From Zero to Viral: Our Journey with a TikTok Shop Agency Partner

Product launches only part of the equation. The hard work is presenting that product in front of the right eyes — and turning views into sales.
We were at zero followers, no TikTok Shop, and healthy dosages of doubt whether TikTok would actually give genuine conversions. The end result was radical. It not only repositioned sales funnel of ours but reimagines entirely what we know of influencer marketing and user-generated content (UGC) campaign.
And it all begins with where we worked with a TikTok Shop agency partner with all the insight on turning scrolls into sales.
Here is the step-by-step process of going from being TikTok unknown to viral product sales success with the assistance of only intelligent TikTok Shop configuration, creator collaborations, paid commercials, and expert advice through one of the world's premier TikTok Shop ad companies.

Functioning From Scratch with No TikTok Account

We were never insta-influencers. We never had followers. We never were on TikTok.

• As with much of the companies attempting to pick through the shifting landscape of social commerce, we had fiddled with Facebook and Instagram ads, experimented with some influencer sponsorships, and experimented with Amazon—but TikTok was unknown.
• The TikTok Shop product was appealing yet intimidating at the same time with their fast-speed, algorithmically-orchestrated fads, partnerships with creators, and rigid product approval protocols.
• We had no reference point of where to start, nor if TikTok commerce would be compatible with our category: mid-range health/wellness end-products. But as organic reach on all other platforms were on the decline and acquisition were sky high, we had no choice but to give it a shot.

Here is Our TikTok Shop Agency Partner

Finding the ideal TikTok Shop partner agency all added up.

• We did research on certain businesses, yet the business we did end up with had an unconventional strategy—their method wasn’t plopping us into tried-and-true systems; they reverse-engineered going viral with TikTok-natively native behaviors.
• They were familiar with TikTok Shop setup top-to-bottom, but what they were really familiar with was sales-driving through the science and art of storytelling, partner creators, and optimizer-driven decision-making.
• They had stand-alone beauty, lifestyle, and CPG businesses under their belts—the vast majority of them with no ex-ante TikTok experience. Their TikTok Shop mechanics and strategy-content-driven experience distinguished them within other TikTok Shop agencies, whose strategies felt more ad dollar-driven.

Here’s what they did for us.

Day-by-Day Experience

TikTok Shop Installation: Getting It Right with Setup

Initially, it was fine-tuned and tried under the TikTok Shop framework. The agency handled:

• Documentation of shop and registration: All product information and requirements of compliance being adhered to.
• Catalogue enhancement: Product image, product titles, product long description enhancement according to TikTok trends and search pattern.
• Shop branding: Developing an aligned brand page with native creative design on TikTok, such as category tagging and thumbnail planning.
• Fulfillment integration: Our TikTok Shop-driven store's Shopify-induced setup had to integrate correctly with TikTok Shop for order management, shipping, and returns.

They set up live monitoring tools as tools of tracking attribution of video campaigns of influencers, paid campaign campaigns, and in-shop conversions—but functionality that we would have never learned of on our own.

Influencer Onboarding: How to Select the Right

While being top of mind for targeting mega-influencers was of primary concern for our TikTok Shop partnering agency, as long as they had earned credibility within the space of wellness and beauty.
They did it all for her:

• Creator outreach and filtering
• Negotiating affiliate commissions rates
• Seeding of product
• Scripting and creative brief help

Most of those creators had already sold daily through TikTok Shop affiliate marketing campaign, and they had experience of the best way of product presentation organically with call-to-action.
Our agency actually constructed a custom creator dashboard to monitor whose uploaded it, what worked, and what amount of revenue each of the videos generated—all while providing real-time insight into ROI.

UGC Generation: Large Scale with Transparency

One of the biggest of these was user-submitted content.
Our company collaborated with creators and clients side-by-side on the production of UGC at scale—short natively-appearing-to-organically-appearing TikTok creations but with conversion as the end. They were available in all imaginable forms like:

• “TikTok made it buy it” hauls
• Morning routine functions
• Duet with viral recordings
• Customer reviews
• Unboxing and reaction videos

These assets were then utilized with specific purpose on organic as well as paid ad campaigns, all of it while having at hand high-performing creatives without having to invest thousands on photo studios.
UGC was invaluable. We can experiment with hundreds of hooks, tones, and styles without creative exhaustion.

Paid Ad Campaigns: Scaling Things That Worked

Following momentum with creators and UGC, our TikTok Shop agency of record pressed on further into paid media.
They did what exactly with it?

• Spark Ads: Promoting top-performing creator videos straight from the creators’ handle in order to ensure originality and enhance reach.
• Catalog ads: With product carousels linking directly through to our TikTok Shop product listing.
• Retargeting Campaigns: Showing live ads for those users who had clicked on the TikTok Shop page but did not convert, with time-limited discounts.
• Lookalike Audiences: Using pixel data of TikTok to create audiences that resemble those that had previously bought.

The agency tested more than 60 creatives within the first month of work alone, and it only managed through performance those top 3 performing creatives and set weekly spend allocations based on performance. It did keep CAC in check while scaling reach.

Shop Optimizations: Optimization for Conversion

Behind the scenes at the agency, we were constantly optimizing the TikTok Shop page for conversions:

• Replaced weekly-pinned uploads with most recent uploads added by creators.
• A/B testing of thumbnails and product descriptions.
• With reviews, FAQs, and "hot" badges in the listing.
• Bundle tailoring and paying per pattern per traffic.

They also created repeat flash sale events, that instilled FOMO and allowed creators to tell narratives of “limited supply” or “flying off the shelves” situations—are we in TikTok already?

Historical Find

Virality through A Piece of UGC

The actual trigger occurred on month two, as on her platform, a micro-influencer uploaded an easy morning routine video of our supplement with the hook below:

“This little pill rewrote my energy within 3 days.”

• The post went viral within three days with 1.3 million views.
• Since it was being advertised through an affiliate link on TikTok Shop, conversions were in real-time. The creator’s affiliate dashboard had recorded more than 1,100 orders within 72 hours. Our TikTok Shop had shot on past under 20/day order volume to more than 450/day at the peak of the trend.
• The agency subsequently escalated the video as it went into Spark Ad, amplified it as the complete paid campaign set, and spun off with other creators with similar hooks.
• That one viral UGC video generated over $78,000 in sales and garnered over 7,000 brand-new followers on our account within 7 days.
  
  

Cross-Channel Traffic Increasing

What we could not have foreseen was the extent TikTok would influence our other channels.
As the viral TikTok video played, consumers were going on Google and searching for Our brand name, clicking through on Our website, and liking on Our Instagram and Amazon page. Even while the buy intention was highly TikTok-native, We did notice:

• A 40 percent increase in branded traffic on Google.
• A 22% sales lift on Amazon, and we weren't promoting it at all.
• A 3X increase of lift of signups on Klaviyo email list of first-time visitors of site after learning of us on TikTok.

TikTok, with proper creative and agency guidance, capped off all of our other top-of-funnel traffic drivers into the remainder of the sales pipeline.

Final Result

Expansion of Product Visibility

Three months later, having progressed from possessing no consciousness at all to having:

• 12.4mm views per TikTok on creator and ad content.
• Over 80 user creations made.
• Seen on numerous "TikTok Finds" and "Amazon Favorites" listicles.

That was awareness alone. It went on sale immediately.

TikTok Shop Spike in Orders

These are the painful realities:

• TikTok Shop Orders: 11,232
• Gross Revenue: $243,000+
• Ad Spend: $29,000
• Overall ROAS: 8.4x
• Highest Single-Day Orders: 1,123 (on viral UGC campaign day)
• Top Creator Commission Received: $12,300

That performance would never have happened without platform-organically native information and strategy planning with our TikTok Shop agency partner.

The Right TikTok Shop Marketing Agency Does Indeed Make All the Difference

TikTok is no longer discovery as a end – it’s end-to-end sales platform. But it’s under brand-new laws. It’s not macro-ads, high-sheen macro-influencers. It’s platform-native narrative, daily people, timing on narratives, and data-driven optimization.
Collaborating with the proper TikTok Shop advertising agency allowed us to sidestep months of trial and error. They provided us with:

• Influencer partnerships that have generated measurable ROI.
• New platforms that catalyzed virality.
• Media buys that scaled without creative wear.
• TikTok Shop experience that shattered all organic and paid records.

If you're a brand wondering whether it's worthwhile spending on TikTok—the more you have, the more you have with which you have to start at zero—the best choice might be partnering with one of the top TikTok Shop agencies.

Up for challenging the success of yours on yours?

Join The Short Media – the TikTok Shop Agency Partner designed for scaling