With over 800 million monthly active users, TikTok has quickly become one of the most popular social media platforms. For businesses, this presents a unique opportunity to reach a large and engaged audience. However, marketing on TikTok is not without its challenges. The platform is known for its creative content, so businesses need to be strategic about how they stand out from the crowd. In this episode, we have Lazar Zepinic, founder and CEO of Sellers Alley, to present strategies on how you can maximize your chances of success with TikTok marketing. With a little creativity and effort, you can reach a whole new audience and grow your business.
Topics Covered in This Episode
- About Lazar Zepinic
- TikTok Overview
- Organic TikTok Profile
- Importance of Videos
- Amazon Attribution
- Tiktok Campaigns
- Ad Formats
- Question & Answer
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Podcast Transcription
[00:00:00]
Do you want your product seen by more buyers on Amazon, Etsy and other marketplaces? Do you want to get more traffic, make more sales and scale your brand? Welcome to the Signalytics Podcast – Signal Code Unlocked, where we discuss what signals are needed to send to your customers, to the algorithms, to the ad platforms in order to get your product seen, converting and profiting fast. With your host, former top 50 seller on all of Amazon, the Professor Howard Thai, this is the Signalytics Podcast – Signal Code Unlocked.
[00:00:38] Okay. Hello everyone. And thank you for joining us today. And today we have Lazar with us. Thank you so much for taking out time, Lazar. Hey guys, I’m glad to be here. Awesome. Thank you, Howard. Thank you, Baldwin. Okay, so Lazar we would like to have a little bit of your introduction and then we move on to topic.
[00:01:01] Absolutely. Do, do you want me to introduce myself or yeah. Yeah. So my name is Lazar. I’m the founder and owner of Sellers Alley. We started as an Amazon advertising agency and we expanded to other platforms as well. We’re partners with a lot of different platforms and some of the biggest aggregators in the world.
[00:01:22] And one of the important things, like most important things that our agency does is TikTok. And we are pretty big when it comes to TikTok. At this point, we, we have like almost nine figures in that spent this year. So it’s, it’s pretty, pretty big. Awesome. That’s huge. That’s huge. All right, so let’s move on to the topic.
[00:01:47] So what you have for us. Yeah for you guys today. Gimme just a second to share my screen. Yeah, you can, you can see my screen. Perfect. Yeah. So yeah, today I’m gonna talk like, because like most of the guys that, that are watching this are Amazon sellers and I’m gonna talk how to launch products on Amazon.
[00:02:09] But using TikTok and like, what’s the point with TikTok? I know that everybody’s talking about TikTok and it’s a big fuss about it, but like nobody really like went really deep dive into it. So I’m gonna tell you more about like, what’s the purpose of it, how to use it, what kind of stuff to do and so on.
[00:02:28] And TikTok is pretty amazing platform. Gimme just a second. Yeah, we went through this part. Who, who am I and who we are? It we’re pretty big. We exist for more than three years now. And we have more than 250 clients that we serve so far. And we do TikTok ads, Amazon PPC, DSP, Google ads, Facebook ads, and so on.
[00:02:52] So I’m gonna talk more about TikTok. I’m I’m going, gonna go through different topics like for your guys. I’m gonna be more than happy to share my slides with you. So basically, if there is anything that you missed, no worries. Like we, like you’re gonna get all the slides. And usually when I talk about TikTok, there is so much.
[00:03:15] About it. And like, whenever I talk about like, like following slides, there is like a big, massive chance that I’m gonna talk about something else inside of TikTok, because it’s so huge and it’s so addictive. So basically why TikTok? TikTok has been downloaded more than 3 billion times with B. So that’s a massive number and it has more than 1 billion active users that are using it daily.
[00:03:44] And one of the like impressive information, information that I, that I heard is that last year, over to Google as the most popular website in the world. That’s why like TikTok is so addictive. Like comparing to any other social media, like even today, like when you go to Instagram or Facebook, they’re trying to replicate TikTok because all like all the features of TikTok are so good.
[00:04:11] And they’re like the latest thing that happen. Like Facebook mentioned that they want to create greater marketplace and I’m gonna talk more about greater marketplace in this presentation because people usually like our clients, when they want to become our clients, we have like brief conversation about TikTok and like, why should you go there?
[00:04:34] Like, why is that the right platform for you? And like, Why is why? Like, should you go there basically? And like, one of the things that people usually say is we don’t have enough videos, you know, and TikTok is that kind of a platform that you need to have a lot of videos, like at least like two new videos per week.
[00:04:55] And a lot of people think that you need like high quality videos and like something super high quality, like Hollywood style, but which is really not the truth. But like, I’m gonna go through that a bit more during the presentation, it started as a teenage platform. People usually think about TikTok as a teenage platform.
[00:05:17] That time passed. And it changed a lot. So new numbers tell us that 62% of users are women around 25, 26% of users are from the age of 18 to 25, another 27% from the age of 26 to 35. And like more than 7%, I think are older than 50. So that’s something that is pretty interesting. And like one of the, like TikTok has a lot of numbers and they do a lot of statistics.
[00:05:49] And like, we work closely with the guys from TikTok. We even, we were invited to their headquarters recently and like we talked about like their numbers and like what they do and like how they do it and so on. And like, some of the numbers are so impressive. Like for example, the platform is so engaging, 80% of users of, of TikTok don’t use.
[00:06:12] Any other screen, like none of the screens are turned on, like just one where they have TikTok on. So they don’t watch TV while they’re on TikTok. They, they’re not on Facebook, on like their laptop while they’re using their phone to be on TikTok and so on. And that’s because the platform works in a really interesting way.
[00:06:34] It’s super engaging. It has videos. It has sound. So you need to focus on people talking, or you need to focus on sound and like you watch the video and, and basically you don’t really have time to watch TV in the background, you know? So you’re fully focused on Tiktok while you’re there. And also what’s, what’s pretty interesting is like, why is it so different?
[00:07:01] Like comparing to other platforms? So basically the biggest difference is the algorithm and TikTok has amazingly good algorithms. So that algorithm makes people watch it even more. Like one of the things about TikTok is like our brain tells us, if the situation around us is secure. If we are gonna be fine for the next five to 10 seconds, and we can focus to do
[00:07:30] what we are doing. Like, for example, at this presentation, this conversation, like whoever is watching their, in their like safe place, like they’re watching the, the, this, this slides show.
[00:07:42] And basically they don’t know, that’s nothing unexpected, they know that nothing unexpected is gonna happen to them. Like, like there is. Like, I don’t know, like there is no fire gonna show up or that kind of stuff, but like when you’re on TikTok, like your brain always tells you to swipe to see the next video and then the next video and then the next video and so on, because.
[00:08:05] those videos are short. They’re usually around 30ish seconds. So basically when it comes to lane length of the videos, people ask, like, what’s the length of, of videos and TikTok until recently it was three minutes up to three minutes. But like they’re currently testing like longer format for like 10 minutes.
[00:08:28] but like our experience tells us that you should use TikTok for like 30 to 40 seconds to get the best possible performance. And like, there are two different feeds on TikTok. First one is the list, like the feed of everybody that uses subscribe to. And like, you can watch the videos from people that you subscribe to.
[00:08:50] And there is another feed that is called for you feed. And basically that feed is created by the algorithm, from the videos that are super popular by other users. And basically it shows you the bidding videos. So this is one really cool trick. If you want to learn what kind of videos you want to create, spend five minutes each day in your for you feed. Check
[00:09:17] First five seconds of each video because first five seconds are crucial. On TikTok, like in, in each video, because, because of them or, or because of those five seconds, you decide if you’re gonna watch whole video or you’re gonna continue swiping until you see the, the video that you want to stick with.
[00:09:36] So that’s something that is really, really important. TikTok is becoming more and more shopping friendly. They’re introducing new ad types this year, they introduced couple more, including shopping ads. Like I, I’m gonna talk more about that as well, obviously, but like I’m just jumping from one slide to another.
[00:09:56] When it comes to income of users of TikTok, they’re a bit at the higher bracket comparing to other platforms, not much, but for a couple percent, more users of TikTok have more money to spend on different goods to, to purchase. So that’s something that is pretty cool. Also one really cool fact. I heard from the guys from TikTok.
[00:10:20] Like if you are used to advertising on Facebook, can you decide to move? Or like, if you decide to like allocate some of your budget advertising budget to TikTok, you’re gonna end up advertising to 40% of users that don’t use Facebook at all. So basically you have massive chance to end up advertising to people that
[00:10:43] basically don’t use Facebook and haven’t seen your videos or, or as before. So I can tell you more about the most purchased categories on TikTok as well as you can see there, there are clothing shoes, headphones, shampoos, and. And so on, but have in mind like the statistic that I mentioned about like where usual users and usual customers in TikTok.
[00:11:08] So like we, we can see that the TikTok is working pretty well across the board, like through different categories. It’s really important to work alongside with algorithms so you can get the best for your money. And when it comes to TikTok, if you’re spending, like our experience tells us. If you’re gonna spend like thousand
[00:11:30] dollars a month on advertising on TikTok, you shouldn’t go to TikTok. But if you’re willing to spend $5,000 and more TikTok should be the right place for you, because algorithm learns a lot from, from that amount of visits and clicks and so on.
[00:11:47] And like, there is another cool feature of TikTok that is like honeymoon period on Amazon. Like we like everybody that sells on Amazon knows about honeymoon period. There, there is a similar thing on TikTok as well. So when it comes to honeymoon period on TikTok, it lasts for 50 conversions. So when you create ads, TikTok, The learning phase lasts for 50 conversions.
[00:12:15] When I say conversions, it doesn’t necessarily mean that like the regular conversions, it’s basically what you place as a goal for your campaigns. So there are three different ways how you can show up on Tiktok.
[00:12:32] One of the options is to use organic option. Number two is to use paid ads. And the third option is to use UGC. So people usually ask, should I create organic profile and upload videos? Yes. Is it gonna affect your ads or are the ads gonna affect your organic profile? No, because algorithm doesn’t work in that way.
[00:12:58] It doesn’t communicate between organic and paid part. Obviously you’re gonna get some increase in followers and maybe some, some likes and so on, like more engagement on your organic part. After somebody’s saw your video, they’re gonna click on the profile. They’re gonna end up going to your organic profile and like, they’re gonna engage there.
[00:13:22] So as I said, like, do you need to have it? No. Should you have it? You definitely most definitely should. Because like, it’s just like on, on Amazon, like when, when you see the product you want to see in the storefront, you want to go to Google to check if there is a website, if the product and the brand are legit and so on.
[00:13:44] So basically the same thing stands for TikTok as well. So just to go through like, like categories as I, as I, as I mentioned, like, you. A comparison between TikTok and other platforms, like which one goes better where and so on. As I said, like, I’m not gonna gonna bother you a lot with like this kind of numbers.
[00:14:08] You’re gonna get the presentation. So feel free to, to check the numbers by yourself. I’m just gonna go through different parts of TikTok, because it’s a massive topic. I like, as I said, like, I can talk for hours about it. And one of the things that I want to mention as, and I started mentioning it is organic.
[00:14:28] TikTok profile. So for, for tips, for organic profile, it’s good to have frequent posting catch up TikTok trends. First three, four seconds are the most important ones. Try to be unique and engaging. Use high resolution videos. They’re super important. Like you can use your phone and create videos easily on TikTok.
[00:14:53] You don’t need Hollywood style studio to, to create videos and so on. And try to create some high quality videos, and that’s the way how to get most of the attention, make, make your videos stand out, make them clean and simple. Don’t jam too much information in those videos. I know that you guys like that are selling on Amazon, like love your product because it’s your baby.
[00:15:17] Obviously, I, I completely understand that, that part, but try to get in a position of, as of a buyer. And try not to, to jam too much information there. It’s really important to like, it’s a pretty thin line between like becoming a copycat and following all the new trends. I’m gonna tell you more, like in, in
[00:15:41] next couple of slides, like how to get trends and like how to jump on that train. We even ended up working with, with one store called Feel Unique. And like, we, we got pretty, pretty good case study for them because we were, we became trending globally on TikTok for them. And we used some really cool features of TikTok that, that you should definitely use.
[00:16:04] And like the best part is there, like 99% of the stuff on TikTok is. So you can go in that direction and obviously you should tell your story in, in a way that users can relate to. So what’s the importance of the videos? Obviously videos are the most important part of TikTok. And like when, when it comes to ads on TikTok performance of your ad really depends on, on the quality of the content inside of your video.
[00:16:35] If the videos have low, low performance in the first few days, that means that they’re not interesting for, for that audience. Maybe you should change that. But like some of the really cool tips and tricks, like when it comes to optimization of the ads and like, should you change videos? And so on, like when it comes to TikTok, you have an option to upload your email list to TikTok.
[00:16:59] It’s gonna work after 1000 emails. So you can do retargeting, you can create look alike audiences and so on. You create campaigns. And when you create campaigns, you set the budget, you set the bid. And so on. So basically as an Amazon seller, what you usually do, you, you go to the analytic on Amazon check who, who your buyer saw and, and basically you try to target only them.
[00:17:27] And that way you can easily kill the campaign on TikTok. So you need to start a bit broader on tech TikTok at the beginning and narrow down the funnel over time, narrow down the targeting that you have, but make sure that you don’t mess up a lot with campaign during the Honeymoon period. So basically what should, like some, some of the most important things are never change bids for more than 20% at once.
[00:17:54] Never change bids more than twice a week. And that’s something that is official from their end. It’s not something that we discovered like in our work. That’s something that TikTok said as well because their algorithm resets every time when you do it, like if you double the bid, if you double the budget, like it’s really tempting
[00:18:15] If you see that campaigns are working pretty well, you want to double the budget, but after that, you can easily see that campaigns are not gonna work well, that they change completely. And that’s something that you don’t wanna do. And the other thing that TikTok has is bulk files. You can bulk upload from Excel campaigns.
[00:18:35] Please don’t do that. It’s not working really well. So you need to go like in a boring way, create separate campaign one by one in the interface. And that’s basically the best way how to do it. Never create more than 15 or 20% of new campaigns comparing to the amount of campaigns that you already have.
[00:18:56] So let’s say that you have a hundred campaigns in your account. Never create 50 more create 15 to 20. Let them work. And like, while they’re working, when they pass the honeymoon period, then create additional amount of campaigns. So that’s something that is really, really important to, to know when it comes to important stuff about video.
[00:19:18] It’s important to know that file types that are allowed are MP4 and like other stuff like it’s pretty technical. You have in the presentation, try to cover all the screen, like go, go full screen, fully, have the sound on. What is really important in this section here of each video, you can see basically which song is going in the background of the video.
[00:19:45] So TikTok has a massive audio library and you should definitely use it. That’s the way how to jump on a tr trending train because some of the sounds are being used by still many different videos and like, they, they become trending. And that way, like when somebody’s watching some other video, they gonna click on the sound, on the sound or in the song, and they want to see other videos that are using that sound.
[00:20:14] So basically they’re gonna end up seeing your sound as well. So that’s one of, one small trick that you can use to, to get to the point when people are gonna see your video more frequently. The other thing that is really important to know is basically, as I said, the videos that that is not gaining any result in the beginning is going to be shown less and less. Algorithm doesn’t want to show something that is not engaging.
[00:20:43] Always have already prepared videos before starting the TikTok advertising. So like, what we usually recommend to do is to use creator marketplace. It’s separate platform created by TikTok. As I mentioned, Facebook is trying to create the same platform for, by themselves for influencers on Facebook. We’re gonna see like how that goes, but like when it comes to TikTok, go to creatormarketplace.tiktok.com and there you’re gonna see all the influencers on Tiktok.
[00:21:14] And you gonna be able to reach out to them easily by creating separate campaigns, just for them on that platform. So imagine that that’s some kind of like five or, or, or platform like that, where you can create campaign to find people that would work with you. And the main difference between creators on, on TikTok and other platforms is that like they’re charging way less.
[00:21:44] For creating videos for you because they’re trying to compete, compete between themselves. So basically what they usually ask for is just like couple of units of the product. It really depends on the size of, of the influencer. If it’s like nano or micro influencer or some massive big influencer, then obviously like the bigger they go, you’re gonna need to pay more and more.
[00:22:07] But what’s really important to know is that you can use those videos. You can write down like what you want to use those videos for. They gonna create that kind of videos. And you, you gonna use them for like other stuff for yourself. And that that’s pretty cool way how you can generate a lot of influencers and offers to generate more videos.
[00:22:33] So basically in like period of like two or three months, you can easily re get to the point where you have like base of like 50 or 100 influencers that are gonna create one video per month for you. And that way you’re gonna end up with a lot of videos. Our experience tells us when it comes to those briefs that we create for, for influencers.
[00:22:59] Like some of the clients, some of the, the Amazon sellers usually want to be super precise about what they want to see in the video and so on. And they target influencers that way and they. Then those influencers create those videos and they usually fail in 80% of the time videos that work the best are the videos where you give all the creative freedom to the influencer, because TikTok is a massive platform, as I said.
[00:23:26] And like, people usually think about TikTok has like funny and like engaging platform where everybody’s singing or dancing and so on. But TikTok is also a pretty good platform for tutorial tutorials, for learning and so on. So imagine that Howard let’s say is dancing and I’m doing Excel tutorials. So, and like on the other end seller comes and wants us to create videos.
[00:23:55] And like, if, if he says like, okay guys, like you need to dance for, with our product and so on. And like, if Howard is already dancing, his Audience is gonna love those videos. They’re gonna understand them because they’re gonna like stick to the pattern of like content that Howard is already creating. But like, if, if I did a lot of tutorials on the other end and I start dancing, My viewers are gonna say, like, why are you doing this?
[00:24:25] So basically I should create like different way, how to promote your video. So it’s really important to, to give influencers that kind of creative freedom so they can create something that is gonna be super useful and interesting for their customers and their audience and their viewers. So, yeah, that’s something that is super important.
[00:24:47] The other really important thing is like, why they’re not charging that much is because they’re using, you can use spark ads and spark ads is, that’s something that I’m gonna tell you more soon. But I want to tell you more about sections, like parts of, of, of your video. And I’m gonna tell you more about TikTok TikTok messaging 101.
[00:25:10] So basically, as you can see, like the green. Is the safe zone. So basically this is the place that is not blocked by any buttons. That’s that is not covered with any text, with any, any button or any logo or so on. Then this is the place where you want to display your product. This is the place where you want to share message and so on.
[00:25:34] And like at the end you can see CTA button, like call to action button. So, so you can send traffic in, in like wherever you wish. And like, if you ask, like where you can send the traffic, you can send traffic, literally wherever you want. On one end, you can use traffic to like to send traffic towards your DTC website.
[00:25:56] On, on the other end, you can send traffic to the Amazon product listing. So obviously the next question, question about the traffic and like how to measure everything is basically how do we track that? Obviously, if we go to Amazon, we going to use Amazon attribution. We can track results by using Amazon attribution.
[00:26:19] And basically that’s it that, that we have there. I know that attribution is not the, the best tool in the universe, but that’s what we have because Amazon will never allow any third party to implement their tag or pixel on, on their platform. Because that way they, they’re gonna give more information about other stuff that are going on.
[00:26:44] On the other hand, if you’re sending people towards your website, you can use tags, UTMs, you can hardcode it to your website, or you can use containers. There are a bunch of stuff that you can track from product sales purchases clickthroughs and so on. So yeah, I’m gonna tell you more about TikTok campaigns.
[00:27:08] Basically before you start advertising, it’s really important to have in mind that you need to have a lot of videos. So use creator marketplace create some videos on your own, create a strategy. As I said, like there are three different ways how you can, how you can show on TikTok. As I said, like organic using paid advertising or by using UGC user generated content.
[00:27:36] That’s something that is really, really important to know. Sorry about this. Like my slides, like got messed up a bit. So I’m gonna tell you more about ad placements as well. Like I want to tell you more about formats and ad placements, the most common one and the one that we all know is in feed ads.
[00:27:56] Basically those are the ads when you use your phone, when you swipe like every five to 10 videos, you can see the ad. So those are the most common ones. The other thing that I want to mention, they’re really good for traffic to, to, to drive traffic to your destination. And so on when it comes to, as I mentioned ad formats, I said like, the slides just got messed up a bit.
[00:28:21] So sorry about that. Like the other thing is spark ads and that’s the thing that I wanted to tell you more when I started talking about creator marketplace and the influencer. So basically when they create videos, you can boost those videos. And basically it’s more of like cooperation between an influencer and seller somebody that is doing advertising on TikTok, because when they create some high quality video, you can boost those videos.
[00:28:50] And that way you can send traffic towards your website. If, if influencer creates a video, they can use a link in the description. They can use link in comment. But they cannot create the button inside of the video. Like as you saw before. So in this place here, there that’s a place for a button. And when you create a Spark ads, you’re gonna be able to create the link with that button.
[00:29:19] And basically that’s one of the reasons why creators want to create some high quality videos. And because they, they expect that you’re going to use spark ads afterwards. And basically it’s a triple win situation where influencer is winning by increasing the amount of forwards. You’re sending more traffic towards your website or Amazon store or wherever.
[00:29:44] And also it’s good for TikTok because they’re getting money out of it. Obviously. so that’s something that is really important. And as I mentioned, previously, TikTok is becoming more and more shopping oriented, and it’s gonna increase their, in that direction as well. So the other ad type is collection ads and collection ads are really important because for them you, you need to use.
[00:30:11] and basically your feed then can generate ads on, on TikTok platform and how it usually looks is it, it looks like this. So there is a product card here when you click on it. Basically, you can go like this, to this section here. And like one of the new cool features that are gonna be introduced by TikTok really soon.
[00:30:35] It’s not publicly available yet. They’re probably gonna kill me because I’m sharing this kind of stuff. But like in this section here, you are gonna be able to filter to through different categories in, in your store. So basically first few pictures here are on the platform of TikTok. And from there you have a smooth transition towards the product on the website and you go to the checkout page.
[00:31:03] So that’s basically a really cool way how to make a sale from TikTok. And then on your website, shopping ads or collection ads are unfortunately not available for Amazon. They can be used with Shopify or any Other DTC website. And that’s because you cannot really take feed from Amazon. So I can tell you more about our clients’ experience and like our strategy and like how we, how we work there.
[00:31:33] I don’t want to go really deep dive into like all this different stuff, because it’s, it can be boring for a lot of people and I don’t want to get everybody super sleepy about that. But like, as I said, like, you can, you can get the slides and you can go through all this stuff. Like there are some other stuff that are really, really important about the ads.
[00:31:58] As I mentioned, don’t change bids all the time. Change them for like 20% stops. The thing goes for the budget as well, starts a bit broader, the narrow down. Targeting a bit over time, so it can work better. Also what’s important is to refresh videos all the time to add new videos. Obviously, if the campaign is working, if the ad is working.
[00:32:27] Don’t fix something that is working well, create separate campaign with new video and use it, same targeting or whatever you want. So basically that’s the way how you can use it. And just to wrap up, TikTok is becoming more and more popular. It’s gonna take more space from other social media. If you send traffic towards Amazon, use Amazon attribution to
[00:32:52] To track the performance, make your TikTok organic profile to, to go in hand with your ads and to boost your Amazon traffic. Have in mind that TikTok is different from Amazon. Use those TikTok trends and challenges and make your videos engaging and make sure to follow all the requirements. So basically guys, that’s my presention.
[00:33:22] Awesome. That’s a lot of information out there. So there are a few basic questions from my side. You mentioned that the honeymoon period on TikTok, is it like 15 convergence or it is 5-0? 5-0. 50 okay. And the conversion means like people are clicking on the ad and it really depends what you placed as, as the goal of the campaign.
[00:33:49] It can be either click. It can be like, literally whatever you place it, like, it cannot be conversion as like regular conversion on Amazon, because obviously you cannot, TikTok cannot really track that part. But like, if, if you’re sending traffic towards your website, you can go in that direction as well.
[00:34:09] So like, you can, you can create campaigns with a goal of conversion on your website. Okay. All right. And, and About regarding the creator market place, once an influencer, uh, like create you a video then, is it your property or is it still their property? Like, can we repurpose? It really depends what you, what you discussed with the influencer.
[00:34:36] Like, basically, as I said, like, you can create that campaign. They’re absolutely free. You write down what you want to get there. What are you willing to give an exchange to them? They gonna get the information on their end. So they gonna reach out to. By by already knowing what you want. Like, if you want to use those videos on the website, if you want to use them on Instagram reel as well, and on organic profile, or you just want to boost the videos that they’re creating by using Spark ads.
[00:35:09] So those are the options that, that, that you have. And basically our experience tells us that like they’re, they can usually accept. To to that, that you can use their videos indefinitely because that way it’s increasing their popularity as well. You know, if you, if you get to the point that you have like 50 influencers and out of those 50, they all create one video each per month.
[00:35:37] You’re obviously not gonna use all 50 to create campaigns, but you’re gonna pick the best ones and you’re gonna. Like increase the visibility of their profile as well. Not only yours, but as I said, like, if you write down that you want to use those videos for other purposes and they agree on that, you’re absolutely fine and good to go.
[00:35:59] Okay. Perfect. And like, They are like restricted or like interested in the high price point products, because normally in Pakistan, people are launching the low price products and it, it is creating problem for them. So is there any price point restriction or they are open to any price point product? They’re pretty open to everything, you know, like obviously just like on any other platform they like sales.
[00:36:25] So, so it, it, it goes well with that, like there are coupon ads, which, which are pretty cool feature of, of TikTok. So basically you can implement and the button, the coupon. And so if you send people to Amazon, they already have the coupon and so on, so they can go like in any direction when it comes to niches, it can go in any direction as well.
[00:36:48] We are doing pretty well with some coffee brands with car cosmetic. Random stuff. But like when it comes to terms of service of TikTok, they’re pretty strict when it comes to different like some specific platforms, but some specific niches, like toys for kids, you’re not allowed to advertise them, which is like insane if you ask me, but that’s something that is still not working.
[00:37:12] So if you’re interested in crypto and anything illegal or children toys, you’re not allowed to advertise. So Howard, would you like to yeah. Baldwin, you have anything you want to ask? Yeah. So, I mean, thanks for that presentation. It was awesome. I think one of the things that all of the listeners are wondering is how.
[00:37:41] like how many of your clients are usually driving traffic to Amazon rather than a Shopify store or from inside one’s own the marketplace. So it, it, it really depends when it comes to our clients, we have like massive variety of clients from like some super famous international, like Massive brands, like when it comes to clothes and so on, they usually send traffic towards their website to create like brand awareness.
[00:38:16] But like for Amazon sellers, they usually start with Amazon. But as they decide to grow their DTC website, they expanded that direction as well. Like the other question that people usually ask is like, is it cheap to advertise on TikTok? It is cheaper than Facebook. Not a lot. Just a bit like maybe 10% or so on, but like, there are some really cool stuff that you can do with TikTok.
[00:38:44] Like if, when you expand and you continue working on TikTok and, and so on, there are a bunch of benefits from TikTok ads, like if you get TikTok crap or like, if you work with some agency, you can ask them for some additional benefits. So some of the benefits are like some credit for AB testing. Or credit that you can use when you, when they want to launch new features.
[00:39:12] As I mentioned, like for the, the shopping stuff, I, I don’t really remember the amount of money they’re, they’re willing to like, forgive you the debt, you already spent like $5,000 or so per month. But like, like, I, I, I, I cannot really swear like how it goes, but like, they give you a lot of different stuff. Like, I can send you some of the incentives that TikTok is giving, but like, they, they, they can definitely help you.
[00:39:40] Like, if you’re a big Amazon seller and you want to expand to a new platform like TikTok, they would come to you and like they would discuss, or you can come to them, like in any direction you can discuss about possibilities about advertising there and so on. And like, if you decide to spend certain amount of money, they, they are willing to give you up to $20,000 for creating videos.
[00:40:05] Obviously you, they, they don’t give you cash. They give you a list of vendors like agencies that they work with when it comes to video creation. We’re not one of them. But we can give you a list of, of those agencies that they work with. And basically you go there, you create videos. You tell them, you tell those agencies that, that, that you are getting incentivized by TikTok.
[00:40:29] And basically what, what you do there is like you get the videos and then TikTok covers the expense. So it’s up to $20,000. It’s not $20,000 all the time. Oh, wow. Okay. So do you just contact like a TikTok rep or how do you get started with that? Well, I don’t want to self promote us here, but like you, you, you can easily reach out to us and like we can, we, we, we can, we, we [already have like really, really good communication with TikTok and like TikTok has like 15 people in their team that are dedicated to work.
[00:41:08] With us. So we, we can do all the stuff we don’t really charge for any of that. Okay. Another question is, what do you think is your threshold for creative fatigue? How often should we switch out creatives? Well, as I said, like your creative are doing pretty well, you, you shouldn’t like fix something that is working, but if you have creative, like if you have campaigns that are like fading and like, like not working as good as they used to, you should think about like changing the creatives there.
[00:41:46] And as I said, like, you, you should introduce like around two new videos per week. So that that’s usually that works the best. Okay. So like format wise, let’s say you have 20, 20 videos and that’s your, I guess, videos for the month. So how many videos would you start out with? In terms of launching cause, you wouldn’t launch all 20 videos at the same time?
[00:42:16] Obviously not. Yeah. I, I wouldn’t, I, I, I would probably go with up to 10 videos and then, uh, add like two, two or three more videos per week for the first month. And like, before I even started campaign, I would start with, create our marketplace and get more creators to help me with the videos and everything.
[00:42:37] And like what’s really cool to, to do is to, when you send traffic to send it to some dedicated landing page and from there to send it either to Amazon or your website or wherever, and like first part, and in the second part, I, I would add, like we saw that it’s working pretty well for our clients. Like I would add like section that says.
[00:43:01] Would you like to become our influencer in the future? Like give us your email and we can like, discuss about that. So that that’s something that is working pretty well. Do you feel that that might hurt conversion because they’re going to TikTok to a landing page and then to Amazon. It really depends.
[00:43:22] Like it can, because it’s one additional step. But on the other end, like if you test it and like, if you end up getting like bunch of new videos, if you get like some other benefits, like if you combine like how, like Howard knows that? Absolutely. No. So I’m pretty sure that you guys know that PPC all is all about AB testing.
[00:43:46] So like do AB testing of that as well. See what what’s working the best for you. So Howard do you have? Yeah, I, I, I, well, I mean, pretty, I could say I’m pretty advanced on TikTok, meaning I do a lot of R and D. I watch TikTok maybe like a lot off. I, I bounc between US Tiktok and the Chinese Tiktok. So I watch both at the same time.
[00:44:11] So, so it’s really interesting because I, I get addicted too, you know? So is, is the difference for you to, to like Chinese version of TikTok versus the US version of TikTok? Like, there’s a big difference. So like in China TikTok, you can actually give people presents, you buy these presents and you give it to them, and then they actually make money off of the presents that you give them when they do live.
[00:44:33] Yeah. So. A girl comes on. They could battle each other who gets the most presence, you know, who gets the most money and stuff like that. So it’s like a battle battling, battling thing war. So it’s really fun. It’s really fun. You watch that. also you can buy stuff on. It was like already. There’s a lot. TikTok already, you did like live shopping.
[00:44:52] Yeah. Buy, stopping already in us. You know, it should be coming up or already came out. But in, in, in the Asia TikTok or Douyin is actually been out there and very successful. You have the, the, I guess the lipstick king is one of the, the really most famous one that actually battled with the Jack Ma to see who could sell the most lipstick.
[00:45:16] So the, and so the lipstick king actually won Alibaba group, you know, so it’s really crazy how powerful TikTok is. And you have another girl that does live shopping and they she’s like one of the best, you know, out there. So little, really cool stuff. You know, the US TikTok is, is really, really cool. But then in the Asia TikTok, the, the Chinese TikTok, you know, they, they do a lot of stories, you know, storylines.
[00:45:43] Yeah. So like movie, they do like short, like it’s like a cliff note movies. They do like in those section, so they kind of like cliff notes, so it’s really fast. Right? So they kind of talk through the movie. Then you can watch a movie in like maybe three minutes or, or, or, or more. So they actually have these clips where you have to swipe up and down usually, right.
[00:46:06] To watch the next part of the series of the movie. But then actually now click, TikTok in China. They make it so that it’s continuous. Within the same image. So you don’t have to swipe it anymore to finish the movie, you just watch number one. And then it goes to number two and then it goes to number three.
[00:46:24] So it’s continuously finishing the movie cliff notes in just like the whole period of time. So you don’t need to really swiping up and down within the, within going into the, their profile and going up and down. So it’s like really advanced, I would say on TikTok. Yeah, that that’s, that’s pretty awesome. So like, as, as, as you mentioned, like Chinese TikTok and US TikTok and so on, like it’s really important, which SIM card do you have in your phone?
[00:46:53] Yeah, that’s the main way, how to get to, to see different feeds. It does. Like if you go to settings and just change the country, it’s not gonna work that well. It’s better to have a SIM card from that country that you want to see the feed and like where you want to send the traffic to. Yeah. So we, we have our own influencers within, and then we give them phones in China, right
[00:47:18] To use. So they have to have the SIM card in order for you, them to be able to go to those TikTok in the US, to, to show in the US. So that’s what Lazar is correct on that.
[00:47:30] That’s, that’s one of the like the security thing that they, they do to track how, yeah. You, you, you can find those SIM cards on like internet or an eBay, or like go to buy Google fi and like that kind of stuff.
[00:47:45] Yeah. Google fi works perfectly in China. Yeah. It’s working pretty good. I you’re using it right now.. Like when I went to, to see you in China, I, I, I was using Google fi. Yeah. . Yeah, so me and Lazar go way back. And we met in like Guangzhou like 2018 or something. I, I don’t remember exactly what date
[00:48:09] Yeah. And then we went to and we ate at lamb and that’s where we built our very, um, deep relationship. He’s like, I always, uh, I always call he’s one of my brothers, you know, brother. Howard is such a, was such an amazing host. Like that that’s, that’s like one of the most memorable, memorable trips that I had in my life.
[00:48:32] Like, he, he took me like to all of the places in China, obviously I don’t speak Chinese. So he, he took me like to the best places I, I was so impressed. Yeah. So I, if you guys didn’t notice. I was just like, kind of like, didn’t talk for a little bit because it’s actually 7 o’clock am when we started a podcast in Hawaii.
[00:48:54] So I’m in Hawaii and this is my last day. I’m going back to LA soon after a little, little, little later in the afternoon. So sorry for me not speaking. And then I, and then I saw, I saw this bird. I ran into the house, I guess, apartment and then, and then, so that’s why I moved my moved my computer. When you saw me moving around, the bird was, was, was flying into the house and stuff.
[00:49:15] So, sorry about that guys. So anything else, guys, Zeeshan, you wanted. I believe let’s take some of the audience questions. Here’s the first. So when, when it comes to, should we use marketing through influencer run TikTok ads? I would most definitely combine them. Like it’s like, it’s just like building a brand.
[00:49:39] Like you should like expand in all directions, but like, try to be really smart about. Create the strategy, what you wanna do, what kind of influencers are gonna target, which kind of group of people, because like you can, you can use micro and nano influencers to target like really specific groups of people.
[00:49:58] Obviously you can use really good targeting on TikTok as well. And like one of the cool features is like they target and so on. Like the TikTok has like really good targeting system. Basically the platform looks like if you’re used to. It resembles Facebook more than like, let’s say Google ads or Amazon ads.
[00:50:20] So I would most definitely go in all directions, but like, try to be smart, not try to, to like target everybody everywhere, try to use micro influencers to target specific groups of people. Use ads for maybe different groups of people, Spark ads and so on. And it really depends on the budget as well. So when it comes to using TikTok versus live commerce, streaming doing some videos around the product drops or on our own platform.
[00:50:53] So like, I’m not really sure that like people in the states are like, if you want to sell in the states are still like that familiar with like live shopping and like using lives for, for, for selling the products you, you can do that. and I’m pretty sure it’s gonna go more in that direction in the future. But at this point, like they’re just used to like the regular ads.
[00:51:22] Like that’s something that they see the most, but like on the other end, like since they’re not used to it, and if you start doing it like first, if you do it correctly, I’m pretty sure that you can make, make difference there. What about sport fitness products? Do we get good influencer? Absolutely. Like sport fitness products.
[00:51:44] That’s something that’s like, there there’s a lot of Western like influencers that are into fitness, into sports, like, like a lot of TikTokers are about quality of living, like how to improve yourself and your surrounding like about hobbies, about like sports, meditation. And so on. So you can definitely find a lot of good looking people in the gym that can use your product.
[00:52:13] All right. Awesome. So I believe this was the last question we had from the audience and ending notes. Anything you can recommend Lazar for the, for the new people who are like, not in on to TikTok, but they just wanna start there. Well before creating your first campaign, try to create a strategy, go to TikTok, go to for you feed check the videos that TikTok is recommending to you because those are the bidding videos.
[00:52:43] So you can see like, try to break the videos down to like different sections. Try to see like how the first five seconds are going, like how they close the videos, like how they get your attention, how they show and like present the message about the product. That’s like really, really important as well.
[00:53:03] So try to generate some information, get some knowledge about that, how, how others are, and then start from there, like create a base of influencers as well. So you can have like a stream of new videos all the time. And when you get a lot of materials, start doing stuff. If you have like one or two videos and you tell yourself I’m gonna create a lot of videos in the future, don’t go in that direction because you probably are not gonna have time to create the next video next time.
[00:53:37] So try to create a base of like 10 or 20. Like something like that videos and then start advertising and like expanding to TikTok. If you have just like couple of them, you’re at some point in your life you’re gonna like have a day off or you’re gonna work hard on some problem that cure it, then you’re not gonna have time to create the video.
[00:54:01] All right. Awesome. Awesome. So once again, thank you, Lazar. Thank you so much for taking out your time and allowing us to like host you here. I believed every gonna everyone is who is watching, are gonna love this information. What you have just put up. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, guys. Thank you.
[00:54:22] Lazar for coming. Thanks Lazar. Thank you. Thank you everyone for joining us today and have a great night here in Pakistan. Have a good sleep. Awesome. Right. Bye. Do you want your product seen by more buyers on Amazon Etsy and other marketplaces? Do you want to get more traffic, make more sales and scale your brand.[00:54:47] Welcome to the Signalytics podcast – Signal code unlocked, where we discuss what signals are needed to send to your customers, to the algorithms, to the ad platforms in order to get your product seen converting and profiting fast with your host former top 50 seller on all of Amazon, the professor Howard Thai this is the Signalytics podcast signal code unlocked.