ECommerce is a crucial pathway for TikTok to explore its full potential and compete with renowned players in social pace. ECommerce provides better opportunities for creators to monetize in the platform while also aligning itself for transforming with the upcoming trends. Despite the geopolitical hurdle, the marketers are marching towards TikTok to make considerable investments. TikTok is anticipated to generate a massive revenue of around five hundred million dollars solely through advertising. TikTok’s user base is increasing, and brands focus much on targeting younger audiences.
Younger audiences are increasingly scattered around social media and prefer to view content with less advertising. But the TikTok ads resonated quickly with the users as the platform studied the preferences of younger audiences. TikTok ads can be viewed in user feeds like usual TikTok videos, except that they are created by brands. Brands can negotiate directly with TikTok or utilize a self-service platform to participate in auctions and do their bidding on ad placements.
Companies can create ad accounts in TikTok, initiate a campaign, and are provided with the listing of daily budgets according to their target audience. TikTok campaigns appear to be more authentic than other social media ads. It effectively utilizes the creative and is perceived as a usual TikTok video or the influencers’ engaging tone to promote the brand. In TikTok’s “Creator Marketplace,” the brands are paired with appropriate influencers to work on the advertisements. Some brands also buy TikTok views to advance their reach.
TikTok partnered with Walmart and declared a new deal where the retailers can showcase their buyable product when the TikTok live-stream is running. TikTok users were allowed to shop Walmart’s fashion products during its live stream without leaving the TikTok site, through TikTok’s new shoppable product feature. The fashion items were displayed in the content of the TikTok creators. The livestream was hosted by Michael Le, whose dance performances gathered forty-three million fans in TikTok. Many other stars like Taylor Hage, Zahra Hashimee, and Devan Anderson also participated in the Livestream.
Pop-up pins will guide users to click on each product that is showcased within the stream, and the selected products will be added to the shopping cart. The shopping process is streamlined by guiding users for a mobile checkout experience. In April, TikTok introduced small gestures that enabled users to send virtual gifts offered by brand partners within the platform. This approach encourages shopping behavior among the users. Also, in October, TikTok partnered with Shopify to facilitate business listings and in-app purchases.
TikTok is not entirely into the next stage of in-stream purchases inserted in the brands’ video clips. But TikTok is slowly progressing towards the goal, and the Walmart shopping stream is the best example of its efforts. Despite the overall revenue opportunities provided, eCommerce is of crucial significance to TikTok because it enhances the creators’ monetization capability.
Vine was a similar short-form video platform that shuttered eventually, followed by the struggle to offer the appropriate tools for monetization to the app’s top creators. The creators were bothered much over their earning potential and started drifting towards other social media platforms. Most native Vine stars turned out as millionaires by appropriately utilizing their content on other social media sites.
Monetizing through short-form videos was quite challenging because of the nature of the content. It was hard to include pre or mid-roll ads on a second video clip. Also, the shipping ads in the middle of the videos were not very useful. Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, gathered most of its revenue through eCommerce listings, including products in the creator clips. ECommerce will gradually turn out as a significant part of TikTok as well.
Elf Cosmetics is a profound brand that was incredibly benefitted from both the campaigns and paid video ads on TikTok. The company’s hashtag challenge #eyeslipsface got trending and was viewed more than one billion times. Marketers are convinced with TikTok following the potential investments made by Walmart in the platform. Walmart is a leading eCommerce company that was predetermined to support TikTok to build its eCommerce platform and evolve as a sustainable business model. Walmart’s Contribution enhanced TikTok as a profound app with a flourishing advertising business ahead of the world’s overall eCommerce operations.