TikTok Affiliate Marketing: Beginner’s Getting Started Guide

Disclaimer: This is a guest blog submitted by Mubarak

TikTok has exploded in popularity over the last few years, becoming one of the most influential social media platforms amongst Gen Z. With over 1 billion monthly active users that are highly engaged, TikTok presents a major opportunity for affiliate marketers in 2024.

This guide will teach you everything you need to know about successfully promoting affiliate products and making money through TikTok.

Whether you’re just starting out or looking to step up your TikTok affiliate marketing game, this guide will help you maximize your earnings. You’ll learn insider tips on creating compelling content, attracting followers in your niche, and driving high-converting traffic from TikTok over to your affiliate links.

Let’s get started.

What Is Affiliate Marketing on TikTok?

TikTok affiliate marketing involves creating videos to promote affiliate products and earning commissions for clicks or sales via unique affiliate links. Success relies on content creation and audience size.

Besides organic traffic, TikTok offers paid advertising options for a broader reach. Combining organic content with in-app promotion tools maximizes visibility.

Affiliate marketers often integrate TikTok into their traffic sources, alongside blogs and other social media, to diversify strategies and avoid relying solely on one platform.

Why Should You Use TikTok For Affiliate Marketing?

TikTok’s remarkable engagement, with two billion monthly users, positions it as a dynamic marketing tool. It boasts the highest engagement rate (17.96%) compared to YouTube and Instagram.

What makes TikTok even more enticing is that 40% of Gen Z relies on it for product research, and 55% regularly discover new brands. This engaged audience is a goldmine for affiliate marketers.

Remarkably, 4 in 10 users make immediate purchases based on TikTok discoveries, rising to 5 in 10 for LIVE videos, simplifying the conversion process.

For affiliate marketers, this means a prime opportunity to present their links precisely when users are ready to buy, potentially leading to significant commissions.

How Does Affiliate Marketing Work on TikTok?

Affiliate marketing on TikTok isn’t that different from how it’s done on other social platforms.

The same best practices around transparency and disclosure apply – you still need to let your audience know when content is sponsored or when you have an affiliate relationship with a brand.

However, the unique style and culture of TikTok does allow you to get creative with the types of viral, entertaining videos and challenges that tend to thrive there.

If you’re new, affiliate transactions involve multiple parties, typically ranging from the affiliate marketer, the brand, the audience, and possibly the affiliate program platform.

Here’s how all of them work:

1. The Product Creator or Merchant: This is the company that creates the product and decides to make use of the affiliate marketing model. This can be the manufacturing company directly or a retailer that chooses to use affiliate marketing to make more sales.

2. The Affiliate Network: Affiliate networks make life easier for both product creators and marketers. Rather than dealing directly with multiple companies, marketers connect with the network, simplifying the process of choosing from a variety of affiliate programs and products. The network handles all the complicated behind-the-scenes work, whether it’s digital, physical, or subscription-based products.

3. The Affiliate Marketer: This is the person who signs directly with a product creator or affiliate network to help them market their products in exchange for a commission. In the case of TikTok affiliate marketing, the person will promote the affiliate products through their TikTok videos.

4. The Consumer: This is the people who buy the affiliate product. In the case of TikTok affiliate marketing, they are most likely the people who view your video content.

All affiliate links contain a unique code that allows the product creator or affiliate network to track the number of clicks you get. You can embed this link to your TikTok video content in a place where it can be easily accessed.

As long as you provide value and helpful recommendations to your followers in an authentic way, TikTok’s highly engaged users are often very responsive to affiliate links and promotions. The key is learning how to capture attention and spark interest in the quick, visually-focused video format that TikTok is known for.

Ways To Make Money With Affiliate Marketing On TikTok

We’ve been saying TikTok is a great platform for affiliate marketers to promote their products, but how do you actually start? Well, there are different ways to promote your affiliate products on TikTok.

Well, that’s exactly what we’re going to look at.

We’ll first cover how anyone with a TikTok account can market other brand’s products to earn commission. Following that, we’ll also discuss how any business can effectively promote its affiliate program on TikTok.

Promoting Others’ Products on TikTok

1. Leveraging Organic Traffic

When it comes to any promotion, nothing beats organic traffic. Most people prefer getting their traffic organically because it’s often free and generates long-term ROI. Plus, people are wary of ads, so they mostly try not to click them.

TikTok is one of the best platforms to gain massive organic reach because even as a new creator, your content will surely reach a few users.

But, if you are just starting out as an affiliate marketer on TikTok, you’d have to be patient because getting organic traffic is a long-term process, and you won’t get a lot from it without having many followers. However, if you are willing to take the fast route, paid advertising is your best bet.

Here are ways you can leverage organic traffic:

Provide a Hyperlink to an External URL

TikTok doesn’t really offer the option to add clickable links to your videos, and this is a problem for affiliate marketers.

I know what you may be thinking – can’t I just drop my affiliate links in the comment section? I wish it were that easy!

Unfortunately, TikTok doesn’t allow clickable links in comments either. And even if you manually type out a super long, complicated affiliate URL, most people won’t bother rewriting all that before visiting. I mean, who wants to go through the hassle of copying a 50-character link? Not me!

People are lazy and avoid stress whenever possible. So, forcing them to manually input an affiliate link before clicking is not going to convert well. Sure, it might work a little bit if your link happens to be clean and short. But in most cases, leaving hard-to-click affiliate links in comments is a conversion killer.

The engagement just isn’t there compared to other easier linking strategies. However, there are ways to skip the comment links and make things seamless for your audience instead.

First, you have to upgrade to a business account. TikTok’s personal account does not enable you to add clickable links to your account profile (It’s free to upgrade).

After upgrading your account, follow these steps to add a link to your bio.

Step 1: Click the “Me” icon at the bottom right corner of your screen.

Step 2: Click the “Edit Profile” button

Step 3: You’ll see a section that shows “Add Your Website”, click on it and add your affiliate link or a link to your website.

This is how you can add a link to your TikTok bio. If you have multiple products with separate links, you will have to select the most important link since you can’t add more than one link to the bio. So, a way to do this is to repeat this process each time you want to promote a different product. It’d be best to shorten your affiliate links using a URL shortener to make the link short and clean.

However, if you prefer adding all of your affiliate links at once, there’s this little workaround that lets you add a ton of affiliate links together in one spot, even with TikTok’s one-link limit.

The trick is to use what’s called a bridge page or landing page. I’m sure you’ve seen those Linktree link-in-bio sites, right? Same concept! Basically, you toss all your affiliate links onto a dedicated page on Linktree or your website. That way, instead of switching your TikTok with 5 different product links, all you need is that one bridge page URL.

Just pop your bridge link in the bio, and your viewers can tap through to find whatever affiliate offer or product they want! It makes it super clean and simple on the TikTok side. Then, people land on your organized bridge page showcasing all your affiliate links. This is a solution for promoting multiple offers at once while dealing with TikTok’s stingy link allowance.

Connect Your Social Media Profiles

Regardless of being able to add multiple links to your profile, TikTok makes it quite easy to link to some of your social accounts. This process is similar to how you add your affiliate link, but in this case, after clicking on the “Me” icon, scroll down, and you’ll see some sections dedicated to adding other social media accounts.

It only accepts YouTube and Instagram, but this makes it much easier for you to direct your audience to other content you create on these other platforms. These links appear as social buttons on your profile.

Offer Discount Codes to Followers

Advertisers are usually happy to offer discounts/ coupon codes to affiliate marketers or social influencers because they understand that getting the right product in front of the right audience can result in a great ROI.

You can give these codes to your audience by mentioning them in your videos or including them in your captions, but always remember to be transparent about your coupons so your audience will know what’s in it for them and how long the coupon will last before expiry.

Add the URL in Your Video Description

This method is kind of slow in terms of getting clicks because your audience has to manually type the link into their browser to access it. As I said above, people are lazy and avoid stress whenever possible. So, needing them to manually input an affiliate link before clicking is most likely not going to convert well.

However, I’ve seen a lot of TikTok influencers using this method, so it must work for them to continue using it. Plus, one thing I noticed is that these influencer links happen to be clean and short, making it easier to manually type. You can consider taking this approach.

Mention the URLs in Your Videos

You may be unable to add clickable links in your video description, but you can announce the link and ask your audience to manually type it into their browsers.

If your viewers find the product useful, they will be more than willing to type the link in their browser. To make things easier for them, you can try adding the link in the video caption and description, too. The key is to keep it short and clean.

2. Utilize TikTok’s Paid Advertising

As a beginner just starting out as an affiliate marketer on TikTok, you’ll probably have few followers, and your videos won’t have many views. In this case, using TikTok paid advertising is a great option, it allows you to reach a more targeted audience even with zero or few followers.

Paid advertising on TikTok is similar to Facebook and Instagram ads, where you have to bid to get your ads to appear on your viewer’s screens. You can target your ads to super-specific demographics and interests, which is awesome. How much you’ll pay depends on a silent auction system where advertisers bid for ad placements.

Prices vary based on how competitive your target niche is. Now, TikTok does have TopView Ads, too, but they’re pretty expensive and usually only make sense for influencers with a large number of followers. As a small affiliate marketer, you probably want to stick to regular targeted ads since they can still reach your perfect audience.

Unless you go viral and gain a ton of TikTok subscribers, the TopView ads may not be worth it or financially viable. So, targeted ads are probably your best option for now because targeted ads still convert like crazy when done right.

Promote Your Own Affiliate Program

Crafting Affiliate Offers:

Select commission-worthy products and determine rates, tailoring your approach to profit margins and promotional objectives.

Establishing Your Program:

Choose between managing your affiliate initiative independently using tools or opting for the convenience of an affiliate network, weighing the costs associated with each.

Enlisting Affiliate Partners:

Leverage affiliate network platforms or, if self-managing, promote your program on your website and social media, and reach out directly to TikTok creators aligning with your brand.

Effectively Managing Affiliates:

Orient affiliates with your brand and guidelines, potentially offering sample products. Share comprehensive resource packs containing product details, visuals, and key marketing messages. Encourage the creation of high-quality content to enhance brand messaging.

Building Your TikTok Audience

To become a successful affiliate marketer on TikTok, you’ll need a considerable amount of viewers for your videos. So, how do you make this happen? Here are some steps you can take to increase your followers and reach more audiences on TikTok.

Be Consistent

Posting consistently should be at the top of your priority list. In order to gain a loyal following on any platform, including TikTok, as an affiliate marketer, you need to remain visible in your followers’ feeds. That means showing up day after day with engaging content.

Aim to post 1-2 new videos per week. This gives your audience something fresh to look forward to on a regular basis. Developing a consistent content schedule also trains your viewers to expect new videos at certain times. This habit-forming content pattern pays dividends.

Additionally, consistency keeps people coming back for more. You want fans checking TikTok eagerly multiple times per day/week, hoping to see your latest videos in their feed. If you leave people hanging for weeks or months, they’ll gradually forget about you and move on. But a steady stream of posts maintains that top-of-mind awareness and cements you as a beloved creator they just can’t miss.

Posting 1-2 videos weekly takes work, no doubt about it. However, establishing reliably consistent content unlocks exponential growth. And you need amassed eyeballs taking in your affiliate links and promos for income potential. Consistency transforms TikTok from a hobby into an income stream.

Be Smart

Gaining a massive following requires catching up with trends and the broader TikTok community. Tap into viral sounds, effects, challenges, and memes that are blowing up. This allows you to tap into communities with thousands or even millions of video views quickly.

Take what’s currently hot and put your own creative spin on it. Leverage the latest dances, songs, filters, and more that are rising in popularity. But make sure to showcase your unique style as well.

Most importantly, provides actual value to viewers beyond just chasing trends. Solve problems people are dealing with, address questions they have, fill a need, entertain them, surprise them. Build content that leaves a lasting positive impression. This earns genuine emotional investment rather than just chasing temporary hype.

Getting in early on emerging viral content moments sets your videos up for explosive growth. But combine it with value, and you’ll retain those newfound followers for good. Use data from TikTok creative tools to analyze developing trends and deploy them smartly.

Network A lot

Leveraging collaborations and cross-promotions will accelerate your affiliate marketing growth on TikTok. Successful creators have built massive audiences by networking with others in their niche.

A great way to tap into existing follower bases is dueting or stitching popular videos from creators with an aligned audience. This exposes your content to their current fans. Simply credit the collaborator and provide your unique take by dueting or reacting to their viral clip.

Reaching out for guest posting partnerships is another way to access and convert fans from larger accounts. Offer to create a custom video for their page in exchange for promotion of your TikTok handle in their caption/comments. Co-hosting a live stream together also expands each other’s followers.

The key is genuinely networking and developing relationships with relevant creators rather than blasting copy/paste collaboration requests. Research creators posting videos your target audience would also enjoy. Deliver value to both parties through genuine partnerships.

Cross-promotions, whether through duets, stitches, guest videos, live streams, or other avenues, allow smaller creators to benefit from the larger followings of partners. Expand your reach through authentic networking.

Hashtag Less

Hashtags play a crucial role in TikTok when it comes to discoverability. But more does not always equal better when it comes to tagging videos. In fact, overly spamming irrelevant tags can actually limit your exposure.

The best practice is choosing just 1-3 precise, niche hashtags per video. This ensures your content surfaces for searches directly related to your products/offers. Tagging 5+ tags spreads your content too thin across random feeds.

Quality over quantity is key. Imagine someone searching for woodworking videos and using that niche tag. Would you rather your video show up 3rd in those woodworking search results? Or buried on the 27th page of #funny because you used too broad of tags?

Laser focus each video on a single concise hashtag that matches the exact affiliate offers or products positioned. This gives you prime real estate when users search those specific keywords. Spraying and praying with hashtag spam forces TikTok’s algorithm to bounce your content into less targeted feeds.

Carefully researching hashtags around your niche helps identify the very best tags to rank videos for your ideal audience. Checking search volume and competition helps select less saturated tags. Tag intentionally, not excessively.

Repurpose Traffic

While gaining a large following on TikTok is critical, you can expand your reach even further by repurposing content across platforms.

Consider converting your best-performing TikTok videos into Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, or full-length YouTube videos. Even snippets on Facebook/Instagram feeds.

This allows you to expose your content to entirely new audiences who may not be on TikTok. Plus, some viewers simply prefer consuming video content on different platforms.

You can drive viewers back to your TikTok profile by promoting your handle on other networks. Encourage people to follow you on TikTok for your newest content.

Repurposing doesn’t always mean completely recreating videos. You can take snippets of key moments for IG and YouTube without needing to film everything from scratch.

Leveraging multiple platforms in tandem with your TikTok expands your overall footprint. And the more places displaying your affiliate links, the more potential traffic and commissions!

Be sure to modify videos to align with the style of each platform rather than just doing simple reposts. Optimize engaging content specifically tailored for each social network’s algorithm.

Examples Of Affiliate Marketing On TikTok

There are thousands, if not millions, of affiliate marketers on TikTok. Here are some real-life examples of affiliate marketers making it big on TikTok.

Gift Gecko

Gift Gecko has tapped into TikTok’s success, amassing over 450k followers. As an Amazon affiliate, he creates videos showcasing unique and clever products that most people wouldn’t even know are on Amazon – ranging from handy home gadgets to outdoor devices and everything in between.

His entertaining videos highlight the core benefit of each product, sparking that instant “I need this!” reaction from viewers. Once their interest is piqued, Gift Gecko redirects audiences to his TikTok profile page, which links to his website. From there, visitors can explore the affiliate links to all the quirky Amazon products featured in his videos.

By leveraging Amazon’s extensive catalog of items along with TikTok’s hyper-engaged audience, Gift Gecko managed to build a viral following and drive consistent traffic to his affiliate links. His profile acts as the bridge between the two platforms – effortlessly transitioning curiosity into product discovery and purchases. It’s a model of TikTok affiliate marketing mastery.

Justice Buys

Justice Buys is a popular TikTok influencer with over 1 million followers. He regularly posts videos promoting various products available on Amazon, including seasonal items, kitchen gadgets, and home goods. His videos often garner millions of views.

Justice earns commissions by directing his audience to his website, which contains affiliate links to the products he features. As an influencer affiliated with Amazon, he can make money when his followers purchase products after clicking through his links.

Heart Defensor

Heart Defensor has made quite a name for herself on TikTok, with an awesome base of over 4 million followers. As an influencer and content creator, Heart loves unboxing and reviewing products spanning everything from fashion and beauty to home goods.

Beyond creating fun video reviews, Heart’s figured out some savvy ways to monetize her passion. She adds affiliate links to all sorts of products on her Linktree and ShopLTK pages. So when any of her millions of viewers get inspired enough to shop the items featured, Heart earns a sweet commission.

It’s the perfect setup that lets Heart share her product finds while getting paid in the process through affiliate partnerships. Her content not only entertains people – it moves products and drives conversions. Talk about a win-win!

With all eyes on what Heart unveils next, she has an awesome opportunity to influence purchase behavior at scale while also earning income. It just goes to show the power of building an audience and then connecting them to affiliate products you genuinely love and want to showcase as part of the value you provide.

The Benefits and Drawbacks of Affiliate Marketing on TikTok

Just like any other business, affiliate marketing comes with its fair share of benefits and drawbacks. So, it’s important to consider these factors if you want to become an affiliate marketer on the platform.

Let’s check out some of them.

TikTok affiliate marketing benefits

• TikTok is currently the fastest-growing social media platform.
• The TikTok algorithm makes it easy for even beginner accounts to get decent views and engagement on their videos.
• It offers different video editing features that anyone can use with no experience.
• You can also grow your audience on other platforms by connecting your Instagram and YouTube accounts to TikTok.
• It offers both organic and paid reach options.
• Since TikTok is still a relatively new platform, it does not yet suffer from oversaturation faced by longer-standing competitors.

With all these factors combined, it’s no wonder TikTok has become massively popular nearly overnight. The app clearly emphasizes understanding today’s short-form video-driven culture – plus gives newcomers a fighting chance to be discovered.

For these reasons, TikTok offers major potential for personal branding, influencer marketing, and all forms of social content. It’s the ideal playground for testing viral ideas with a receptive young audience eager to be entertained.

TikTok affiliate marketing drawbacks

• You can’t add clickable links to your videos
• Most of its advertisement formats are quite expensive.
• It’s mostly used by teens and younger adults, making it challenging to promote products that cater to an older demographic.

Promote Cloudways Affiliate Program on TikTok and Earn up to $125 per Sale

Did you know that you can leverage the Cloudways Affiliate Program on any platform, including TikTok, and earn lucrative commissions of up to $125 per sale?

With three flexible commission structures, Cloudways hosting affiliate program can help you earn top dollar:

• Slab: Your commission per sale increases as the number of your referrals that convert grows, potentially leading to exponential passive income growth.

• Hybrid: This model provides a recurring commission if your referred customers stay with Cloudways, offering an upfront signup payout and a 7 percent share of their monthly invoice.

• Custom: Tailored for top affiliates, this structure rewards you for converting numerous customers, with commissions of up to $200 per sale after 80 referrals.

Ready to start earning? Join the Cloudways affiliate program today and showcase it on TikTok for a chance to earn up to $125 per sale commission.

Conclusion

So, is it a great idea to start affiliate marketing on TikTok?

Yes, it is, but you shouldn’t rely solely on it.

TikTok should be one of multiple channels in your affiliate marketing business. The platform doesn’t allow clickable links directly in videos, which can slow down click-through rates.

Most TikTok creators direct audiences to their profile for a bridge page or landing page to make sales. This makes affiliate marketing a bit more challenging than other platforms.

However, the bright side is that TikTok favors new users by showing their videos to a wide range of viewers, even with lower followings. You can leverage this to grow engaged audiences, directing them to your other channels.

Starting affiliate marketing on TikTok has advantages but works best combined with other affiliate websites and content to maximize results. Use TikTok to bolster awareness and relationships while sending traffic to locations where clear calls-to-action close sales more easily. Diversify across channels to build the most well-rounded, resilient affiliate marketing model.

Author’s Bio

Mubarak is an experienced B2B Tech Copywriter and Tech Enthusiast. Leveraging his lifelong passion for technology, Mubarak creates compelling guides, how-tos, and software/product reviews – helping readers better navigate the tech landscape. Beyond staying on top of industry trends, he dedicates time to learning new things beyond the world of tech. You can reach him at [email protected]

Abdul Rehman

Abdul is a tech-savvy, coffee-fueled, and creatively driven marketer who loves keeping up with the latest software updates and tech gadgets. He’s also a skilled technical writer who can explain complex concepts simply for a broad audience. Abdul enjoys sharing his knowledge of the Cloud industry through user manuals, documentation, and blog posts.