TikTok Print on Demand: A blueprint for online business growth

Want to find creative ideas and trendy patterns to stamp on your products? Eager to showcase your goods to billions of people and generate more sales? Then, why miss out on TikTok? Embracing TikTok as a trend hub benefits both creators and brands, offering an unparalleled opportunity to tap into a diverse audience, fuel creativity, and elevate your Print-On-Demand (POD) business. Don’t miss out on the chance to captivate a global audience and drive your TikTok print-on-demand venture towards success with our guide to thrive in the challenging POD realm!

Why you should choose TikTok for your POD business?

Simple – Key element of TikTok’s success lies in customer purchasing power. It’s all about understanding what your customers want and riding the wave of TikTok trends.

First off, TikTok is a hotspot for users, with people spending an average of 52 minutes on it every day. Almost everyone is actively using it daily, making it a goldmine for your POD business. Especially if you’re targeting the younger crowd, TikTok is a must. Nearly half of TikTok users are from Generation Z, and they’re a powerful bunch with money to spend.

Now, let’s talk about your selling power. To shine on TikTok, get into the heads of your customers. Understand what they can afford and what they like. Tailor your products to match, making sure you’re giving them what they want at a price they can swing.

But here’s the real kicker: trends. TikTok is all about them. Don’t just follow the trends – set them. Blend your POD business with what’s hot on TikTok, and you’ll have a winning formula. It keeps you relevant and shows that your brand is on the ball. TikTok isn’t just a social platform; it’s a game-changer for your POD business.

The best part is that, as a newer platform, TikTok provides cost-effective ad solutions compared to other platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. 

>>> Learn more: TikTok Ads Cost: How Much Should You Budget for Your Campaigns?

Let’s look at some examples: 

• Printful, a leading POD provider, collaborated with TikTok influencers to showcase their custom products, resulting in a 200% increase in website traffic and a 150% increase in sales.
• Custom Ink, a popular POD company, leveraged TikTok to launch a new product line. Their campaign generated over 2 million views and resulted in a 20% increase in sales for the product category.

These success stories demonstrate the effectiveness of TikTok as a marketing tool for TikTok print-on-demand businesses, highlighting its potential to drive brand awareness, engagement, and sales.

How to start selling Print on Demand with TikTok Shop?

Are you a print-on-demand seller looking to expand your reach and boost sales? TikTok Shop offers a fantastic avenue to showcase and sell your custom-designed products directly to a massive and engaged audience. Here’s a step-by-step guide to kickstart your print-on-demand journey on TikTok Shop:

Create a TikTok account and set up your TikTok Shop

If you don’t already have a TikTok account, you’ll need to create one. You can sign up for a free account using your email address, phone number, or Google account. After that, you’ll need to set up your TikTok Shop. Learn how to set up a TikTok Shop here.

Research and choose the niches and items you want to sell

Curate a collection that speaks to your audience. Whether it’s trendy apparel, stylish accessories, or unique home decor, pick items that resonate with your brand and target audience.

Then, infuse creativity into your designs to stand out on TikTok. Tailor your merchandise to reflect your niche, ensuring it captures the attention of the TikTok audience. And remember, stick with your niche.

List your items and start selling

Add your curated items to TikTok Shop and kickstart your sales journey. Use TikTok’s dynamic formats, like in-feed videos and live streams, to creatively showcase your products.

Create content to showcase your merchandise

Keep your TikTok audience engaged with fresh and captivating content. Display your products in action, share behind-the-scenes glimpses, and use TikTok’s features to boost the visibility of your merchandise. Here is our creative best practice to achieve success on TikTok:

• Keep your video duration at 21-34 seconds.
• Set reminders to help audiences get in the mood to shop or clear CTAs.
• Promote your hero deals with concise text overlays, effects or stickers.
• Inspire and excite with various scenes to keep it lively and engaging.
• Add a real voiceover to illustrate and strengthen the product with an offer.
• Sound on and add audio of any kind.

>>> We have plenty type of video ideas for you; learn more: Unfold the top 11 TikTok Video Ideas to captivate your audience

Start advertising with TikTok ads

TikTok advertising is a speedy way to get more eyes on your product, potentially boosting sales. It involves paying to showcase your promoted content to a specific target audience. There are three key levels of TikTok ads to grasp:

• TikTok Ad: A standalone ad.
• TikTok Ad Group: A set of ads grouped.
• TikTok Campaign: An overarching collection of ad groups.

Let’s take an example. If you’re selling custom POD clothing, you might have a TikTok ad highlighting a unique graphic t-shirt. This ad could be part of a group showcasing various t-shirt marketing videos, all falling under a broader campaign focusing on summer t-shirts for sale.

For e-commerce sellers, understanding all types of TikTok ads is crucial for making informed choices. The most commonly used ad types include:

• Video ads: Resemble regular TikTok videos, but interactions lead to a landing page.
• Spark ads: Organic content from your TikTok account that gets promoted.
• Shopping ads: Promote shoppable videos that appear on a specific audience’s For You page.
• Carousel ads: Allow advertisers to share up to ten images in a single ad.

>>> Learn more: How to sell on TikTok: 7 easy steps for beginners & sellers

Metrics you need to notice for TikTok print-on-demand performance

To gauge the performance of your TikTok print-on-demand business effectively, it’s essential to track key metrics that provide insights into various aspects of your operations. Here are some important metrics you should pay attention to:

Conversion Rate (CVR)

• Definition: The percentage of visitors to your store who make a purchase.
• Why it matters: A high conversion rate indicates that your products and website are compelling and resonate with your audience.

Average Order Value (AOV)

• Definition: The average amount spent by a customer per order.
• Why it matters: A higher AOV implies that customers are adding more items to their carts or purchasing higher-priced products.

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

• Definition: The cost associated with acquiring a new customer, including marketing expenses.
• Why it matters: Keeping CAC in check ensures that your marketing efforts are cost-effective in acquiring valuable customers.

Return on Investment (ROI)

• Definition: The ratio of net profit to the cost of marketing.
• Why it matters: ROI helps evaluate the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns and their impact on your overall profit.

Product Margins

• Definition: The percentage of revenue that remains after all costs have been paid. It is calculated by subtracting the total cost of goods sold (COGS) from the total revenue and then dividing that number by the total revenue.
• Why it matters: Monitoring product margins ensures that your pricing strategy is profitable and sustainable.

Click-Through Rate (CTR)

• Definition: The percentage of people who click on an ad or a link compared to the total number of individuals who view it.
• Why it matters: CTR is vital for gauging engagement in your TikTok POD campaigns. It reveals how well your content or ads capture your audience’s attention, driving them to take desired actions like visiting your TikTok Shop. A higher CTR suggests that your content resonates well, playing a key role in the success of your TikTok POD endeavors.

Net promoter score (NPS)

• Definition: NPS is a measure of customer loyalty. It is calculated by asking customers how likely they are to recommend your products or services to others.
• Why it matters: A high NPS score indicates that you have a loyal customer base who is likely to recommend your business to their friends and family.

Abandoned cart rate

• Definition: The percentage of users who add products to their cart but do not complete the purchase.
• Why it matters: A high abandoned cart rate may indicate issues with the checkout process or an opportunity to re-engage potential customers.

TikTok Engagement rate

• Definition: Likes, shares, comments, and overall interaction on your social media platforms.
• Why it matters: Social media engagement reflects brand awareness and the effectiveness of your content in resonating with your audience.

Learn More: TikTok Engagement Rate: Benchmarks, Formula, and 7 Tips

Inventory Turnover

• Definition: The number of times your entire inventory is sold and replaced within a specific period.
• Why it matters: Efficient inventory turnover ensures that your products are in demand and not sitting unsold.

Regularly monitoring and analyzing these metrics will provide valuable insights into the performance of your POD business and guide strategic decisions for growth and optimization.

How to Optimize TikTok Print-on-Demand Performance?

In TikTok print-on-demand business, you have the creative freedom to design and produce your own unique products. Unlike dropshipping, where the focus is on selling existing items, POD empowers you to showcase your creativity by bringing your custom designs to life. This key distinction allows POD sellers to offer exclusive and personalized merchandise, setting them apart in a market that values originality. With ample creative freedom, you have the full capacity to enhance performance and broaden your sales reach on TikTok.

Understanding your target audience

The foundation of a successful TikTok Ad Campaign lies in understanding your target audience. Comprehensive market research is essential to uncover valuable insights into your audience’s demographics, consumer behavior patterns, and preferences. This deep understanding allows you to create buyer personas that accurately represent your ideal customers.

To enhance the performance of your campaign, it’s essential to tailor your message to the right audience. TikTok offers robust targeting solutions, whether you’re seeking new web visitors or re-engaging existing customers. Leverage TikTok’s targeting solutions or incorporate your own audiences using Custom Audience solutions.

Remember, if you want to target cross-border customers, don’t miss out on the TikTok Agency Ad Account for its optimized functions to target more than 55 countries worldwide. And, of course, using limited features like budget allocation, direct support from TikTok, etc., is an all-in-one package with this ad account! So, why hesitate?

Demographic & device targeting

Create your ideal marketing persona by utilizing aggregated demographic and device information, including age, gender, location, language, and device.

• Interest Targeting: Connect with audiences based on their interests in various content categories and keywords, spanning beauty & personal care, sports & outdoors, online shopping, travel, and more.
• Behavior Targeting: Engage audiences based on their recent behaviors and interactions with video content, such as video completions, likes, hashtag interactions, or creator following in the past 15 days.

Custom audiences & Re-engagement 

Leveraging TikTok’s tools for managing audience data to reconnect with previous customers and enhance your advertising strategy. This involves utilizing 2 primary methods:

• Customer File: Effortlessly upload your customer files on TikTok Ads Manager, accepting Apple Identifier for marketers (IDFA) and Google Advertising ID (GAID).
• Web Activity & Retargeting: Create Web Activity audiences for users who have completed specific actions on your website, like View Content or Add to Cart. Utilize Retargeting to re-engage your web users on TikTok.

Smart targeting solutions

Let Automatic Targeting make smart adjustments throughout your campaign journey, from identifying the right audiences to continuous adjustments and optimizations. Discover new audiences with TikTok’s intelligent targeting solutions.

Allocate your budget effectively to optimize your ROAS

Your ad budget is a crucial factor in determining the reach and impact of your TikTok Ad Campaign. It is essential to allocate your budget strategically, aligning it with your overall marketing objectives. 

Whether you’re aiming for maximum results or a controlled cost per conversion, the choice is yours. 

• The Lowest Cost bid strategy automatically determines the bid, providing the best opportunity for maximum conversions at an efficient cost, ensuring your full budget is utilized. 
• On the other hand, the Cost Cap bid strategy delivers results at a controlled cost per conversion that, on average, aligns with your targeted CPA.

For Conversion Optimization, designed to attract users to take valuable actions on your website, you can optimize towards multiple web activities, such as viewing content, adding to a cart, completing payments, and more.

If you’re focused on acquiring users of high value, consider Value-Based Optimization (VBO). Campaigns using VBO achieve a 36% higher ROAS compared to other campaigns. With VBO, you can optimize directly towards purchase value, utilizing bid strategies like Highest Value and min ROAS.

Note:

• The highest value emphasizes conversions with higher purchase values and is the default bid strategy if you don’t have a specific bid for Minimum ROAS.
• When opting for Minimum ROAS, you can set a target ROAS as a bid to prioritize control over ROAS.

>>> Learn more: How To Optimize TikTok Ads: Guideline From TikTok Agency

Choosing the Right Ad Format

TikTok provides various ad formats, each with unique strengths. Choosing the right one for your campaign depends on your goals and your audience’s preferences. In-feed ads offer broad reach and seamless integration, Video Shopping Ads is a great way to highlight the features and benefits of your products, and Dynamic Showcase Ads automatically create personalized ads for each user based on their interests and past behavior, ensuring the relevance of your ads to every individual user. Understanding these formats with our comprehensive guide – “Explore 11 TikTok Ad Types for Growing Rocket” will help you make informed decisions that align with your campaign goals and resonate with your audience. Download your free copy now!

Boost visibility by sharing signals

Signals act as the fuel for our optimization technology, guiding it in choosing which ad to show on TikTok for a higher chance of conversion. Improved signals result in better optimization. It’s crucial to have pixels set up to track user actions after they click or view an ad.

Learn more about TikTok Pixel to help you navigate through the pixel setup options for your campaigns: What is TikTok Pixel & How to set it up to optimize ad events? 

And don’t forget to manage cookies by implementing advanced matching – a feature that helps businesses better connect website and app events with people on TikTok. You can use this feature with the TikTok Pixel and Events API. If you choose to share signals, you can install a code on your website or use a partner-integrated pixel for flexibility in configuring and hashing the information sent to TikTok. There are 2 options:

Manual advanced matching

• No coding is required.
• Can be turned on/off via pixel settings.
• The pixel scans your website for form fields with email or phone numbers, hashes them (SHA-256), and sends them to TikTok.

Automatic Advanced Matching

• Customizable information sharing.
• Hash data yourself or let it happen automatically.
• One-click activation.
• Automatic hashing using SHA-256.
• Ideal for advertisers without technical resources.

These options enhance attribution, making your advertising efforts more effective on TikTok.

Remember to track your ads

TikTok offers tailored solutions for web marketers:

• For precise conversions, choose the ‘Web Conversion‘ objective to attract users to take action on your website.
  • Objective: Drive specific conversions by using the ‘Web Conversion’ objective. This aims to attract users who take action on your website.
  • Use Case: Ideal for marketers focused on getting users to perform valuable actions on their website.
  • Functionality: Supports multiple optimization events, leading to 40%-50% lower CPA compared to the Traffic objective.
  • Requirements: Suitable for marketers equipped with a pixel.
  • To implement: Create a Web Conversion campaign on TikTok Ads Manager.

Note: Please be aware that in certain TikTok Ads Manager accounts, the Web Conversion campaign objective might still be labeled as ‘Conversion’.

• If you’re selling products, opt for the “Product Sales” objective to engage users interested in purchasing from your website.
  • Objective: Sell products directly on your website using the “Product Sales” objective. This targets users interested in making purchases.
  • Use Case: Effective for marketers aiming to drive key product sales and achieve higher ROAS.
  • Functionality: Utilizes full-funnel signals and optimization for multiple events.
  • Requirements: Designed for marketers well-equipped with a pixel and a web catalog.
  • To implement: Create a Product Sales campaign on TikTok Ads Manager.

Note: To achieve product sales objectives, it is necessary to be whitelisted. Reach out to TikTok Partnership Manager like Mega Digital for further information.

Best Practices:

• Ensure TikTok Pixel has Advanced Matching and Manage Cookie enabled.
• Set up the Catalog fully, including Product Link UTM tracking and Pixel Integration.

Craft compelling product descriptions

Beyond eye-catching visuals, harness the power of words. Craft product descriptions that transcend technical details, stirring emotions like excitement, aspiration, or nostalgia. Connect with your TikTok audience on a deeper level by helping them envision how your POD products seamlessly fit into their lives, enhancing style and personal expression. Weave narratives around your products, transforming them into symbols of self-expression, sparking social sharing, and creating buzz.

Run contests and giveaways

Bring excitement and engagement to your TikTok audience with contests and giveaways. Design challenges that prompt participants to showcase your POD products creatively—whether through photo challenges, video testimonials, or imaginative social media posts. Offer prizes that resonate with your brand and target audience. By running these captivating contests, tap into your audience’s competitive spirit, encouraging them to share their creations. This not only sparks excitement around your brand but also extends your reach through organic sharing on TikTok.

Post quality content regularly

Consistency is key on TikTok. Regularly posting highly engaging content increases user engagement and expands your content’s reach. For a TikTok print-on-demand store, consider creating “How to” tutorials to deliver value without appearing overly promotional. Establish yourself as an expert in your niche to keep your brand top-of-mind for viewers.

For instance, if your store sells custom hats, offer fashion inspiration by showcasing different ways to style the hats with various outfits. If your product is custom stickers, create content showcasing creative use cases, such as adding them to product packaging or personalizing home items.

Add hashtags and product links

Enhance your content’s visibility by strategically incorporating hashtags in your post descriptions. Target niche keywords rather than highly competitive popular hashtags. TikTok’s “product links” feature enables you to tag products in your posts, directing viewers to your online store for a seamless checkout. This ensures your engaging content not only captivates but also converts interested viewers into customers.

Measure, test & learn

Finally, measure, test, and learn from each of your campaigns. Let’s start with these 3 practices: 

• Use analytics tools: TikTok’s analytics provides a wealth of data. Dive deep into the demographics, geographic locations, and periods that yield the best results.
• Experiment with different elements: A split test or A/B test in TikTok Ads Manager is a tool that enables you to compare 2 distinct versions of your ads, helping you identify the top-performing one and enhance future campaigns. Currently, you can test three variables:
  • Targeting: Broad vs. narrow targeting, custom audience vs. ad targeting, demographic, interests, and behaviors, device, location.
  • Bidding & Optimization: Bidding strategies, optimization goals, bidding dollar amount.
  • Creative: Ad formats, videos, Call-to-Action copy, description copy.
• Patience is key: Set realistic expectations for campaign success. TikTok success often involves iterative improvement over time. Acknowledge the nuances of your audience and platform dynamics.

Final word

As the online world keeps changing, getting into TikTok Print on Demand isn’t just a smart move – it’s a way to transform your business and find success online. So, start your TikTok Print on Demand journey today and watch your business thrive in the world of social commerce!

If you’re in search of an awesome collaboration partner, Mega Digital is the ultimate choice! As a TikTok partner, we enjoy many exclusive benefits provided by TikTok. Our partnership with the advertising account system of the agency ensures that your sales process becomes smoother than ever. Reach out to us today for personalized advice and let’s embark on a journey to amplify your success!