Affiliate Marketing on TikTok For Beginners (2023)

Affiliate marketing has proven to be a lucrative model, allowing individuals to promote and sell products or services from other companies and earn a commission. It’s a fantastic way to make money online without the hassle of creating your own product or becoming a full-scale retailer. 

Today, we’re going to focus specifically on how you can leverage the power of TikTok to become a successful affiliate marketer, targeting Generation Z and Millennials.

In the world of affiliate marketing, having a sizable and relevant audience is key. Typically, this audience can be found on social networks, blogs, podcasts, or video-streaming channels. 

However, when it comes to reaching the younger generation, TikTok influencers are leading the way. With its explosive growth, TikTok has become the go-to platform for Gen Z and Millennials, making it an excellent avenue for affiliate marketing. In this ultimate guide, we’ll show you how to tap into this massive audience and earn some extra income.

So, if you’re ready to dive into the exciting world of affiliate marketing on TikTok, let’s get started.

Why You Should Jump on the TikTok Affiliate Marketing Bandwagon

TikTok has taken the world by storm, and if you’re still wondering what all the fuss is about, it’s time to catch up. With a whopping 1 billion monthly active users and users watching a mind-boggling 167 million hours of videos every internet minute, TikTok is not just a passing trend. In fact, it was the most downloaded app globally in both 2021 and 2022, surpassing the likes of Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. And guess what? TikTok users are not afraid to open their wallets either.

According to Sensor Tower data, TikTok was the top-grossing non-gaming app worldwide in February 2021, raking in over $110 million from user spending alone. It even clinched the title of the top-grossing app for the entire year. Sure, TikTok has a predominantly young audience, with over 60% of its users falling between the ages of 10 and 29. But here’s the exciting part – if you have a popular TikTok account and carefully curate your affiliate marketing products to match your audience’s interests, you have a golden opportunity to succeed.

Believe it or not, many marketers are still slow to realize the immense potential of TikTok for affiliate marketing. This means the market is far from saturated, and there’s plenty of room for you to make your mark. The key to your success lies in understanding your TikTok audience and ensuring that your affiliate offers genuinely resonate with them. It’s not about promoting something solely for its high commission; it’s about offering products that align with their tastes and preferences.

For example, if the majority of your viewers are in their twenties, selling stairlifts or walking sticks won’t get you far. Instead, focus on finding affiliate offers related to fashion, lifestyle, technology, and consumer products – the kind of stuff that gets your audience excited and eager to buy. By tailoring your affiliate marketing strategy to the interests of your TikTok followers, you’ll increase your chances of turning those views into sales.

How Does Affiliate Marketing on TikTok Work?

Affiliate marketing on TikTok is pretty similar to how it works on other social platforms. TikTok serves as a popular venue for affiliate marketers to promote products and earn commissions. Let’s break down the key players involved in this process.

1. The Product Creator (or Merchant): This is the company or individual that offers the product for sale and decides to utilize affiliate marketing as a sales strategy. It could be the manufacturer of a product or a retailer looking to sell their inventory through affiliates.
2. The Affiliate Network (optional): Some product creators choose to work with an affiliate network instead of dealing directly with individual affiliate marketers. The affiliate network acts as an intermediary, bringing together various creators and handling the day-to-day interactions with affiliate marketers.
3. The Affiliate Marketer: These are individuals who enter into agreements with product creators or affiliate networks to market their products to their online audience. In the context of TikTok, affiliate marketers promote the affiliate products within their TikTok videos.
4. The Consumer: The consumer is the person who ultimately purchases the affiliate product. In TikTok affiliate marketing, the consumer is typically a viewer of the affiliate marketer’s videos.

When an affiliate marketer joins a program, the product creator or affiliate network assigns them a unique code. The affiliate marketer then incorporates this code into their TikTok videos, either by mentioning it or including a link on their TikTok profile page.

By using their unique code, affiliate marketers can track and measure the sales generated from their TikTok videos. They earn a commission for every sale made through their code, providing an incentive for them to promote the products effectively.

Leveraging Organic Traffic for TikTok Affiliate Marketing

Successful TikTok affiliate marketers employ various methods, but one of the most effective strategies is leveraging organic traffic to boost your TikTok videos. Of course, this assumes that you already have a decent number of viewers who are preferably engaging with your content.

1. Dive into a subculture/niche: Focus on a specific subculture or niche that resonates with your interests or expertise. This will help you attract a dedicated audience that shares your passion.
2. Keep it short and snappy: In the fast-paced world of TikTok, shorter videos tend to perform better. Aim for concise and engaging content that captures viewers’ attention within seconds.
3. Grab attention from the start: Make those initial moments count! Hook your audience right away by starting your videos with something captivating, intriguing, or visually appealing.
4. Tap into popular hashtags: Utilize trending and popular hashtags related to your content. This will increase the discoverability of your videos and attract users who are already interested in the topic.
5. Ride the wave of trending audio: Pay attention to the trending sounds and music on TikTok and incorporate them into your videos creatively. This can help you ride the wave of popularity and capture viewers’ attention.
6. Craft relevant and engaging captions: Don’t overlook the power of captions. Make sure your captions are not only relevant to the content but also compelling and attention-grabbing. This will encourage users to engage with your videos and share them with others.

If you’re still in the early stages of building a popular TikTok account, it might be wise to wait a bit before delving into monetizing your TikTok account with affiliate marketing. 

In the meantime, you may need to rely more on paid traffic to promote your videos. Remember, building a strong organic following takes time and effort, but once you have an engaged audience, you’ll be well on your way to leveraging your TikTok videos for affiliate marketing success.

​​Marketing to Your Organic Traffic: Maximizing Affiliate Sales on TikTok

Establishing a Clear Niche for Your Account

TikTok’s user base mainly consists of Generation Z, with growing support from Millennials and Generation Alpha. To effectively market to your organic traffic, it’s essential to define a clear niche for your account. Create and share videos that cater to the interests of your target audience. Moreover, ensure that the affiliate products you promote align with the preferences of your viewers. For instance, if your channel focuses on teenage beauty, sharing affiliate links for hunting and fishing products wouldn’t be effective.

Blending Affiliate Products Naturally

Generation Z is famously averse to traditional advertisements. Therefore, it’s crucial to seamlessly integrate affiliate products into your TikTok videos. Choose products that your typical viewers would genuinely use. The goal is to make your product placement appear subtle and organic within the context of your content.

Driving Traffic Outside TikTok

Although you can’t directly place clickable links in TikTok videos or captions (except in experimental cases), you can take a page from Instagram’s playbook. Utilize your TikTok bio to include a link. This is the best organic way to redirect traffic from TikTok. Place the custom link provided by the affiliate company or network in your TikTok bio. Once you have a link in your bio, you can refer to it in your videos.

Adding a Clickable Link to Your TikTok Bio

Not everyone has the capability to add clickable links to their TikTok bio, but you might be able to access it by joining the TikTok tester program. Additionally, consider switching to a TikTok Business account if you currently have a personal one.

To add a clickable link to your TikTok bio:

1. Tap the Me icon at the bottom right corner of your screen.
2. Tap the Edit Profile button.
3. If your bio allows for a link, you’ll see a section to add a URL. Insert the affiliate link provided by the company or network, or use a link to your website or custom landing page. If you have multiple links for different products, select the most important one for your current affiliate marketing promotion and repeat the process when promoting another product. Using a URL shortening tool can help make your link more streamlined.
4. Tap the Submit button.
5. Double-check your bio on your mobile phone to ensure the link is clickable.

Utilizing Landing Pages and Websites

Including a link to a landing page or your website provides more opportunities to promote affiliate products, especially when promoting multiple items. Before redirecting potential leads from your TikTok account, create an informative website or landing page to direct them to.

Promoting Your TikTok Bio Link in Videos

Once you have a clickable link in your bio, you can promote it in your TikTok videos. However, it’s important to avoid any appearances of hard-selling. Generation Z, in particular, is resistant to videos that resemble traditional ads. If your videos are informative and entertaining, your followers and the TikTok algorithm won’t object to you promoting affiliate products.

Boosting Sales with Koji

To enhance your sales, consider utilizing tools like Koji. It’s one of our top recommendations for this crucial task. According to their website, Koji is the first creator eCommerce tool designed specifically for social media sellers. It offers hundreds of templates to increase sales on TikTok and other social media platforms. 

Once you select a template, you can further customize it. After customization, you’ll receive a unique link to paste in your TikTok bio. 

Apart from your bio, you can also add the link directly to your TikTok stories or share it in chats. Keep in mind that having at least 1,000 followers is required to add a clickable website link to your TikTok profile.

Diversifying Links on Your TikTok Profile

You can include more than just affiliate links on your TikTok profile. For example, consider linking to blog posts or longer YouTube videos where you can better explain the benefits and features of the products you’re promoting. With Koji, you can also add three highlights on top of unlimited links.

Connecting Your Social Accounts

TikTok makes it easy to link your other social accounts. Similarly to adding a link to your profile, visit your Me page and tap the Edit Profile button. TikTok provides fields where you can enter your Instagram and YouTube profiles, enabling you to direct people to view your other posts and promotions. These links will appear as social buttons on your profile.

Utilizing Coupon Codes

Affiliate brands often offer coupon codes for your followers and supporters. You can mention these codes in your videos and their captions. However, be sure to communicate any limitations they may have, such as expiry dates.

Easy-to-Remember URLs for Influencers

If you’re an influencer or already sending substantial traffic to your affiliate company or network’s site, they may provide you with a dedicated, easy-to-remember URL for your marketing efforts. When users visit that webpage and make a purchase, the company will credit the sale to you and pay the agreed commission. 

Ideally, the URL should be straightforward, such as https://www.companyname.com/yourname. This allows you to include it in your videos and descriptions without the need for a direct link.

Promote Your Affiliate Products on TikTok with Paid Advertising

If you’re not already a TikTok sensation with a huge following, don’t worry! Paid advertising can be your go-to option for promoting affiliate products on TikTok. Even if you already have a decent number of followers and your videos frequently show up in people’s For You lists, it’s worth considering adding some paid ads to give your organic posts an extra boost.

TikTok’s paid advertising works in a similar way to Facebook and Instagram. You place bids to have your ads displayed on viewers’ screens. These ads appear as full-screen videos, lasting anywhere from 5 to 60 seconds, in users’ For You feeds. The best part is that you can target your ads to specific demographics and psychographics. The cost of your ads depends on how much it takes to secure your desired slots in a silent auction.

While TikTok offers other high-profile ad options like TopView Ads, these may not be the most cost-effective choice for most affiliate marketers unless you have a massive audience and a significant following. For the majority of marketers, in-feed video ads will do the trick just fine.

So, if you want to take your affiliate marketing game to the next level on TikTok, consider investing in paid advertising. It’s a great way to reach a wider audience, maximize your product visibility, and increase your chances of generating affiliate commissions.

Pros of TikTok Affiliate Marketing

TikTok’s Explosive Growth

TikTok is currently the fastest-growing social platform, with millions of active users worldwide. This means a vast potential audience for your affiliate promotions.

Remarkable Engagement

With TikTok, you can achieve substantial levels of engagement even with just a handful of videos. The platform’s unique algorithm can amplify your content and help it reach a wide audience, increasing your chances of conversions.

Easy Content Creation

Unlike other video platforms, TikTok doesn’t require extensive video editing skills. You can create captivating content with just a few taps, adding text, effects, and music to make your videos stand out.

Effective Brand Building

TikTok can serve as a powerful tool to build your brand. By creating compelling content that aligns with your brand identity, you can increase awareness and loyalty among your target audience.

Audience Growth Potential

TikTok’s popularity can spill over to other platforms. By leveraging TikTok’s viral nature, you can attract followers and direct them to your other social media channels, expanding your overall online presence.

Unlimited Organic Traffic

Unlike some other social media platforms, TikTok doesn’t impose restrictions on organic reach. With engaging content and an understanding of the platform’s dynamics, you can benefit from unlimited visibility without having to rely heavily on paid advertising.

Cons of TikTok Affiliate Marketing

Commercial Intent Questions

TikTok is primarily known for its entertaining and light-hearted content. Therefore, users might not have a strong commercial intent when browsing the platform, making it challenging to drive affiliate sales.

Uncertain Future

While TikTok is thriving currently, its future in Western markets remains uncertain. Regulatory concerns and changing trends could potentially impact the platform’s popularity and user base.

No Direct Affiliate Links

TikTok’s guidelines prohibit adding direct affiliate links to video content. This limitation makes it more difficult to drive traffic to your affiliate programs and track conversions directly from your TikTok videos.

Conclusion

In conclusion, TikTok affiliate marketing has its pros and cons. On the positive side, TikTok’s rapid growth, high engagement levels, easy content creation, and brand-building potential make it an attractive platform for affiliate marketers. 

However, the lack of strong commercial intent from users, uncertainties surrounding TikTok’s future, and the absence of direct affiliate links pose challenges for successful affiliate marketing campaigns. 

By carefully weighing these factors and adapting your strategies accordingly, you can make an informed decision on whether TikTok affiliate marketing is a good fit for your goals.