cultivate a lot of affiliates in that one. So keep an eye out for that and yeah, leave a review. Always like to ask you guys to leave a review if you found any pieces of information helpful or have in the past. Definitely. We love that. And yeah, that concludes it for today. Anything else, Pat?

[Pat]

Nope. I'm just going to go and stare at my Christmas decorations that we all set up and hopefully I don't have to set up more.

[Ivan]

Yeah. So did you catch my 20 foot Santa that I put in front of the house?

[Pat]

I haven't, no, I haven't seen it. You gotta go. But only that's huge.

[Ivan]

Yeah, it goes. It's like taller than the first floor. It's inflatable Santa. The kids love it.

[Pat]

I love anything like that.

[Ivan]

All right, well, that concludes it. We'll catch you guys next time. Thanks.

[Pat]

All right, see you later.