TikTok has more than a billion monthly active users globally, which makes it a powerful tool for brands. TikTok influencer marketing can be a particularly effective way to harness this power.
Read on to learn how this influencer strategy works and how businesses of all sizes can leverage TikTok influencer partnerships to reach their goals.
How does TikTok influencer marketing work?
TikTok influencer marketing is a social media marketing tactic in which brands partner with TikTok creators to promote their products to TikTok users. Typically, brands pay influencers who are popular with their target demographics to create and publish branded content on the influencers’ own TikTok accounts.
Selecting the right influencers for your brand
TikTok influencer marketing can be a powerful tool in your brand’s marketing arsenal, but success doesn’t hinge simply on partnering with the biggest names or spending the most money. In fact, it can be a boon to partner with micro- and nano-influencers—in 2023, nano-influencers on TikTok with 1,000 to 10,000 followers had the highest engagement rate, at 11.97%.
The key to a successful campaign is finding creators whose content and audience align with your brand values and the people you’re trying to reach. By focusing on creator-brand fit, and prioritizing engagement rates over follower counts, you can craft a strategy that drives clicks, conversions, and checkouts. Done well, TikTok influencer marketing campaigns can be a cost-efficient way of advertising your brand.
Identifying your target audience on TikTok
Finding the right influencer starts with pinpointing the ideal audience for your product and related content on TikTok. The platform is a constellation of subcultures and mini-communities, making it almost certain that you’ll find your niche audience and influencers who cater to them.
But how do you find these niches? The answer lies in TikTok hashtags and keywords.
If you’re in the business of selling beauty products, for example, you might start by searching TikTok for the keyword “beauty” and the hashtag #beautyproducts. TikTok search results will return the top posts for each keyword, giving you a glimpse into the beauty product community on the platform.
Similarly, if you’re selling cleaning products, searching for #cleaning might lead you to discover the thriving #cleantok community. Here, you’ll find lifestyle influencers showcasing the latest power mops, magic sponges, or tile-cleaning products to their engaged followers.
Once you’ve identified a pool of potential influencer partners, narrow down your choices for your campaign. There are a few important factors to consider in this selection process:
Relevance to your brand
Your influencer partner will represent your brand and company, so look for a partner with an aligned brand identity and value set.
To evaluate potential partners, ask yourself questions like:
- Does this influencer’s content style and tone match how we want our brand to be perceived?
- Are the values they express in their videos aligned with our company’s mission?
Would their audience likely be interested in our products, and does their demographic overlap with our ideal customer? Australian plant-based superfood and protein company Tropeaka has found success with its TikTok influencer marketing strategy.
“We carefully select creators based on the quality of their content, storytelling ability, and recent lifestyle updates, such as weight loss achievements, training for marathons, or becoming new parents,” says Christine Chiang, the brand’s marketing consultant. “This recency builds authenticity and relatability through the camera, enhancing our connection with the audience.”
💡Tip: Remember to take a moment to look up your own brand on TikTok. You might be pleasantly surprised to find creators already using and raving about your products. These enthusiastic fans are often your best bet for authentic partnerships, so they should be at the top of your list when considering influencers.
Engagement rate
TikTok’s algorithm prioritizes entertaining content - measured through likes, comments and watch time - over a user’s follower count to a greater degree than other social media networks. This means selecting an influencer with a large number of followers is less important than finding a partner who consistently creates engaging content.
When assessing a TikToker’s influence, look beyond their follower count and focus on engagement rates—the real measure of their impact. Dive into the views, likes, comments, saves, and shares on their videos to get a clearer picture of how their content resonates. These metrics offer valuable insights: a high number of saves might suggest viewers find the content worth revisiting, while frequent shares could indicate recommendations or word-of-mouth potential. By focusing on these indicators, you’ll get a truer sense of an influencer’s ability to connect with (and inspire) their audience.
For example, beauty brand Glossier partnered with TikTok beauty and makeup influencer Michaela to promote its new fluid foundation. Michaela produces high-quality videos and has more than 200,000 followers who trust their product reviews and tutorials. This makes them an engaging and effective influencer for Glossier to work with.
Authenticity and content style
Creators on TikTok often build dedicated followings because of their unique approach to content—they offer something that other influencers don’t.
Here are a few examples of TikTok influencer content styles:
- Some shine through simple, authentic storytelling—their videos feel like a FaceTime call with a friend, drawing viewers in with relatable, unfiltered chats.
- Others are editing experts, crafting visually stunning content with slick transitions that feel aspirational to their audience.
- Then there are the “come along with me” creators, inviting viewers into their daily lives through mini-vlogs. Whether it’s “get ready with me” or “come shopping with me,” these TikTokers offer an intimate glimpse into their world.
When choosing influencers, consider how you want your brand’s story told. If you’re after a polished, high-production look, the chatty, front-facing camera creator might not be your best bet. Find a creator whose style best aligns with your brand’s voice and vision.
Using tools and platforms for influencer discovery
It’s helpful to manually browse through TikTok to get a sense of the organic content on the platform, understand what creators are making, and see how other brands integrate their content.
But there are also tools and platforms you can rely on to seek out creators, including:
- TikTok Creator Marketplace. This is TikTok’s official platform for connecting brands with creators. It offers detailed analytics and allows you to filter creators based on various criteria, like audience demographics, content categories, and performance metrics.
- Influencer marketing platforms. These third-party platforms provide comprehensive databases of influencers across multiple social media channels, including TikTok. Some popular options include Influence.co, CreatorIQ, Grin.co, Traackr, and Upfluence. Each platform offers unique features for influencer discovery and campaign management.
- Shopify Collabs. If you’re interested in having TikTok influencers join your affiliate marketing program, you can use Shopify Collabs to find them. Collabs is Shopify’s free to install influencer, creator, and affiliate management suite made by Shopify, for Shopify merchants to scale their affiliate relationships and sales.This influencer marketing software is built right into Shopify, allowing you to recruit, manage, and pay commissions to TikTok influencers within your shop.
These tools can make it easier to find influencers, saving you time and helping you find the perfect match for your brand. However, these tools should complement, not replace, your own research and intuition about what works best for your brand on TikTok.
How can brands benefit from TikTok influencer marketing?
There are many reasons to integrate influencers into your TikTok marketing campaigns.
Here’s an overview of the benefits:
Increased brand awareness and trust
Influencer-generated content can increase brand awareness and also build trust with a brand’s existing customer base. Studies show that one in five people between the ages of 18 and 54 have made a purchase based on an influencer’s recommendation in the past three months alone.
Access to specific target audiences
Influencer marketing on TikTok can enable precise audience targeting. If you want to increase brand awareness among fans of adaptive skateboarding, for example, you can partner with an influencer in this space for direct access to their niche audience.
Increased sales
TikTok’s link-in-bio feature can drive traffic to your ecommerce store and boost digital sales. Research shows influencer marketing is particularly effective in driving sales among TikTok’s audience base, which tends to skew younger than on other social media channels.
Shopify merchant Peace Out Skincare partners with TikTok influencers to promote its products and drive sales. For a new product launch the brand gave products to a number of TikTok influencers. Two influencers collaborated on a video, which went viral on TikTok and earned more than 2.4 million likes, 60,000 shares, and 12 million views. The result was $15,000 in product sales in just one day by monetizing on TikTok.
On top of the initial sales success, the video continued to trend for months, driving more and more sales.
Setting goals and KPIs for TikTok influencer campaigns
Like all marketing initiatives, TikTok influencer marketing campaigns start with goal setting. Evaluate your existing business and marketing goals and set focused TikTok marketing goals that support those larger objectives.
On TikTok, your goals might revolve around increasing brand awareness, driving engagement, or boosting sales. Some potential goals and key performance indicators (KPIs) for your TikTok influencer campaign could include:
- Increasing brand awareness (measured by views, reach, and hashtag usage)
- Driving engagement (tracked through likes, comments, saves, and shares)
- Boosting website traffic (monitored via click-through rates)
- Growing your TikTok following (measured by new follower count)
- Generating sales or leads (tracked through conversions or sign-ups)
For example, if one of your marketing goals is to increase traffic to your website by 20%, you might set the TikTok influencer marketing goal of earning 1,000 click-throughs to your site over a four-week period. That goal would inform how you set up the campaign: for instance, you might ask the influencer to flash your website URL at the end of their video and include it in their bio for a set duration of time.
How to get started with TikTok influencer marketing
- Define your campaign objectives
- Determine your budget
- Develop your campaign strategy
- Identify and approach potential partners
- Negotiate and create a contract
- Launch and monitor the campaign
- Analyze results and optimize future campaigns
Successful TikTok campaigns pair the right company with the right influencer in pursuit of clearly defined, attainable marketing goals. Here’s how to get started:
1. Define your campaign objectives
When you start planning a TikTok influencer campaign, you need to nail down what you’re trying to achieve. Your goals will depend on your brand and the creators you work with. Maybe you want to get more eyes on your new eco-friendly water bottles, or you’re looking to boost sales of your bestselling reusable straws.
Outlining your campaign goals upfront with clear objectives helps you measure success and whether the investment was worthwhile. This clarity can help you decide between a long-term partnership with a creator or a one-off collaboration.
Make sure your campaign objectives are specific, time-bound, and measurable. Here are a few examples of influencer campaign objectives you might want to set:
- Reach 500,000 views on campaign-related content within 30 days
- Generate 500 sales of your latest product over a two-week period
- Gain 10,000 new followers in one month
- Drive 5,000 clicks to your website from TikTok in a week
- Inspire 50 user-created videos using your campaign hashtag in 10 days
2. Determine your budget
Revisit your digital marketing budget and determine how much you can afford to spend on your TikTok influencer campaign. Influencer pricing varies, and TikTok influencer costs can range from a few hundred dollars to more than $10,000 per video, depending on the size of the influencer’s following. Micro-influencers, for example, typically have between 50,000 and 150,000 followers and charge an average of $1,500 per post.
If your budget is limited, keep in mind that you can always start small and adjust later. In most cases, a starting budget of around $2,000 is enough to effectively test an influencer marketing strategy.
3. Develop your campaign strategy
Once you’ve set your goals, map out your campaign strategy. This is where you’ll decide on the details that will make your TikTok influencer campaign come to life. Think about the type of content that will resonate with your audience, how long you want the campaign to run, and how you’ll make it stand out in the sea of TikTok videos.
Here are details to iron out about your TikTok influencer campaign:
- Influencer selection. Decide on the number and type of influencers you’ll work with. Are you partnering with one mega-influencer for a big splash, or teaming up with a group of micro-influencers for a coordinated campaign that creates a flurry of activity around your brand?
- Content format. Are you going for a dance challenge, a product review, or a day-in-the-life featuring your brand? Maybe you want influencers to do a before-and-after transformation using your skin care line. Choose a format that fits your brand and will grab viewers’ attention as they scroll.
- Campaign duration. Decide if your aim is a quick burst of activity or a drawn-out campaign. A weekend hashtag challenge can create excitement, while a month-long stream of influencer posts can build sustained engagement.
- Hashtag strategy. Develop a memorable hashtag that makes sense for your campaign. This can help with going viral and make it easy to track user-generated content from other creators on the app.
- Ad strategy. Consider boosting your influencer content through TikTok Spark ads. This lets you put paid promotion behind sponsored content, extending your reach beyond the influencer’s organic audience.
4. Identify and approach potential partners
Once you’ve ironed out campaign details, you’re ready to approach potential partners. You can send a cold email, a DM, or a message through an influencer platform. Include how your brand aligns with theirs, your goals, content requests, and proposed compensation.
Here’s a sample pitch to a potential influencer partner:
Hi TomatoPrincess! I’m writing to inquire about a paid influencer partnership with my company, Heirloom Direct. I’m a big fan of your DIY gardening tips, and I think your audience might be interested in some of our rare heirloom tomato varieties. Our audience is home gardeners with an interest in heritage seeds and sustainable living. Our campaign goal is to increase awareness of our brand and boost traffic to our website. We can offer $1,000 for a video posted to your account, plus a link in bio live for 72 hours after the post.
What do you think? I’d love to connect with you about campaign specifics. Are you available for a quick call later this week?
I look forward to connecting with you soon!
5. Negotiate and create a contract
Once you’ve connected, you can negotiate the terms of your agreement and create a formal contract. Putting your expectations in writing can ensure both you and your influencer partner understand the specifics of your deal. It can also help you strike a balance between providing creative freedom for your partner and ensuring your business requirements are met.
Include specifics about the expected number of videos, length, timing, subject matter, and compensation. You can also use your contract to outline the content creation process, including whether you’ll require an editorial review of videos prior to publication.
6. Launch and monitor the campaign
Once you’ve approved the influencer’s content and set a go-live date, launch your campaign. This might involve coordinating with multiple creators to post simultaneously or staggering posts for sustained buzz. As videos go live, keep a close eye on their performance. Monitor views, likes, comments, and shares in real time to gauge audience reaction.
Pay attention to which content resonates most with viewers and consider putting paid promotion behind top-performing videos to amplify their reach. This approach allows you to validate content organically before doubling down on successful pieces. Stay flexible and be prepared to adjust your strategy based on early results—that means tweaking hashtags or collaborating with the influencer on quick follow-up content if it’s performing well.
Decide ahead of time with the influencer how you’ll handle audience engagement. If agreed upon, be active in the comments section of their posts, answering questions from potential customers to provide immediate support and build trust. Don’t forget to repost the content on your own TikTok page to maximize exposure and reinforce the partnership.
7. Analyze results and optimize future campaigns
After the campaign is complete, return to your goals and measure the results. Determine what worked and what you’d like to improve for your next campaign. That will help you figure out how TikTok influencer marketing could fit into your digital marketing strategy going forward.
Be sure to follow up with the influencer and thank them for their participation, especially if you’d like to work with them in the future.
Examples of brands using TikTok influencer marketing
To get a sense of what works in TikTok influencer marketing, sometimes the best research is simply scrolling through the app itself. Pay attention to the branded content that catches your eye, makes you laugh, or prompts you to learn more about a product. Trends on TikTok move fast. But studying successful campaigns can offer insights into the right approach regardless of specific trends.
Here are a few standout examples of brands that have worked with TikTok influencers to put their products in front of viewers:
Olaplex
Olaplex, a popular hair care brand known for its bond-building products, teamed up with lifestyle TikTok creator April Buckles for a unique approach to an ad. In the video, April silently demonstrates Olaplex’s line of shampoos and conditioners while cutting, washing, and styling her fiancé’s hair.
This unique ASMR approach leans on the couple’s popularity—their relationship is a key part of April’s content—while letting the products speak for themselves. The wordless video resonated with viewers, garnering over 3.7 million views and 173,000 likes. It also used hashtags like #olaplexpartner, #asmr, and #couples to boost visibility.
Tropeaka
Tropeaka’s influencer marketing strategy involves a thoughtful mix of both high-profile and emerging influencers. This approach allows the brand to borrow the broad reach of established creators while also tapping into the authentic connections that micro-influencers often have with their audiences.
“Our key collaborator is SophaDopha, who has 1.3 million followers,” says Christine. “The remainder of our strategy is heavily focused on micro-influencers and content creators to drive TikTok Spark ads.”
In one TikTok sponsored post, SophiaDopha runs through her morning routine, which includes making an iced matcha drink on the go with Tropeaka’s Organic Matcha Tea Powder. During the video she also mentions the brand’s site-wide sale, adds info about it in the caption, and links to the sale in her bio.
Le Creuset
Le Creuset, a French cookware manufacturer known for their colorful cast-iron pots and pans, partnered with popular food creator SAMO for a TikTok ad. SAMO, known for his visually stunning culinary content, has amassed more than 1.2 million followers with his appealing food videos.
In their collaboration, SAMO integrates Le Creuset’s cookware while preparing a mouthwatering meal of mashed potatoes, roasted chicken, and roasted carrots. He added a voiceover that highlights the products’ versatility for cooks of all skill levels. The high-end production quality of the video perfectly complemented Le Creuset’s premium brand image—a great instance of creator-brand fit.
TikTok influencer marketing FAQ
How much does it cost to work with TikTok influencers?
TikTok influencers can charge anywhere from $800 to more than $10,000 per video, depending on the number of followers they have on the platform.
Are there risks associated with TikTok influencer marketing?
TikTok influencer marketing is relatively low-risk, but brands typically monitor an influencer’s public activities to be aware of any actions that could potentially damage their company’s reputation.
Is it possible to measure the ROI of TikTok influencer marketing campaigns?
Yes. You can measure traffic from TikTok to your online store and monitor overall changes in key performance metrics after implementing an influencer marketing campaign.
Is TikTok marketing worth it?
Yes. As platforms like Instagram and Facebook become increasingly saturated with ads and branded content, TikTok offers a fresh landscape with ample room for brands to stand out and connect with their audience. Even small brands with limited budgets can find their niche on TikTok and see a strong ROI, thanks to the platform’s unique algorithm and hyper-engaged user base.
