While a growing number of TikTok users are voicing their concerns about the app’s push to integrate in-stream shopping, and how it’s disrupting the user experience, TikTok remains focused on building out its in-app commerce elements, with new additions that will help more brands promote direct sales within the video feed.
Today, TikTok has announced some new updates to its Video Shopping Ads, while also launching a new ad placement in the Shop tab to showcase your products.
First off, on Video Shopping Ads. TikTok says that its Video Shopping promotions are now available globally, while it’s also added some new elements to make them a more appealing, more simplified consideration.
In order to help more businesses create Shopping Ads, TikTok will now enable brands to automatically populate their product catalog into formats like Carousel and Product Tiles.
TikTok’s Carousel ads include a “Shop Now” CTA to encourage direct purchase, with this new option making it easier for retailers to convert their existing creative into TikTok promotions, while Product Tiles appear as a pop-up overlaid on the video playback.
And both have proven effective.
As per TikTok:
“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.”
On another front, TikTok says that it’s expanded its partnership with Shopify, in order to make it easier for Shopify merchants to create Video Shopping Ads.
“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.”
TikTok’s also making Video Shopping Ads discoverable from the search tab to improve visibility.
Finally, TikTok’s also launching a new Shop Ads Product Card format, which will enable 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.”
So, overall, the main intention with these updates is to make it easier for retailers to create shopping promotions, without having to film dedicated TikTok videos and promos as you know them.
Which, again, is all part of TikTok’s expanded eCommerce push, as its parent company ByteDance works to replicate the success that it’s seen with Douyin, the Chinese version of the app, in Western markets as well.
Douyin generates the majority of its revenue from in-app purchases, and its intake dwarfs the cash generated by TikTok by a ratio of almost 100 to 1.
Last year, Douyin drove more than $270 billion in direct product sales in 2023, an increase of 60% over 2022. TikTok generated $3.8 billion in in-app spending, which is also up 15% year-over-year, but it’s nowhere near its Chinese sister app.
You can see, then, why TikTok keeps pushing its in-app commerce elements, in the hopes that, eventually, they will gain traction, and become a bigger element with Western consumers as well.
Thus far, that hasn’t been a major success. But with hundreds of billions on the line, TikTok’s clearly not going to give up without a real fight.
The risk, then, is that its ongoing commerce promotions will become more annoying for TikTok users, and impact its usage. But I’m guessing that it’ll take a significant downturn for that to happen.
You can learn more about TikTok’s latest commerce elements here.
