If you’re an Amazon seller who thinks TikTok is only useful for watching dance or lip-sync videos, then I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but you’re leaving money on the table. TikTok is the fastest growing social media platform, coming in as the third largest network with over 1 billion users worldwide. That’s a billion reasons you should be marketing your Amazon products on TikTok!
In this article, we’ll explore how you can make the best of TikTok marketing to grow your Amazon business’ revenue. Strap in!
What Is TikTok?
Launched in 2016, TikTok is a Chinese video-sharing social platform. It’s a fun “home-grown” alternative to Facebook and Instagram, which are banned in China. Since its launch, TikTok has seen steady growth, with the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic fanning the flames of TikTok’s growth to a little over a billion users. It’s estimated that TikTok might hit 1.8 billion users by the end of 2022.
How Can I Use TikTok To Promote My Amazon Products?
TikTok offers the best balance between entertainment and marketing, with a demographic of 70% of users under 40. Young millennials and Gen Z, the biggest consumers of TikTok content, HATE conventional ads. Traditional Facebook and Instagram ads do not appeal to that target audience. They are savvy and know they’re being marketed to, and they may not buy or attend to those ads.
There are three main ways you can market your Amazon products on TikTok:
- Using paid ads
- Building an audience for organic marketing
- Partnering with influencers
Let’s explore each of these options:
Paid Ads
TikTok paid ads are one of the fastest ways to create brand awareness on TikTok and get more eyeballs on your Amazon products. Start with TikTok ads by creating a TikTok ad account. Even if you already have a TikTok account, you’ll need to create a new, separate ad account.
Next, you’ll need to decide the type of ad you want to create. TikTok offers different ad formats for different business goals:
- In-feed ads
- TopView ads
- Brand takeover ads
- Spark ads
- Branded effects ads
- Branded hashtag challenge ads
- Search ads
In-Feed Ads
In-feed ads take on a video format and integrate organically with content on users’ “For you” page. They’re similar to the ads you see when scrolling through Instagram stories. You can use a video of 9-15 seconds and add multiple CTAs in your in-feed ad. The capability to integrate your ads organically into user content comes in handy since the demographic on TikTok HATES conventional ads. In-feed ads let you market to the TikTok audience without being intrusive.
Brand Takeover Ads
Brand takeover ads boost mass awareness by increasing impressions and sales. This ad displays a fullscreen video to your target audience when they open their TikTok app.
Users can only see one Brand takeover ad daily to increase impact and not interrupt the TikTok user experience. This makes the ads hard to ignore since they are the first thing users see when they hop onto the app. Despite being super effective, Brand takeover ads are costly because of the high number of impressions and clicks associated with them. They aren’t the best option for someone getting started with TikTok ads.
TopView Ads
TopView ads pop up on top of a user’s feed, and you can use a video up to 60 seconds long for these ads. The top feed is the most valuable TikTok real estate, with 72% of TikTok users saying they prefer the TopView ad. This makes these ads very effective in creating brand awareness and driving sales. If you want to market aggressively and have the budget, you can use TopView and Brand takeover ads to increase impressions and spread your brand message faster.
Spark Ads
Spark ads appear on a user’s feed, just like In-feed ads. The only difference is that spark ads allow you to promote an existing TikTok video instead of creating ad content from scratch. You also get the option to link out to your TikTok profile instead of driving clicks to a landing page. This could be instrumental in helping you grow your TikTok account and build brand awareness simultaneously.
Using Spark ads is ideal when you have good TikTok content that could go viral. The extra push from Spark ads could help you go viral and generate a lot of attention for your business. You can also use these ads if you’re partnering with a popular creator to leverage their popularity as social proof.
Branded Effects Ads
Branded effects allow brands to create custom-branded stickers, filters, and effects for self-promotion or use by other TikTok content creators. Filters, stickers, and special effects align with TikTok’s content, making these ads effective in increasing user engagement and creating brand awareness.
Branded Hashtag Challenge Ads
These ads appear at the top of the Discover page as a hashtag. When a user clicks on the hashtag, they’re taken to the hashtag page where they see the challenge rules, description, the advertising brand’s logo, and a link to the brand’s website — in this case, a link to your Amazon product page. Branded hashtags pair well with Branded effects ads to encourage user-generated content, resulting in massive user engagements and brand awareness.
Search Ads
Search ads are a relatively new addition to TikTok ads. They use a video format where a video with a “sponsored” label is displayed in a user’s search results — the same thing Amazon and Google do with their search ads. When running these ads, you can get valuable data on the search terms that result in conversions. You can then use these search terms as your TikTok content titles and in other ad formats, such as branded hashtags.
Building An Audience
Building an audience on TikTok is the best long-term marketing strategy to secure a loyal customer base for your Amazon business. But, creating a following on TikTok takes time and consistent effort. Here are the things you need to do to build a following on TikTok:
- Create regular engaging content relevant to your audience
- Participate in TikTok trends, especially in your niche
- Enter TikTok challenges and create your challenges if you can
- Use relevant hashtags in your posts
- Make sure to post your videos when most of your audience is online to increase engagements
- Engage with other users’ content to gain more visibility
- Cross-promote your TikTok videos on other social media platforms to expand your reach beyond TikTok
- Livestream on TikTok to get more eyeballs on your content and attract more followers
Using TikTok Influencers
TikTok influencers are TikTok content creators that have created a large following. You can leverage an influencer’s popularity to get your product in front of their audience.
Choosing the right influencer boils down to shared values and a match between their audience and your Amazon business. You need to find an influencer whose audience matches your target audience so your product gets in front of the right people.
Another thing worth considering is the influencer’s song in their video when promoting your product. Yes, songs are a big deal like that on TikTok. TikTok users generally scroll through hundreds of videos, so you want to capture their attention instantly with a catchy song so they can watch the entire video to the end.
Get Started on Amazon and TikTok Marketing
Whether a veteran or a newbie Amazon seller, TikTok can give you an edge over your competition and serve as a launching pad for scaling your business to greater heights. As you scale your Amazon business, it’s critical to create measures, so you don’t lose everything to Amazon’s sometimes unfair suspensions.
That’s where we come in!
We can offer you aged Amazon Seller accounts with good standing, so you avoid velocity suspensions on Amazon for scaling too fast. And the best part is, this is all above board and all within Amazon’s TOS.
Talk to us today and learn how to start and scale your Amazon business properly.
