A Completed Guide to Tiktok Affiliate Marketing

TikTok was launched at nearly the end of 2016 and has now frightened other social platforms, including the big ones like Facebook, Youtube, Instagram, and Twitter. It’s funny how we’re watching these platforms make their most attempts than ever before to beat a late-born social app. They’ve even been trying to look like TikTok in some ways to retain their precious users.

But it’s understandable. TikTok is getting powerful with what it calls shoppertainment—people getting inspired to purchase products by entertainment. As a result, it changed the concept of modern shopping or the digital marketing funnel in recent years. Without a doubt, people care much about TikTok affiliate marketing for that reason.

In this blog, Dynu In Media will explain how affiliate marketing works on TikTok, why it’s important, and how to earn money with it. Scroll down!

What is TikTok Affiliate Marketing?

TikTok affiliate marketing is a process of earning commissions by promoting others’ products or services on TikTok. It works via custom affiliate links that your audience can find on the platform and click to make a purchase.

If you might ask what affiliate links are, they are links for audiences to buy products and for merchants/advertisers to track where the sales come from. If you make sales via your affiliate link, the advertiser sends you commissions based on that.

Basically, it works the same on a website and other social channels. But TikTok has its own rule and concept since it launched TikTok Shop Affiliate just this year. We’ll dive into it below.

How Does Affiliate Marketing on TikTok Work?

If you understand how affiliate marketing works in general, you’ll find it easy to know how it works on TikTok. Still, parties involved in the affiliate marketing process are merchants or advertisers, publishers or affiliate marketers, an affiliate network (if any), and content consumers.

Each party, of course, holds a different role. And by understanding these roles, we know how TikTok affiliate marketing basically works.

• Merchants/Advertisers — brands or sellers who look for potential marketers to promote their products via an affiliate program.
• Publishers/Affiliate marketers — promoting products/services made by merchants to earn commissions from them via an affiliate program.
• Affiliate network — a bridge between advertisers and publishers. It gathers them in a place to let them find each other more easily. More than just a place, an affiliate network like Dynu In Media or TikTok Shop ensures the quality of advertisers and affiliate marketers. It also provides powerful tools for both parties to find fascinating affiliate offers, create affiliate links, track performances, make reports, and more. Without an affiliate network, advertisers and publishers work together directly. In this case, advertisers need to build their own affiliate tools which might require a huge investment.
• Content consumers — the target audience who should buy products via the links provided by TikTok creators.

Many still think TikTok creators can add links directly to their videos. It sounds amazing, but you wish! TikTok does not allow that. However, other methods allow you to show affiliate links in front of the audiences on the platform.

The question is—why should you do affiliate marketing on TikTok if it doesn’t seem easy-going as compared to other platforms? Well. Before going to learn how to do it, learn why it’s worth your effort.

Why You Should Consider Affiliate Marketing on TikTok

By November 2022, TikTok had 1.39 billion global users and 600 daily active users worldwide. It’s grown so fast that the real numbers go far beyond researchers’ projections. For example, Statista predicted TikTok would have 755 million users in 2022 — now just look at the current number!

Additionally, TikTok is an easy-to-use platform that encourages creativity and fun. Who doesn’t love being fun and creative? Moreover, everything works with TikTok through videos—the most impactful media to inspire people. That’s why most TikTok users are gen-Z in the US, but as we can see, millennials are on their way too.

Also, TikTok has already launched some features beneficial to affiliate marketing, such as Spark Ads and TikTok Shop. Creators and sellers now find an official playground on the platform with TikTok Affiliate.

Today, it’s not an entertainment social platform “for kids and comedy” anymore. It has taken the wheel of e-Commerce with a new, natural approach that inspires users to become buyers rapidly. The more strongly users engage with your videos, the higher chance they’ll buy the products via your links.

So, we’ve just shown you a picture of monetization opportunities with TikTok. Let’s move on to the next section where you’ll learn how to start with affiliate marketing on this social network.

How to Get Started with Affiliate Marketing on TikTok?

Upgrade to a business account

Jump-starting with TikTok affiliate marketing as a creator account, you cannot add a clickable link in your bio. You have to wait until reaching 10,000 followers to be able to do that — it’s definitely a downside as you want to earn money right off the bat.

But there’s a workaround. Simply switch your TikTok personal account into a business account — and BAM — you can add a link to your bio. TikTok understands that the link is your business website. But even if it’s not, it doesn’t matter as long as it’s the link you want people to click in.

Here’s how to upgrade to a business account on TikTok:

1. Click on the upper right corner icon on your profile page
2. Go to Settings and Privacy
3. Tap Account
4. Tap Switch to Business Account
5. Click the Next button and complete a few final easy steps

Additionally, a business account allows you to:

• Get insights on video performance and engagement to help you create content that converts
• Choose from royalty-free music and sounds available to brands for commercial purposes
• Get guidance and inspiration for your content in TikTok’s Business Creative Hub
• Manage your business on TikTok with a Post scheduler, Auto-messaging, and more features

Include a link in your bio

Of course, including a link in your bio is a must and the first thing to do right after you’ve switched to a business account. Your bio is the only place to show your affiliate link on TikTok.

In other words, you cannot add any links in your video description (unless it’s a TikTok Shop affiliate link) or comment section. So by each video, make sure to let people know that there’s a link in your bio.

Here’s how to show a link in your bio:

1. On your profile page, tap the Edit Profile button under your follower number.
2. In the section (business website) where you can add a URL, add the link you want to promote.
3. Click Save.

If you have more than one affiliate link, don’t panic. You can create a “bio link” that includes all of your affiliate links in one landing page using Linktr.ee or Bio.link. Show that bio link on your profile page and let the TikTok audience do the rest.

Link to your other social pages

TikTok is trying its best to build a whole community, not just a social network. We see that because TikTok allows users to link their TikTok accounts to other social networks. Currently, you can link to Instagram, Youtube, and Twitter. As soon as you do it, the social icons will display next to the Edit Profile button in your view and the Follow button in the audience’s view.

Now, why is it important for you as an affiliate marketer to link your TikTok account to other social platforms? The answer depends.

If the other social networks are just empty, soulless pages you built for fun, don’t link your TikTok to them. However, if you’re also active on those platforms, link to them. That way, you’re increasing the chance of exposing yourself to the audience even outside TikTok.

Join TikTok Shop Affiliate

With the rise of TikTok Shop, creators now can join its affiliate program provided by TikTok sellers. And because of the new notion—shoppertainment—as we mentioned at the beginning, brands are gearing toward influencer marketing these days. While we talk about influencer marketing, we talk about affiliates.

Here’s how creators join TikTok Shop Affiliate:

1. Find products that speak to their followers
2. Get permission to sell products
3. Add their contact information
4. Add products to their showcase
5. Get samples and sell the products

TikTok Shop Affiliate allows you to include your affiliate links in the video description, directing the audience to the shop page. Besides, it pays you commissions based on your successful sales weekly. That means your benefits are guaranteed by TikTok.

However, creators don’t always find products relevant to their followers, which is quite a con — yet not really a challenge. Many creators work more effectively with brands or other affiliate networks like Dynu In Media, Clickbank, or Amazon Associates Program.

Use coupon codes

If you work directly with brands as a KOL or KOC, chances are they’ll give you coupon codes to track your sales. You can add coupon codes in your video description or comment section, which is an advantage. Also, these codes usually have an expiration date, so remind your audience of that if any.

Use TikTok paid advertising to promote your affiliate products

If your market is competitive or you have few followers initially, TikTok Ads can be a good solution. It brings you sales and more followers so you’ll focus on more organic content in the future.

TikTok Ad works similarly to Facebook Ad or Instagram Ad where you bid to expose your campaigns to the target audience. Because you pay to be seen, it allows you to set up a unique paid advertising campaign based on your customer demographics and psychographics. To not waste the money, make sure you’ll run ads on videos that convert.

FAQs

How do I become a TikTok affiliate?

To become a TikTok affiliate, you must have a TikTok business account, create content, join an affiliate network, and add an affiliate link to your bio. 

If you have many affiliate links, include all the links on a landing page with a URL added to your bio. Note that only links associated with TikTok Shop Affiliate can be added to the video description.

Can You Do Affiliate Marketing On TikTok?

Yes, you can. As a creator of TikTok, you can join TikTok Shop Affiliate, work with brands, or join affiliate networks.

How Do I Make Money As A TikTok Affiliate?

Earning money with TikTok affiliate marketing is quite the same on other platforms. First, you need to build a TikTok business account. Then you find products relevant to your audience whether through an affiliate network or not.

The sellers/affiliate networks will provide you with custom links to track your sales; you expect people to buy via these links. Once you’ve made successful sales, you’ll gain commissions from the sellers.

In conclusion, affiliate marketing is a big game for sellers and creators worldwide on TikTok. From our perspective, every affiliate marketer should avail of this social platform to make the most of their income. Nonetheless, it’s getting more and more competitive, but not for all niches.

If you’re planning to do TikTok affiliate marketing, pick your product niche wisely to make a step ahead. Joining Dynu In Media as a publisher means putting yourself in an ocean of potential offers from curated sellers. Many affiliates have been successful with us, so why can’t you? We hope you enjoyed this article and good luck!