TikTok owner ByteDance is feeling the heat to sell its ownership of the app. The U.S. House of Representatives recently approved a bill that is forcing TikTok to break up with its parent company, or face a ban in the U.S., which is making many creators and small businesses that rely on the app go into full panic mode.
But one positive sign for small businesses is TikTok’s continued push into commerce: it has made some new updates and additions to its ecommerce suite to “make it even easier to drive product discovery and sales,” according to a new blog from TikTok. “Regardless of the measurement methodology, we are seeing a return for retail advertisers that’s 1.6X to 2X better than other media channels.”
TikTok also reported that it delivers an online retail ROAS that is 3.5X more efficient than other online video channels, like YouTube, while retail ROAS for offline conversions is 1.9X more efficient than online display, online audio, online video, social and paid search.
New Commerce-Ready Solutions
TikTok’s ultimate vision is to “drive commerce everywhere” within the platform, which has inspired the following updates:
- Shop Ads: TikTok has brought Shop Ads into the TikTok Shop Tab, so TikTok Shop merchants can promote products directly within the Shop Tab using a product catalog image.
- Video Shopping Ads: Brands and retailers can apply new formats and creative options to TikTok Video Shopping Ads. These ads are also now discoverable via the search tab, which is huge for brands that want to boost the reach and value of their ad investments.
- New creative and formats: Merchants can automatically populate product catalog images into TikTok’s top-performing formats, like Carousels and Product Tiles.
- Easier onboarding: TikTok has focused on growing its ecosystem of third-party ecommerce partners and platform integrations, so merchants can create and execute Video Shopping Ads more quickly. For example, its expanded partnership with Shopify empowers merchants to apply pre-populated campaign settings and best practices directly within the TikTok App on Shopify.
TikTok has made several big moves over the past year to establish itself as a commerce destination. TikTok Shop was undoubtedly the centerpiece of these efforts, but the platform also released new first-party measurement capabilities and a new generative AI tool to help brands create content faster. The company also said it was testing a new feature that would make all video content shoppable.
