While TikTok is one of the fastest-growing social media apps, it has one limitation: there are fewer ways of monetizing your account than other platforms like Facebook or YouTube. Besides, the Tiktok Creator program is not available in most countries. Many TikTok creators are left discouraged when they get millions of views on other videos but are unable to earn from their efforts.

If that sounds like you, you don’t have to be discouraged, as there are other ways to earn money on TikTok. One of these is through affiliate marketing. However, to be successful as a TikTok affiliate marketer, you need to understand how to do affiliate marketing on the platform. This article will provide you with everything you need to know about affiliate marketing on TikTok.

Why Should You Consider Affiliate Marketing on TikTok?

Statistics indicate that TikTok has over one billion monthly users who watch 167 million hours of videos every internet minute. Additionally, in 2022 and 2023, TikTok was the most downloaded app on Android and iOS devices, beating major social media sites such as YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram.

Unlike what many think, TikTok users are also money spenders. According to data from Sensor Tower, in 2021, TikTok was a top-grossing app, with TikTok users spending over $10 billion. If you choose an excellent product that will appeal to your target audience, you can make money promoting it on social media.

When doing affiliate marketing on TikTok, the most important thing is to ensure that your product appeals to your target audience. While it can be tempting, avoid selling a product because it pays a higher commission. Promoting walking sticks makes no sense if most people watching your videos are in their 20s. You should instead focus on selling products like fashionable clothes, lifestyle products, and technology products.

How Affiliate Marketing on TikTok Works

TikTok affiliate marketing works the same way as other social media platforms. Generally, you should upload a video, add an affiliate link, and encourage your followers to buy the product. If you have ever done affiliate marketing, you will realize the process is the same. The only difference is where you add the affiliate links.

Four parties are usually involved in affiliate marketing on TikTok. These are:

• The merchant. This is the creator or owner of the product who decided to sell it using the affiliate marketing model.
• The affiliate network. While not all merchants prefer to go through an affiliate market, this is also an essential party in the transaction. Instead of dealing with the affiliate marketers, the merchant registers with the network as the intermediary between the two.
• The affiliate marketer. This is where you will be coming in. As an affiliate marketer, you will sign up with the merchant or affiliate network to promote products for a commission. Since you are doing it on TikTok, you will add the affiliate link to your TikTok account.

When you register with an affiliate network, you will be provided with a link that has a unique code. You will reference this in your TikTok videos. When a customer buys using that link, you are paid a commission.

Steps to Doing TikTok Affiliate Marketing

If you want to do affiliate marketing on TikTok, here are the steps to follow:

Choose a Niche

If you are already creating content, you already have a niche. But if you are getting started, choosing a niche should be your first step. This will help you determine the kind of content you will create and the audience you will serve. Decide whether it has enough products to sell when searching for a niche. For instance, if you want to get into the tech niche, you can check Amazon, Shopify, and the TikTok Shop to determine if there are enough products to market.

Create a TikTok Business Account

To add affiliate links on TikTok, you need a business account. If you have a personal account, you can switch to a business account. You can do that by:

1. Open the app and tap on your profile.
2. Go to Menu> Settings>Privacy.
3. You can tap on Account.
4. Choose Switch to a Business Account to complete the process.

Join an Affiliate Program

As a first step, you need to determine the product you want to market on the affiliate program. Choose a product that aligns with your audience’s needs. If you already have a large following on the social media site, you should choose a product that is in your niche. If you create cooking videos and promote shoes at the same time, it may not work because your audience may be interested in the latest air fryer. Therefore, promoting air fryers will increase your audience’s interest in the product and make it easier for you to create content.

Create Great Content

To reach the right audience, you should create great content. If you create low-quality content, convincing the audience to buy the product will be hard. You can reach the right audience by using relevant hashtags. Thus, you can find the appropriate hashtags to find the right hashtags.

How to Leverage Organic Traffic on Affiliate Marketing

If you already have videos receiving organic traffic on TikTok, the easiest way of doing affiliate marketing is by leveraging that traffic to the site. However, to succeed with this method, you must create incredible videos that give you a huge following on TikTok. You can use these tips to improve the quality of your videos:

• Focus on a subculture or a niche.
• Create short videos.
• Capture the viewer's attention.
• Use trending hashtags and music in your videos.
• Use relevant  and engaging captions.

If you don't have a big following on TikTok, you may need to wait longer to grow your following before starting affiliate marketing on TikTok. But if you want to get started immediately, it's still possible, even though you must rely on paid traffic.

How to Market to Your TikTok Organic Traffic

You should note that most TikTok users are still GenZ, even though other age demographics are joining in droves. Therefore, you must have a clear niche you want to focus on. As noted earlier, you must promote affiliate products appealing to your niche audience.

Again, when targeting GenZ, you should be careful how you market to them, as they hate traditional advertising methods. Instead, look for ways to include product links as much as possible. You need your product placement to be as subtle as possible. It will be easier to do that when you choose products your audience would naturally use.

Where to Place Affiliate Links on TikTok

Since TikTok focuses more on videos, you must be creative when deciding where to place affiliate links. Here are some great places to do that:

Include the Link in the Bio

You might be tempted to place links in your captions simply. Unfortunately, you cannot do that now, even though TikTok has in the past tried experimenting with it. That's why you can learn from Instagram and instead include your link in your bio. You can ask the viewers to check out the link in your videos. By doing that, you can quickly drive traffic to the link.

It's also worth noting that not everyone can add a link to their bios on TikTok. If you find it hard to include it, you must join the Tester program. If you use a personal account, you must change to a business account. Once you are allowed to add the link to your bio, you can follow these steps in adding it:

1. Click on the Me icon at the bottom right corner of the TikTok pager.
2. Tap Edit Profile.
3. If you can add a link to your profile, you will see a section for adding a URL. You can then add the affiliate link given to you by the affiliate network or company. Select the most important link, as you cannot add links to multiple products. You may want to use a URL shortener to make your links more appealing.
4. Tap on Submit.
5. You can now look at your bio to ensure that the link shows and it can be clicked on.

If you want to add multiple links, a good idea would be to create a link to a landing page where customers can have the opportunity to see multiple products with their affiliate links.

Link to Other Social Media Accounts

With TikTok, you can easily create links to add to your other social media accounts. As explained earlier, you do it in the same way you do it for different links. TikTok lets you include links to your other social media accounts' posts and promotions. The links usually appear as social buttons for your profiles.

Add Dedicated URLs For Your Videos

Assuming you are an influencer or you are sending a considerably high amount of traffic to the network’s sites, in such an instance, you can be assigned a dedicated URL to use for your marketing purposes. That way, when someone buys a product, the company will instantly credit the sale and pay you the agreed commission.

How to Promote Your Affiliate Links Using TikTok Paid Advertising

As noted earlier, you can use paid marketing methods if you don't have a large following. Again, even if you have many followers and an engaged audience, you can still supplement your organic marketing with paid marketing. TikTok Paid ads work similarly to the Instagram and Facebook marketing methods.

Video infeed ads usually appear as short videos on the user’s For You page. You can create ads targeting a particular demographic. The amount you pay depends on your bid for the preferred position in the silent auction.

There are other TikTok ad options, such as the Top View Ads, even though these are usually more expensive than other ads. These may not be cost-effective unless you are a popular creator with a big audience.

Tips to Boost Your Affiliate Marketing Sales on TikTok

If you are wondering how to boost your affiliate marketing efforts on TikTok, here are several tips:

Use Relevant Hashtags

Hashtags are among the most important elements on any social media site, as they help you reach your target audience. By understanding the type of content relevant to your audience, you can easily have your content appear on the For You page.

Use Fascinating and Trending Music

TikTok is a platform that focuses a lot on visuals and sounds. Without maximizing these two, your content will not receive good visibility. You cannot expect content to perform well  without good visuals and sound. When searching for good audio for your video, familiarize yourself with the music trends and the kind of music people use.

By using trending sounds, your videos will appear when a user searches for videos with that sound. Besides, a trending sound can help improve the reach of your video. Ensure that you also follow the right visual trends to remain relevant. Remember that TikTok is removing hundreds of songs, so you need to be careful.

Be Honest and Authentic

With most TikTok users being GenZ, you can easily get called out if you are found to be faking your videos. Whether you review a product or share testimonies after using it, be as accurate as possible. If your audience sees you as honest and reliable, they will trust you when you recommend products.

Understand Your Audience’s Habits

Take time to understand your audience's habits. By doing that, you can create a good posting schedule that will maximize the visibility of your content. This will give your viewers a reason to keep coming back. While you may not need to post every day, the most important thing is to maintain a consistent posting schedule.

Keep Monitoring Results

You can do everything right, but if you are not checking your TikTok metrics, you cannot know whether your strategies are working. Fortunately, TikTok Analytics will provide you with all the data you need for your TikTok marketing. The tool will show the performance of your content and what you need to do to take it to the next level.

Be Patient

Like other social media platforms, success on TikTok doesn't happen overnight but requires much time and effort. Sometimes, one of your videos may get 10k views while the next gets 100 views. When that happens, do not give up; stay consistent and authentic. With time, your audience will keep growing, and you will see the results of your efforts.

FAQs on TikTok Affiliate Marketing

How profitable isTikTok affiliate marketing?

With the right product and strategy, TikTok affiliate marketing can be profitable. With the platform being the home of millions of users, you can easily reach a broad audience using the platform.

How do I become a TikTok affiliate marketer?

There are several steps you need to follow when doing TikTok affiliate marketing. These are:

1. Create a TikTok business account.
2. Register for an affiliate program.
3. Create high-quality links.
4. Start sharing content.

Conclusion

TikTok is among the fastest-growing social media sites, making it an excellent platform for earning money with affiliate marketing. However, as a video-sharing platform, sharing marketing links on the platform may not be easy. Fortunately, by reading our guide, you will understand how to add TikTok affiliate videos. We recommend you read our guide on the top 10 TikTok ideas to go viral.