If you’re trying to figure out how to actually get customers and boost sales on TikTok, you’re in the right place. With so much happening on the platform every day, it can feel overwhelming—but it’s also full of opportunities. TikTok eCommerce isn’t just about posting trendy videos. It’s about using TikTok’s built-in shop, ad formats, and live features to turn viewers into real buyers. Whether you’re a small business, a growing brand, or just getting started, we’ll walk you through how to make TikTok work for your sales goals step by step.
What is TikTok eCommerce?
First of all, what is TikTok eCommerce? TikTok eCommerce refers to selling products right through the TikTok app. You can do this by switching to a business account and setting up a TikTok shop. Another great way to sell on TikTok is by using video shopping ads or joining an affiliate program to promote other brands’ products. TikTok can also be used as a marketing channel to drive sales in your online store.
Why should businesses use TikTok eCommerce?
If you haven’t heard of it yet, TikTok is revolutionizing how brands and businesses buy and sell products and services through video. Let’s explore why using TikTok for eCommerce can help your business grow!
Board audience sizes
TikTok is expected to reach 1.8 billion monthly active users by the end of 2024. And most of them are in their 20s and 30s. With high demands for online shopping, these tech-savvy generations are potential customers for businesses to exploit. Especially when the percentage of female users takes up to 57%, making the most contribution to the online shopping market.
Personalized content
With large audience sizes being active, brands and businesses can get access to them via personalized content. Take Fenty Beauty as an example; they have partnered with multiple influencers to create educational content surrounding makeup products and tutorials, building a sense of trust among the followers. Through impressive videos, Fenty Beauty has exceeded 2 billion followers on TikTok, making it one of the top-performing brands on the platform.
Integrate shopping with entertainment
During the pandemic, TikTok has accompanied us with endless content, such as dance challenges, duet videos, daily vlogs,… Along with trending sounds and innovative filters, TikTok has successfully brought joy to viewers during contactless periods.
Taking advantage of this, TikTok has integrated shopping with entertainment (Shoppertainment), creating a fun shopping experience for viewers. The platform has proven its remarkable influence through the famous #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt trend, where users can discover plenty of products from cosmetics, home furniture, to food and beverages. Ultimately, this trending hashtag received 36.1M views and has become the strongest social proof for online customers.
How Can Businesses Do eCommerce on TikTok?
TikTok supports creators and sellers by introducing great features that allow them to display and promote their products perfectly on the platform. The key features can be seen below:
Displaying Products on TikTok Shop
TikTok Shop is a feature integrated into the TikTok app that enables users to explore and purchase products directly within the platform. Through TikTok Shop, users can easily discover a range of curated products from various brands while scrolling through their For You feed or exploring the Discover page. When users find a product of interest, they can click on it to access the product listing, which provides essential details, images, pricing, and a link to the brand’s website for purchase.
TikTok offers an in-app purchase option for select products, allowing users to complete their transactions seamlessly without leaving the app. This integration of eCommerce within TikTok enhances the shopping experience for users, providing them with a convenient and engaging way to explore and buy products from their favorite brands while staying within the TikTok environment.
Launch Smart+ Campaigns for Paid Growth
TikTok’s ad system has evolved significantly. In 2025, Smart+ campaigns are the go-to for most eCommerce sellers looking to grow fast.
They’re TikTok’s AI-powered ads that automatically optimize creative, targeting, and bidding based on your goal, whether that’s conversions, traffic, or leads. You only need to provide the core assets (product catalog, videos, copy), and TikTok does the rest.
There are some new key features of Smart+ Campaigns that you need to notice:
- Smart+ Catalog Ads now pull product details directly from your TikTok Shop and auto-create ad variations tailored to each audience segment.
- Smart+ Traffic to TikTok Shop campaigns allow brands to drive users directly to their in-app storefronts with pre-filled product info and dynamic pricing updates.
These campaigns take the guesswork out of media buying and help smaller businesses compete with larger players.
>>> Read more: TikTok Smart+ Campaign Guide: How to Improve ROAS Easily?
Connecting with Buyers through TikTok Livestream
Live streaming to promote products and drive sales is not something new in the eCommerce world. In China, this selling format has become a phenomenon, accounting for 15% of sales in the eCommerce industry. Acknowledging the advantages of live streaming, TikTok has been adding small features within the LIVE section to support brands in connecting with their customers more effectively:
- Schedule live-streaming events
- Notify followers of Livestream events
- Co-livestream by inviting more hosts and guests
- Add content coverage through LIVE Topics
- Apply coupons during live sections
By taking these features into account, businesses can reach more customers and build stronger relationships with current ones. In addition, live streaming allows brands to showcase their products directly to customers, which creates a sense of trust and credibility among them. This gives brands huge advantages since getting support from loyal customers certainly will build a solid foundation for further development.
With TikTok live stream feature, brands can engage with their customers by hosting competitions, playing games, and making live donations with followers.
Shaping Creativity on TikTok Creative Center
Lies inside TikTok for Business, TikTok Creative Center is a free hub where businesses can explore current trends, creative instructions, audio library,… Here are 8 key sections that allow businesses to improve their content quality for better results:
- Top-performing ads: With the filtered search function, businesses can find the best-performing ads for different products and industries and see how well they performed using provided metrics.
- Keywords insights: By gathering top phrases and keywords on TikTok Ads, this section supports businesses to generate creative copywriting for ads and messages.
- Creativity analysis: Give answers to many questions on creative efficiency.
- Creative strategies: Provide useful tips on finding video ideas and suggest optimizing brands’ content quality.
- Success case studies: Learn more about successful brand stories on TikTok and apply them to your own achievements.
- Trends discovery: Monitor and apply hot trends to push brands’ products on trending sections.
- Top Products: Support in finding current trending products in the marketplace.
- Hashtags: Optimize hashtags to make videos and products appear on top of the search bar with the help of TikTok SEO.
Tap Into TikTok’s Affiliate Marketplace
If you don’t want to produce content yourself, let creators do the selling for you. The TikTok Affiliate Marketplace connects brands with creators willing to promote products in exchange for commission.
Here’s how it works:
- Brands set commission rates and define product-specific terms directly within the TikTok Shop backend.
- Creators can browse available products and apply to promote the ones that match their audience. Alternatively, brands can reach out to specific creators to invite them to join their affiliate campaigns.
- Every sale generated through an affiliate’s content is automatically tracked by TikTok, giving brands real-time visibility into clicks, conversions, and top-performing partners.
And you also need to notice sone new features:
- Brands now have the option to create exclusive, invite-only affiliate campaigns. This allows them to handpick trusted creators or give early access to key partners during limited product launches or seasonal promotions.
- TikTok has also introduced advanced creator filters, making it easier to find influencers with a proven sales track record in your specific product category, whether that’s kitchen gadgets, beauty, fashion, or electronics.
This approach is especially useful for brands that want to expand their reach without committing to large upfront influencer fees. By only paying for completed sales, affiliate campaigns offer a performance-based model that helps reduce advertising risk, ideal for new product launches, seasonal pushes, or testing new target markets.
How to drive better performance with TikTok eCommerce?
With competition rising fast on TikTok Shop in 2025, simply listing products isn’t enough. To stand out and drive consistent sales, brands need to be more strategic across content, targeting, and conversion touchpoints. Below are proven tactics to help boost your TikTok eCommerce performance:
Leverage Smart Performance+ Campaigns
TikTok’s Smart Performance+ Campaigns are an upgraded version of the original Smart Performance format. This newer version uses machine learning to not only optimize targeting and bidding but also dynamically generate ad creatives based on your product catalog.
What makes it different in 2025 is how it pulls content from your TikTok Shop backend—such as titles, thumbnails, and product videos—to automatically create multiple ad versions. TikTok’s system then tests these variations in real-time and allocates more budget to top-performing combinations.
To get the most out of Smart Performance+:
- Make sure your product titles and descriptions are keyword-rich and clear.
- Upload high-quality thumbnails and short product videos to your catalog.
- Monitor creative performance reports to refine your visuals over time.
This campaign type is ideal for businesses that want to scale quickly without spending hours on manual setup.
Using TikTok Ads
The second practice you can do is to run a TikTok ad campaign. All you need to get started is a TikTok Business account and the TikTok Ads Manager. Once you start browsing through the different types of TikTok ads, you’ll notice there are a variety of formats available, like In-Feed Ads, TopView Ads, and Branded Hashtag Challenges. Each one differs in price and has its own unique benefits. These ads can help you reach a larger audience and drive traffic to your TikTok shop or online store. Make sure to target your ads effectively to get the best results.
To further utilize exclusive advertising options like TikTok Dynamic ads, cross-border targeting, unlimited ad spend, etc., we recommend using a TikTok Ads Agency Account, which is a more optimal solution for both ad newbies and experts. Remember, this account type is supported by both TikTok and its partner – Mega Digital, who have performed thousands of ad campaigns on this platform.
Affiliate Marketing
TikTok affiliate marketing refers to using the TikTok platform as a means to promote products and services for advertisers. TikTok content creators get a commission or fee in exchange. They use their large follower base to advertise products or create brand awareness.
This strategy worked since TikTok has a wide influencer network, ranging from nano influencers with 1,000 – 10,000 followers to macro-influencers with more than 1,000,000 followers. Besides, by optimizing UGC (User-generated content), TikTok affiliate marketing has connected with buyers through affiliate marketing.
Partner with Creators and Influencers
Partnering with TikTok creators and influencers is one of the smartest moves you can make to drive more sales. It’s all about leveraging their influence to build trust, boost brand awareness, and ultimately, increase your revenue. Many brands blow up overnight on TikTok when a creator discovers a product they love, shares it in a video, and their followers take notice.
You can launch an affiliate program to partner with creators and influencers, driving traffic and promoting new products. TikTok’s Selling Center helps you build your promotion plan and find niche creators. Once you find the right influencer, they can post content with affiliate links to your store, earning a commission for every sale generated through their link.
A great resource to find influencers is the Creator Marketplace, which is TikTok’s official collaboration platform to connect brands and creators.
Prioritize Creator-Led and Native Video Content
In 2025, TikTok’s data shows that creator-led content continues to outperform traditional product ads. Users engage more with videos that feel authentic, personal, and story-driven, especially when the creator shows the product in use or shares their personal experience.
To implement this:
- Partner with creators who already speak to your niche audience.
- Use TikTok Creator Ads or Spark Ads to amplify content that already performs well organically.
- Keep videos between 15 to 30 seconds with a strong hook in the first 3 seconds.
- Include clear on-screen text and a simple CTA like “Shop now” or “See more.”.
Optimize Your Product Detail Pages (PDPs)
TikTok Shop’s algorithm considers more than just your ad performance. It also looks at how well your product detail pages (PDPs) convert. In 2025, TikTok has introduced several enhancements to PDPs that brands should take advantage of:
- Video-first layouts that autoplay promotional or UGC videos directly on the PDP.
- Prominent placement for discount vouchers and promotional badges.
- Enhanced reviews and seller trust signals, such as ratings, badges, and follower counts.
To improve your PDPs:
- Feature social proof with customer testimonials and high-quality reviews.
- Add a short, vertical demo video that shows the product in action.
- Use lifestyle images to demonstrate usage and value.
>>>> Read more: TikTok SEO Techniques: How to Dominate the TikTok Algorithm?
Participate in TikTok’s Seasonal and Mega Sale Events
TikTok runs frequent shopping events and sales festivals throughout the year, including new additions like the Spring Sale, Summer Deals, and enhanced 11.11 campaigns. These events come with increased platform support, such as homepage placement, shopping tabs, and influencer-led countdowns.
To capitalize on these events:
- Schedule product drops or exclusive bundles around the event.
- Offer limited-time vouchers or early-bird discounts to your followers.
- Promote countdowns using TikTok Ads and Creator partnerships in the lead-up to the event.
Being part of these moments can significantly increase your reach and click-through rates, especially if your deals are competitive.
Retarget Viewers Who Didn’t Convert
TikTok has improved its retargeting capabilities in 2025, allowing brands to run Shop Ads that specifically re-engage users who showed interest but didn’t purchase. These include users who:
- Viewed your PDP but didn’t buy
- Added your product to the cart without checking out
- Watched a significant portion of your video ad
You can set up segmented retargeting ads with messaging tailored to each action. For example:
- For PDP viewers: “Still thinking about it? See what makes this a best-seller.”
- For abandoned carts: “You left something behind—here’s 10% off to come back.”
Align With Mobile Shopping Behavior
TikTok is a mobile-first platform, so your entire shopping flow from ad to checkout needs to feel seamless on small screens. In 2025, TikTok Shop has worked to speed up in-app checkout and improve mobile navigation, but the brand experience still matters.
To improve the mobile shopping experience:
- Use bold, legible fonts and clear product imagery in videos.
- Make sure landing pages load quickly and are optimized for vertical scrolling.
- Streamline the purchasing process by limiting unnecessary steps or pop-ups.
You can also consider reviewing your entire flow from a customer’s perspective on a phone; small friction points can significantly reduce conversion rates.
Wrap-up
TTikTok eCommerce in 2025 is more than just a trend; it’s a powerful sales engine. By using TikTok Shop, affiliate campaigns, and creator tools the right way, brands can turn views into real revenue. Focus on native content, test often, and stay aligned with how users shop on TikTok. That’s how you grow.
