Now dropshipping products through TikTok isn’t the first thing that comes to your mind when you think of this business model, but this article will make you see things from a whole different perspective — and realize the true potential behind Tiktok.
With that said, want to hear something crazy? Tiktok is beating Facebook (By over $30B or more to be precise). Because as per a report by Nikkei Asia, TikTok (Formerly called “Musical.ly”) is now the world’s most downloaded app.
It’s official, Facebook’s (or Meta’s) days of ruling are slowly but surely coming to an end. With Mark Zuckerberg rushing around frantically to find ways to stand out on top, Tiktok is casually taking the throne and putting distrust and discontent in Meta in the minds of people.
And to think it all started when ByteDance launched the international version of TikTok in 2017; which within just four years has now overtaken Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram and more social media giants that popped up in the last decade or so.
Of course it wasn't always like this…
Musical.ly was launched in 2014, but shut down in mid 2018 because its owner, ByteDance, wanted to port its technology and user base into another app it owned; the joint app that is now known as TikTok, one of the world’s most popular, trending, controversial and infamous social networks today.
But from a dropshipper’s point of view, there’s opportunity in every corner. And thanks to the rise of Tiktok as the new social media giant, it has never been easier to start and scale your own Shopify ecommerce dropshipping business.
In this article, we’ll discuss why advertising your dropshipping products on Tiktok is a good idea, how you can find hot trending products on TikTok with a sweat and why you should prioritize Tiktok over Facebook to pivot, grow and sustain your online store.
You’ll learn everything you need to know about dropshipping with TikTok as a beginner! We’ll also discuss the different types of TikTok ads and give you the pros and cons of each one of them. Basically, you’ll find everything you need to know so you can start dropshipping with TikTok confidently!
Why Tiktok For Dropshipping… ?
Dropshipping is a business model where you sell products you don’t have to store inventory, but simply buy them as needed from other suppliers who ship directly to your customers. This lets you sell many different products online and make a profit on each one without carrying massive costs and supply chain headaches.
For a long time, Facebook was the go-to social media to market your dropshipping products, but lately there’s been too much trouble…
The Problem With Facebook:
Facebook keeps banning ad accounts for the slightest slips (or no reason at all) without any hope for regaining access. Their AI is highly incompetent, there’s no proper support or help offered and once your account gets banned, there’s practically no hope of regaining it ever again. It’s a nightmare.
Not to mention, with the rollout of iOS 14, Facebook ads are now weaker than ever — since they can’t track your movements outside of their own app.
That’s why Tiktok has become vital for dropshipping now, as it offers you a much more dynamic, interactive and stress-free way to get products in front of the right audience and really hook them to your Value Proposition.
TikTok allows you to create and share short videos in small, quick shots of dopamine. You’ll find videos for all kinds of topics, related to music, art, cosplay, lifestyle, travel, skits and more.
Like Facebook and other social media, TikTok has an algorithm that will see what kind of videos you watch the most and then show you your most relevant Interests. After opening the app, you can endlessly browse through the videos simply by swiping up on your screen
And every once in a while, you will swipe to a TikTok ad, which is where someone is paying TikTok to display their video. It’s almost like browsing the Facebook news feed and seeing a Facebook ad.
Before we get more into why TikTok Ads are a must for selling dropshipping products on, let’s take a step back and have a look at some of the most latest TikTok statistics.
Quick Stats For Tiktok
Currently, TikTok has over one billion global monthly active users and has been downloaded more than 200 million times in the US. Tiktok had a total of 78.7 million users in the United States. Around 37.3 million of these users belonged to Generation Z.
According to Statista, this particular audience is projected to reach 48.8 million by 2025, surpassing Instagram’s Gen Z audience size and equally matching Snapchat in total number of users of the said generation.
While teens consist of a significant portion of TikTok users, 75% of US TikTok users are aged 20 or older (which is a great target market for most dropshipping products). The platform boasts a relatively younger generation of audience that is attracted by the vine/reel type approach to video entertainment.
Additionally, 61% of the platform’s users in the United States 2021 were women!
And can you believe The Average User Open TikTok 19 Times Per Day?! Not only that, but kids spend, on Average, about 75 Minutes Per Day on TikTok alone.
That just goes to show how much people love using it. You’ll find an audience for every type of product there, especially if your offering caters to the ages of 20-35.
Now apart from the problems with Facebook and Tiktok’s exploding potential, here are 3 major reasons why the platform especially works for the dropshipping business model and why you should start selling on it right now:
Reason #1: Video-centered Approach
Tiktok allows its users to create personalized short videos with all sorts of music, filters, sound effects and some other quirky features to spark quality and high levels of engagement.
Sometimes it’s funny, sometimes it’s cringey, but one thing’s for sure; it’s most definitely addictive. And while for many people TikTok seems to be filling a void left by Vine, there’s actually a lot more to it…
TikTok’s main selling point is that it features built-in recording and editing capabilities which make it super easy for content creators to quickly record, edit, and post video content on the platform – and have it go viral when done just right. Users can create short videos from just 15s, to long 10 minute videos as well (but usually shorter ones perform best, as people today have an attention span of only 8 seconds).
When it comes to dropshipping, users have utilized the platform to demonstrate various products and their value using the app’s popular text-to-speech voice. Here’s an example you can take inspiration from.
Here's another one.
Tiktok’s short video-based approach is the perfect balance between still images that are way too static to engage and long video ads that drag along and get boring real fast. To engage with your ad users can simply tap the CTA button below and shop for that particular dropshipping product right from your store!
Key Takeaway: Short ads addressing a problem/inconvenience, and then presenting a solution through dropshipping product demonstration and value proposition work best. Keep your ad between 30 to 45 seconds for best results.
Reason #2: New Trends
There used to be a time where popular trends originated from Facebook a lot (meme trends and challenges for example). But now the best trends seem to be coming from Tiktok.
You can always find trending hashtags, songs, creators and videos thanks to the tools that Tiktok creative center already provides. But how do you find what products are trending on TikTok… ?
Well, Certain products like beauty, pets and electronics tend to trend a lot more on TikTok than other items, and thanks to Adserea’s data-backed Tiktok Spy tool, you can find the hottest, most trendiest products in dozens of niches to dropship on your store. Infact, you can analyze over MILLIONS of Tiktok’s and start selling right now!
Here’s how it works, simply navigate to Adserea’s Tiktok Spy tool by clicking on the hamburger menu.
Over here, you can enter in any keyword in the search bar, select your niche, country to sell in and other specifications such as popularity to look for products that are trending on Tiktok right now in your selected country, niche and with the filter criteria in place.
Once you hit go, you’ll instantly see dozens of trending Tiktok videos with dropshipping products you can find and add to your own Shopify store. Even if you’re a beginner that’s getting started, this is very easy to learn and benefit from!
On any product listing you like, you can click on “More Details” and it’ll show you that particular Tiktok’s link, views, estimated ad cost, conversions, product source, engagement rate and more.
And wanna know what’s even more interesting? You can literally find the product that shows up in this tiktok video! Or any other for that matter, by clicking “AI Analyze”
Simply pause this video when you see the product you like and the click on “find me this product”. Adserea’s intuitive AI will detect a whole list of the exact same and similar (complementary) products that you can check out for yourself and add to your store in an instant.
Awesome, isn’t it? You can SELL what’s trending in your niche by spying on Tiktok and selling on Tiktok itself, or even Facebook, YouTube… anywhere you like.
Key Takeaway: You can easily find any trending product you like on Tiktok with TikTok Spy tool and click on "AI Analyze" to get full in-depth details (profit margin, popularity and more) with the Product Analyzer tool. Just be careful, because you'll become absolutely unstoppable!
Reason #3: Young Audience
There’s no doubt about it. TikTok is THE app for Gen Z, focused on inspiring creativity and bringing joy – it is the hottest social media app that’s all a buzz.
TikTok has about 80 million monthly active users in the United States alone. 60% are female, 40% are male. 60% are between the ages of 16-24. 26% are between the ages 25-44.
That data alone can give you a whole bunch of dropshipping product ideas you can start selling to people in these various categories and interests. Think out of the box — tech gadgets, gaming merch, mart home appliances, beauty products, health products, vegan products, fashion. Gen Z is adaptive, and will welcome new great products as long as they’re worth it and not useless.
While you probably won’t have much luck selling clickbaity clickbank products meant for boomers on Tiktok, you can certainly make it big selling stuff like this adorable plushie:
Key Takeaway: Don’t think for a second that Gen Z is short on bucks, they might just surprise you! Tiktok’s growing young audience is not to be underestimated when it comes to taking your dropshipping store to the next level. Find out exactly what products are trending on the platform from your niche, and start selling today.
Now that we’ve gone over the major reasons to start selling dropshipping products on TikTok, let’s have a look at the basics of Tiktok’s ads manager.
Popular Types Of Tiktok Ads
TikTok Ads marketing channel somewhat resembles Facebook Ads (hey, they both keep copying each other after all).
Similar to Facebook, TikTok offers a comprehensive platform to spend your time on everything regarding targeting, ad creation, insight reports, tracking, analytics and ad management tools.
TikTok offers five main ad types for online businesses:
- In-Feed Ads: These ads appear in between user videos as they’re scrolling through the “for you” page. TikTok’s In-Feed Ads look a lot like the ads you see when tapping through Instagram stories. I personally recommend this one.
- Brand Takeover: If you open TikTok and see an ad right away, then you are witnessing a Brand Takeover ad. These ads allow you to present a full-screen video to your targeted audience as soon as they open the app itself. TikTok makes sure that users only see one Brand Takeover ad per day, so these are pretty costly!
- TopView: The TopView ads are like an upgraded version of In-Feed Ads. TopView ads appear at the top of TikTok’s “for you” page and can go up to 60-seconds of full-screen video with auto-play and sound.
- Branded Hashtag Challenge: Tiktok Branded Hashtag Challenge is a type of ad where brands create their own hashtag and pay TikTok to display it to their target audience. This ad won’t be used often by dropshipping stores though, since a Branded Hashtag Challenge campaign usually costs thousands of dollars.
- Branded Effects: Lastly, TikTok offers brands the opportunity to design their own filters within the app. These can then be shared by users, which allows users to directly interact with your brand in a fun way.
Of these 5 types, In-feed and TopView ads are the best for selling dropshipping products on TikTok.
What’s more, you can easily set up your first TikTok ad campaign if you have prior experience with Facebook Ads.
Quick Setup Procedure:
Simply login into the TikTok Ad Manager and click on the “Create” to start. Then choose an advertising objective (If you are creating a campaign for your dropshipping store, “Conversions” is the best fit for you).
The last step to create a TikTok ad campaign is setting the campaign name and budget. The budget can be set either at the campaign level or at the ad group level.
Check out TikTok’s help page for a more detailed explanation of setting up your first TikTok Ads (creating a campaign, creating an ad group, creating an ad, etc.)
Now before we close off, here are some of the pros and cons of advertising dropshipping products on TikTok.
Pros & Cons of dropshipping products through TikTok Ads
PROS
One of the most significant pros of using TikTok Ads is that they are relatively cheap compared to Facebook Ads (the in-feed ads). Now this is a bit subjective, and some industries may cost more on one platform than other.
But it pays to try out both platforms and see which ones bring the better results. Your own store’s data and performance statistics are just as important as the winning product itself.
Another advantage of TikTok Ads is that you will be able to use Lookalike Audiences (just like on Facebook). Lookalike Audiences is a feature where you generate new audiences that are likely to behave similarly to a sample audience.
In simple terms, if you give TikTok an audience of people that have bought something from your store, TikTok will generate a new audience with people that ‘look like’ your customers. Hence, people in this audience will have a high chance of making a purchase as well!
CONS
A major negative point of using TikTok Ads is that you won’t really be able to target desktop users, as TikTok is a mobile-only platform. So in the targeting settings, you will have the choice between iOS and Android.
If you are also looking to target desktop users, I recommend going to Facebook/Instagram Ads.
Another setback of TikTok Ads is that it’s common to see ads getting disapproved. TikTok sometimes censors videos or disapproves of ads entirely if they violate the guidelines.
Lastly, TikTok’s audience can be seen as a con for all advertising methods on TikTok, but this depends on your business, industry and product. Since TikTok Ads give you the most control of who you are targeting, this may not necessarily be a bad point.
So in conclusion…
