TikTok Affiliate Marketing; How to Start Affiliate Marketing on Tiktok in 2022.

A Brief Intro to TikTok.

We’ll start by briefly explaining what tiktok is. Then we’ll dig deep into the advantages and how you can start affiliate marketing on the platform.

Let’s get to it.

What is TikTok?

TikTok is a short-form video-sharing and social networking service created by the Chinese company ByteDance in 2017. The platform was initially known as Musical.ly. It hosts a wide variety of short videos ranging from 15 seconds to three minutes.

TikTok ranks in the Top 10 mobile social media, thanks to its over 300 million monthly active users (MAUs).

Much like other major social platforms, TikTok commands a large population of teens and young adults. According to the Global Web Index analysis, 41% of TikTok users are 16 to 24 years old.  Why is the younger generation addicted to it? One primary reason why TikTok appeals to Gen Zs is that it transcends beyond being a social platform, and it’s become a creative hub for just anyone.

Now, if your target audience happens to be Gen Z, then TikTok might just be the best place to start promoting your affiliate offers.

The content on tiktok is quite different from the contents on other social media platforms. For the most part, tiktok favors short casual videos more than long formal ones. Focusing a lot more on humour.

The kind of content you'll find more on Tiktok are trending challenges humorous, musical, dance, cooking videos, tutorials, how-tos and lip-sync videos, etc.

This format is what sets them apart from their competition. Infact, video curation sites like youtube have started adopting tiktoks short-form video style with the introduction of youtube shorts.

Although TikTok is mainly used to create more passive content, top brands use it to increase brand awareness. The platform presents brands with a wealth of new opportunities to showcase their brand and engage their audience. 

What is TikTok Affiliate Marketing, & How Does it Work?

TikTok affiliate marketing, like any other form of affiliate marketing involves promoting affiliate products and services with the aim of earning a commission from the sales.

In affiliate marketing there are usually three parties involved: the advertisers, affiliate programme/network and the affiliate marketer.

For those of you who don't know what they do, let's briefly explain.

The advertisers: The advertiser is the owner of the products or services that'll be promoted by the affiliate marketer. They are the ones who pay the affiliates and track the sales. They are able to do this with the help of cookies which are stored on the consumers devices.

The cookies are used to attribute the sales to the affiliate and to track the sale orders. The cookies have an expiration date (They usually last just for a month) depending on the merchant/company that's running the affiliate offer.

The affiliate programme:

Affiliates can work directly with the advertisers or with the affiliate network but most advertisers prefer posting their affiliate offers on affiliate networks to make it easier for them and the affiliate.

The primary difference here is that an affiliate network will provide you with access to various different offers from different advertisers, which gives you a little more flexibility and control in pretty much every way.

The affiliate network acts like the middleman between the merchant and the affiliate, they act like a kind of escrow. Most times, payments are fulfilled by the affiliate network not the merchant.

The affiliate marketer: These are normal people like you and I who make money promoting other people's products and services with the aim of earning a commission from the sales.

Advantages of using TikTok for Affiliate Marketing.

TikTok is focused on video content, and has a very active audience. making one of the best places for you to start promoting your affiliate offers.

The platform makes it very easy to reach your audience and boost engagement thanks to the hashtags feature.

Tiktok being relatively new in the online video curation scene has proved to be very successful. The platform is still gaining momentum, and the competition is relatively low. making it easier for you to promote your affiliate offers without having to worry about competition.

How To Start Affiliate Marketing on TikTok.

TikTok affiliate marketing, as with any other kind of affiliate marketing business, can be quite slow and requires effort and determination. You won't start making thousands of dollars immediately but with consistency and the right mindset you'll eventually get there. 

Affiliate marketing on tiktok is a little different from affiliate marketing on other social media platforms because you have very little time to promote your affiliate products and it requires a lot of engagement not only with other TikTokers but with your audience.

Choose a niche.

Very Important, Before you even think of starting affiliate marketing you should decide which niche you'll be in. This is crucial as it will determine whether or not you'll be successful. There are different niches and the target audience within those niches interact with content in different ways.

Start by choosing a niche that you are passionate about, whether it’s tech, makeup, sporting accessories, food, or spiritual content. Pick a niche that you're familiar with that way you'd be more comfortable promoting affiliate products that's related to your niche.

After you've picked a niche then you'll have to do research. Who is your target audience? Are they willing to spend money? questions like these are what should be going through your mind. Use research tools to check what's trending in your niche as well as what your target audience are searching for. That way you can create content that's specific to what users are looking for.

N.B: TikTok ‘Personal’ accounts don’t allow you to place a clickable link in your profile, however, the ‘Business’ accounts makes it possible for you to do so.

Focus on Growing Your Audience.

What's the point of promoting an affiliate offer if you don't have an active audience. Affiliate marketing in general is all about the audience so the first thing you'll have to do is to work on growing your audience even before you start promoting any affiliate offer.

The best way of growing your tiktok audience is by creating quality content and being consistent.

Social media sites are all about algorithms, and posting frequently is one of the variables that'll determine how many people that will see your content.

For the most part, the more active you're, the more people will see your content.

In fact, interacting with relevant content is an excellent way to increase the organic reach of your content, which allows you to reach a broader audience.

There are different ways to grow your followers, one being to use CTAs in your videos and ask viewers to like, share and follow you. Sometimes, that nudge in the right direction is just what people need. If you're promoting a product, tell people to click on the link in your to direct them to your landing page. 

Collaborating with other creators is another good way of growing your audience. By creating content with other TikToker you'd be able to reach more people including their audience. So it's a win-win for the both of you.

Engage your audience, this could be by doing free giveaways or just posting on a consistent basis because the more engaged your audience are the easier it will be to convert them from content consumers to product consumers. 

Build trust every affiliate marketer out there will attest to the fact that the main reason people buy items using their affiliate links is trust. Without trust affiliate marketing is as good as dead. Think about it, why would someone just whip out their credit cards and pay for an item from a source they aren't familiar with.

How do you build that trust? Well it's simple by posting valuable content. You should provide people with quality content as it's the only way you'll build that trust.

The quality of your videos is what will determine whether or not you'll succeed. So try putting in effort into your videos. Remember, you only have a few seconds to grab people's attention so make your intros count. As soon as you've built a strong following then you can start promoting your affiliate offers.

Choose an Affiliate Program.

If someone clicks on your affiliate link, that doesn't mean they'll buy that product. In fact, promoting affiliate products is just a piece of a very complex puzzle because most of the sales are done on the merchant's site and if it doesn't look professional enough then your leads will never convert.

So it's a good idea to choose and  promote products from credible sources. Do a background check on the merchant or company running the affiliate campaign to make sure they are trustworthy.

When you are picking out your offer, you will have the option of working directly with an advertiser or joining an affiliate network.

As soon as you've built a strong following then you can start promoting your affiliate offers.

Most advertisers prefer posting their affiliate offers on ad networks to make it easier for them and the affiliate.

The primary difference here is that an affiliate network will provide you with access to various different offers from different advertisers, which gives you a little more flexibility and control in pretty much every way.

There are lots of affiliate networks you can join like Clickbank, Awin, Cj affiliates, Amazon affiliate program etc. But before joining any of the affiliate marketing networks you'll need to read through their terms and conditions and cookie policy to check whether or not it suits you. 

Create a landing page to share multiple links.

If you choose to be an affiliate for different companies or are promoting different products, then you will have to change your link in bio depending on what you are promoting at the time. This can be a very tedious task.

If you have a blog or a landing page, then it'll be easier for you because you won't have to update the links any time you want to promote an affiliate offer.

You can use a third-party tool, such as LinkTree, to share multiple links at once. This solution allows you to have one URL on your Tiktok profile that points to a number of links. When a user clicks on the link, they are taken to a page that houses all your (affiliate) links.

Creating a LinkTree account is better because you have the ability to not only add affiliate links, but you can also add links to your blogs or youtube videos explaining what the affiliate offers is about in full detail.

Promote your Affiliate links.

You need to be very careful when promoting affiliate products on tiktok as putting too much pressure on your audience can be quite irritating.

Affiliate marketing on pinterest shouldn't be done aggressively, remember it's just a side hustle and you can't force people to buy the products using your affiliate links.

Give people a good reason to buy your affiliate products, this could be by providing a coupon code or a giveaway. Either way, affiliate marketing should be organic and subtle.

Conclusion.

We hope you enjoyed this blog post as much as we loved writing it. Feel free to share this post on social media and leave a comment if you have any questions.