Driving commerce everywhere: Selling on TikTok is now easier than ever

Over the last few years, we've witnessed the power of TikTok to influence shoppers and guide their purchasing decisions. Beyond sold-out shelves and hashtags like #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt, the most important thing to note about this shopping movement is that it was created by the community—the one billion people worldwide who come to TikTok to be entertained, inspired, educated, and now shop.

Today, we're excited to introduce two new automation solutions that make it easier than ever to optimize your campaigns and increase conversions. And read on for research that proves TikTok's power to drive commerce everywhere—online, in-store, and in the app itself.

Latest updates to our commerce solutions

Smart+ and GMV Max

Faced with an increasingly fragmented media landscape and a collapsed purchase funnel, businesses are constantly looking for better ways to drive performance. Introducing Smart+, a new, AI-powered performance solution designed to maximize returns by automating campaign management. As an end-to-end performance solution, the benefits of Smart+ campaigns include better performance, greater operational efficiency, and reduced creative fatigue.

We're also proud to introduce GMV Max, a powerful new way for TikTok Shop merchants to automate their advertising campaigns and drive incremental gross merchandise value. GMV Max maximizes GMV by optimizing for total ROI, whether you're promoting your entire shop or select products. It does this by optimizing organic delivery in addition to paid ad traffic, providing advertisers with incremental GMV that would not otherwise be attainable without GMV max.

Video Shopping Ads

We're constantly leveling up Video Shopping Ads to create the most immersive and frictionless shopping experience for our community while maximizing outcomes for brands. Based on tests, Video Shopping Ads get 31.6% higher click-attributed ROAS versus non-catalog solutions.¹ Today, Video Shopping Ads is officially available globally, with a few key updates:

• Simplified onboarding: TikTok has invested in an ecosystem of third-party partners, and we recently expanded and evolved our partnership with Shopify to make creating a Video Shopping Ads campaign even easier. This integration empowers new merchants to seamlessly integrate their catalog and data connections with TikTok. And now, merchants can launch their first Video Shopping Ads campaign using pre-populated campaign settings and best practices, directly within Shopify.

• New formats and creative: We're doubling down on formats that drive performance, focusing on creative scale and ease of use. You can now automatically populate your product catalog into formats like Carousel and Product Tiles. With Carousel, you can drive a 2x increase in CTR and 292% CTA ROAS lift for retargeting. With Product Tiles, we've seen a 14% CTR Increase and 3.2% ROAS Lift compared to Product Cards alone.²

• Maximizing discoverability: We're making it even easier for shoppers to find your products. Expanding beyond the For You page, Video Shopping Ads campaigns are now also discoverable from the search tab.

Check out brands who are already seeing success with Video Shopping Ads

TikTok Shop and Shop Ads

• Shop Tab: 3 in 4 users are likely to buy from a brand they've seen on TikTok Shop³— a fully integrated e-commerce solution within TikTok. We recently launched a Shop Tab that allows users to effortlessly discover and browse products, offering greater convenience for online shoppers and more interactions with merchants. This new in-app tab opens up a familiar shopping interface where users can directly access anything related to their shopping activities.

• New Shop Ads Product Card format: The Shop Ads Product Card format is now available in the newly launched Shop Tab (previously only available on the For You Page). With Shop Ads extended placements on the Shop Tab, TikTok Shop merchants can promote their products directly within the Shop Tab with just an image and details from their product catalog. Placements in the Shop Tab reach customers who are already in the mindset to discover products and shop, helping maximize sales.

Check out brands who are already seeing success with Shop Ads

Studies show TikTok drives online and offline product sales

Now that you're up-to-date on the latest solutions, how does this translate to impact?

To help us understand this, we worked with trusted measurement partners Nielsen (MMx), Transunion (MTA), and Foursquare on a series of research studies covering a wide range of retail industries. By looking at the results, one thing is clear: TikTok is driving commerce everywhere, across all channels—online, in-store, and on TikTok itself.

From total sales to high ROI, TikTok delivers

Advertising on TikTok is effective at driving overall returns for retailers. Regardless of the measurement methodology, we are seeing a return for retail advertisers that's 1.6-2x better than other media channels:

• TikTok's ROAS is more than 2x better than linear TV, social and OLV for total retail.⁴

• TikTok's retail ROAS is 1.6x more efficient than the media average across TikTok, online display, online audio, online video, social, and paid search.⁵

Online sales

We've consistently seen that TikTok is a driver of online sales, a role that continues to grow as we enhance our commerce solutions. When compared to other online video channels, TikTok delivers an online retail ROAS that is 3.5x more efficient, and TikTok's retail ROAS for online conversions is 1.3x more efficient than the average across TikTok, online Display, online audio, online video, social, and paid search.⁵

In-store sales

What's more exciting is the halo effect that TikTok ads have on in-store sales and foot traffic. This new data proves what we've hypothesized all along—that TikTok's impact on sales transcends online sales and successfully drives a higher in-store return for retailers.

• TikTok's retail ROAS for offline conversions is 1.9x more efficient than the media average across TikTok, online display, online audio, online video, social, and paid search.⁵

• TikTok's cost per store visit is 38% more efficient than Foursquare's retail benchmark.⁶

• TikTok's cost per incremental store visit is 25% more efficient than Foursquare's retail benchmark.⁶

The Foursquare findings also show that, even though the purpose of Video Shopping Ads is to drive online conversions, 80% of Video Shopping Ads placements result in behavioral lift of incremental foot traffic, 2x Foursquare's benchmark. The median cost per store visit for TikTok Video Shopping Ads is also 43% more efficient than the Foursquare retail cost per store visit norms.⁶

In-app sales

As we introduce new solutions like TikTok Shop in the US, we're also seeing the TikTok community lean into shopping natively on TikTok. 84% of TikTok users agree TikTok Shop is convenient and easy³ and TikTok users are 1.3x more likely to say they feel secure shopping on TikTok compared to other social/video platforms.³ This convenience translates to direct impact on major shopping periods: over 5 million new customers made a purchase on TikTok Shop during the 2023 Black Friday and Cyber Monday campaign period.⁷

Drive sales everywhere with TikTok

So how does this work in practice? Well, that depends on your goal.

If you want to drive sales on your brand's website, then Video Shopping Ads or Web Conversion Ads are the way to go. Video Shopping Ads is the solution for catalog-based businesses to drive online sales, and Web Conversion Ads drive traffic to your site for any non-catalog business.

To create an additional sales channel directly within today's most engaging entertainment platform, you can set up TikTok Shop, and promote it using Shop Ads.

And according to a study, nearly 70% of users would likely purchase from an advertised brand when its strategy includes both Shop Ads and Video Shopping Ads.³

So what are you waiting for? Explore our commerce solutions and start driving product sales through TikTok today.

Sources

1. Internal data comparisons of advertisers using both VSA and Web Conversions products

2. Internal data comparisons of advertisers using using both VSA Single video and Carousel formats; Internal data comparisons of advertisers using using Product Card vs Product Tile

3. TikTok Marketing Science Global TikTok Shop Research (US Results) 2024, conducted by Material

4. Nielsen MMM study over 7 Retailers in Speciality Big Box and Beauty Big Box (US)

5. Transunion MTA Study commissioned by TikTok, US Only ROAS inclusive of Big Box, Specialty Big Box, Beauty Retail, and Fashion/Luxury Retail

6. TikTok and Foursquare attribution studies. N = 143 campaigns. US TikTok Retail Campaigns Oct 2022 - Sep 2023

7. TikTok internal data. Data uplift shown as relative to daily average GMV of 10.20 -10.26 baseline period)