How to Find TikTok Shop Affiliates That Fit Your Brand

According to a report, affiliate marketing has a high return on ad spend (ROAS) in the US across sectors, with some sectors generating up to $21.1 per dollar invested.

Therefore, if you have been wanting to scale your TikTok Shop, it is a great time to invest in affiliate marketing. However, it is worth noting that the affiliates you choose to partner with will determine your TikTok Shop’s GMV.

That’s why you should conduct due diligence and evaluate different creators before you reach out.

This blog provides key details on how to find affiliates, where to find them, and what makes a good affiliate partner. It also explores how to help you scale on TikTok with more confidence.

Affiliates vs. Influencers on TikTok Shop

While most people use the terms 'affiliate' and 'influencer' interchangeably, they serve different purposes and have different goals. Whether you hire an affiliate or an influencer for your TikTok shop depends on the goals you are trying to achieve.

The affiliates vs. influencers mix-up could cause you to overspend on the wrong creators, resulting in undesirable outcomes.

Let’s clear up the confusion.

Affiliates

Here’s what affiliates do and how they do it:

• Goal: An affiliate’s goal is to drive traffic to your TikTok shop. They promote products and services using unique tracking links on their platform. For every sale made through their unique link, they earn a commission, usually 10-20% of the sale price.
• Compensation Model: They are paid only after a sale is made through their referral code or link. As a brand, this is a cost-effective model, ideal if you’re looking for consistent sales without high startup costs.
• Duration: As long as an affiliate-company partnership is on, your business continues to make sales, and the affiliate continues to earn their commission indefinitely.
• Control Levels: Brand control level is relatively low when working with TikTok affiliates. An affiliate has creative freedom to do content in their style with minimal brand input.
• Strengths: TikTok affiliate marketing involves minimal financial risks and is highly scalable, allowing as many affiliates as possible to join.
• Weakness: As the affiliate network scales, managing it can be frustrating without proper tools.

Influencers

Let’s have a look at what sets influencers apart from affiliates:

• Goal: The primary goal of a TikTok influencer is to increase brand awareness. Influencers introduce products to their followers and create engaging content about them. They incorporate the products into their lifestyle, demonstrating how they work. They help shape brand perception by creating a specific aesthetic for the brand.
• Compensation Model: Influencers are paid an upfront flat fee to create one video or run a campaign for a specific period. Under the agreement, there may be performance-based bonuses. This payment model is risky for business owners as it does not always guarantee results.
• Duration: A TikTok influencer markets products only during the campaign duration. If they are paid to post one video or to market a product for two months, they don’t go beyond that.
• Control Levels: Influencers receive briefs with strict talking guidelines from companies. They are required to share scripts and visuals with the company’s PR team for approvals before publishing the content on their TikTok accounts.
• Strengths: It gives brands high visibility and allows for authentic audience connection.
• Weakness: It can be costly since it does not guarantee tangible results. Also, results tend to diminish as soon as the campaign period lapses.

What Makes a Good Affiliate for Your Brand

Working with the wrong affiliate could lead to brand dilution and loss of credibility. Therefore, always ensure the affiliate aligns with your brand before sending free samples.

When looking for a good TikTok shop affiliate, you should prioritize the following:

• Audience Match: Do their followers match your business’s ideal customer profile in terms of age, interests, and location? Does their audience discuss problems your brand can solve? If their audience has no interest in a product, it becomes a total loss.
• Content Quality & Alignment: While affiliates are free to create videos in their own style, meeting basic quality standards is a plus. Your audience is likely to relate to authentic and honest creators.
• Niche Specialization: The affiliates with specialized niches are more likely to drive conversions than those with generic niches. The TikTok algorithm is based on user interests, favoring niche content and content creators. So you should avoid partnering with a generic affiliate to avoid algorithm confusion.
• Trustworthiness & Professionalism: Can the affiliate be trusted? What are people saying about them in the comments section? How do they respond to comments? A professional affiliate isn’t just interested in closing sales. They care about relationships and a brand’s reputation.

How to Find Affiliates That Match Your Brand and Audience

Knowing what to look for in an affiliate marketer is one thing, but finding affiliates that actually fit a brand is a big headache for many brands.

This simple process for getting affiliates for a TikTok shop is a time-saver:

Define the Perfect Match

Define your ideal customer profile, customer pain points, and unique selling points (USPs) to streamline the search process.

With these in place, it’s faster to screen different creators and find the ones who best match your brand.

Visit the TikTok Shop Seller Center

TikTok Shop has native tools that make it easy for you to find new affiliates.

Under the Find Creators tab, you can find a perfect match for your brand using filters for revenue (GMV), product category, and recommended category.

Screen Selected Creators

After selecting some affiliates, you need to screen them further to ensure brand alignment.

Pay close attention to their consistency, conversion cues, professionalism, and relevance. Rate each of them on a scale of 1-10 and pick the most suitable.

Implement Outreach Tactics

After identifying a few potential creators, the next step is to reach out to them with a brief on the product and the target customer.

Highlight the unique selling points to focus on and the preferred video format.

You should also share the commission details and offer to send a free sample to expedite the response. Providing all the relevant details clearly from the word go increases the response rate.

Leverage Cruva

Cruva is an affiliate marketing tool designed to scale TikTok shops. With our platform, you can discover affiliates who not only align with your brand and audience but also drive GMV.

You can leverage automation tools that help you reach out to hundreds of creators in your niche without sounding like a bot.

You can also discover creators posting for your competitors, recruit them, send polite reminders, and track product samples and postings on a single dashboard.

Ready to get the perfect TikTok affiliate partner? Book a demo today to get started.

Where to Find Affiliates for Your TikTok Shop

With the right affiliates, brands can drive more sales than with paid TikTok ads. To find affiliate marketers who can drive higher GMV for a TikTok shop, business owners must stop obsessing over metrics like video views and follower count.

Let’s have a look at a few places brands can scout for affiliates who deliver real results instead of mere video likes.

• Find Creators Tool: The first obvious place to scout for affiliates is on TikTok’s Find Creators tool, which is found at the Affiliate Center. With the tool, business owners can access different creators and their metrics, allowing them to invite creators who seem like a perfect match.
  
  However, most creators don’t respond, and follow-ups are needed to get their attention. The outreach process is heavily manual, taking up a lot of time.
• Creator Market Place: This is where brands connect with their ideal creators on TikTok. This tool allows brands to filter searches by region, followers, views, reach, and topic.
  
  While this is a great tool for discovering and collaborating with creators, it excludes creators with fewer than 10k followers. Yet, microcreators with niche audiences tend to drive more conversions than larger creators.
• TikTok Hashtags: The best affiliates are those already talking to a business’s ideal audience. Using hashtags related to your brand is the easiest way to find them and invite them to collaborate.
  
  While this method is great for finding hidden gems, it’s tedious because it requires sending invites one by one. To get a single creator to respond, hundreds of individual messages must be sent manually.
  
• Third-Party Platforms: Third-party affiliate platforms like Cruva leverage AI to identify the best affiliates, reach out to them, and follow up via automated processes.
  
  Our TikTok shop affiliate outreach bot matches brands with their already-vetted TikTok affiliates, guaranteeing higher GMV.
  
  Tired of being ghosted by TikTok affiliates and sending free samples that never get posted? Cruva connects brands to affiliates who are genuinely interested in their product and are already driving sales for competitors.

How to Evaluate Affiliate Quality Before Reaching Out

While evaluating affiliates can be challenging and time-consuming, it is an essential step that ensures that you don’t spend hours reaching out to the wrong creators.

Use these guidelines to evaluate an affiliate's quality to save time and resources:

Gross Merchandise Value (GMV)

Affiliates who have consistently driven higher GMV over time are a better choice than those with viral videos but no conversions.

While at it, businesses must also be cautious to ensure they are not making losses while trying to maintain standard industry affiliates' commission rates.

This is where a TikTok Shop profit calculator comes in, helping the business to plan and implement its margins and commissions effectively.

Consistency in Posting

How often does the affiliate post? A serious and dedicated affiliate posts at least once or several times a day.

If an affiliate lacks consistency, they are unlikely to drive any sales.

Promotion Performance Score (PPS)

This is one of TikTok’s most powerful metrics for evaluating an affiliate’s performance.

It rates affiliates’ performance on a scale of 1 to 5; brands should target affiliates with a PPS of 3.5 or higher to improve click-through rates.

Clear CTAs

Avoid wasting time on TikTok affiliates who don’t understand the essence of clear calls to action.

An affiliate who directs their audience to the clickable shopping link increases conversions more than one who leaves the audience to guess what to do next.

Evaluate the Comment Section

You can get information from the comment section. It can reveal if an affiliate is trustworthy, the quality of their followers, and their purchase intent.

If the comments are bot-like or there are no comments at all, it’s best to move on.

Always pay close attention to the comments and look out for comments such as, ‘Where is the link?’, ‘I already placed my order,’ or ‘What other colors are available?’

These queries show that their audience has the buying capacity.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Here are some of the main concerns and queries that business owners have concerning finding TikTok shop affiliate marketers:

How Many Affiliates Do I Need to Grow a TikTok Shop?

The number of affiliates to grow a TikTok shop is the wrong metric. Instead, focus on conversion rates.

A few high-quality affiliates could drive more sales than hundreds of affiliates who rarely post products on TikTok.

What Commission Rate Attracts Strong Affiliates?

To attract better affiliates, aim at offering competitive commission rates of 15-30%.

However, to encourage consistency and foster healthy partnerships, you should consider offering higher commissions to top performers.

How Long Does It Take to Recruit Active Affiliates?

Depending on the outreach strategy, affiliate recruitment could take anywhere from 7 days to a few months.

Manual outreach is more time-consuming, while automated tools like Cruva speed up your recruitment process.

Do I Need a Large Following to Run an Affiliate Program?

No. As a TikTok shop owner, you can run an affiliate program with zero followers.
However, your shop's performance score must remain at 3.5 or higher. Once it goes below 3.0, TikTok limits its ability to recruit new affiliates.

How Do TikTok Shop Affiliates Get Paid?

TikTok shop affiliates are paid a commission rate on a weekly or biweekly basis, depending on the program they use.

Every sale that is made through their referral code is tracked, and payouts are deposited into their TikTok creator wallet.

Conclusion

As a TikTok Shop owner who wants to scale, you must be ready to put in some work to attract and retain affiliates who consistently drive GMV.

First, identify your ideal customer profile and use that to scout for potential affiliates. Second, evaluate every potential creator to ensure they are a good match for your brand. From there, reach out to the creators and send a polite reminder in case they missed your initial invite.

You can simplify your affiliate recruitment process using automation tools.

Cruva takes the burden of manual outreach off your hands, giving you access to a database of over 4 million verified TikTok affiliates who are already actively selling.

Our tool helps you to monitor every aspect of the affiliate lifecycle from discovering the best affiliates to reaching out to them, following up, and tracking and measuring their performance.

Ready to scale and start seeing actual conversions on TikTok? Get Cruva’s 14-day free trial.