#493 – 2026 TikTok Shop Strategy & Playbook
Audio version above. Video version below
TikTok Shop isn’t “Amazon with videos”—it’s entertainment first, shopping second. In this TikTok Thursday episode, TikTok Shop strategist Michelle Barnum-Smith explains the non-negotiable foundations sellers need in 2026, whether you’re launching from scratch or trying to scale what you already started. The big mindset shift: people open TikTok to scroll, not to search-find-and-buy, so your strategy has to be built for discovery and impulse, not intent-based shopping.
Michelle breaks down what actually wins on TikTok Shop: products that are instantly understandable, visually demonstrable, and ideally show a quick transformation or solve a clear pain point fast. She also calls out a costly structural mistake, having too many separate listings. Since most discovery happens through videos, every listing becomes its own content, affiliate, ads, and promo machine. Consolidating into a master listing with variants can protect momentum (especially when one variant goes out of stock) and make it easier to stack orders.
From there, it’s all about converting scrolls into purchases with a simple offer stack: free shipping, product discounts (like flash sales), clickable coupons, and TikTok Shop campaigns that add visibility and “deal” badging. She also warns against manually lowering the listing price because you lose the visual cues that help shoppers feel urgency. Finally, she outlines the content and ads engine that feeds the algorithm, optimizes for thumb-stopping hooks, watch time, completion, rewatches, and engagement, then iterates at volume and is prepared for a pay-to-play reality where ads and budget can be the difference-maker.
In episode 493 of the AM/PM Podcast, Bradley and Michelle discuss:
- 00:00 – Introduction
- 01:26 – What You Need To Start (Or Scale) On TikTok Shop
- 05:13 – The “Non-Negotiable Foundations” For Million-Dollar Shops
- 06:13 – Why People Use TikTok (And Why They Aren’t There To Shop)
- 08:17 – What Makes A Product “TikTokable” (And What Doesn’t)
- 10:17 – The #1 Listing Mistake: Too Many Separate Listings
- 11:37 – Built Bar Example: Master Listing & Variants Vs. Content Shutdown
- 14:03 – Turning Scrolls Into Impulse Buys: The Offer Stack
- 15:06 – Free Shipping: Expectations, AOV, And Losing Sales To Amazon
- 18:34 – Product Discounts: Flash Sales & “Lowest Price In 30 Days” Warning
- 20:53 – Clickable Coupons & TikTok Campaigns: Badges, Fine Print, Price Traps
- 26:00 – TikTok Thursday Q&A with Michelle Barnum-Smith
Transcript
Bradley Sutton:
What do you need to do to get started on TikTok Shop? What do you need to do if you’ve already started but you want to scale? We’re going to talk about that and everything in between on today’s episode.
Bradley Sutton:
Hello everybody and welcome to the AM/PM podcast. My name is Bradley Sutton and I’ll be your host. And this is the show where we discuss all things Amazon, TikTok Shop and Walmart private label and how to generate recurring revenue streams 24 hours a day during the AM and the PM. Hence the name of the show. Get it? AM/PM podcast. And as a matter of fact, next week I’m gonna be on a plane 24 hours to go to Dubai to speak at a conference and eventhough I’m gonna be disconnected from the internet and my Amazon account, I’m still gonna be making money. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think.
Bradley Sutton:
So today is our monthly TikTok Thursday, where we go over a variety of topics all about TikTok Shop, the platform that you need to be selling on in 2026. And to do this, we bring on guest experts every single month. And we also take questions live. Obviously, we’re not live right now. This is the recording. But guys, make sure to try and sign up for a future one live. If you want to make sure to get notified when we’re live, send an email to our customer service at Helium 10 and then you can get on that list so you can get invited. But this month, we are talking to Michelle Barnum-Smith, who is one of the world’s most known people, experts, I should say, about TikTok Shop. And we’re going to be going over a wide variety of topics that’ll help you no matter what level you are on the platform. So, let’s go ahead and get started. How’s it going, Michelle? What’s going on?
Michelle:
Oh, man, now you’re, as my husband would say, you’re throwing down the chicken bones. Everybody’s going to get on ChatGPT to try to think up the hardest questions possible. But I’m here for it.I’m here for it. We’ll do what we can.
Bradley Sutton:
I love it. Can you give a brief overview? Why should we listen to you about TikTok Shop for those who don’t know your illustrious reputation already?
Michelle:
I think you should answer that question. How many times have you interviewed me on various podcasts?
Bradley Sutton:
Hype yourself up. I’m all about people self-hyping themselves up.
Michelle:
I think I was on Scale Stories. Was I not?
Bradley Sutton:
So, if you guys haven’t seen her, shame on you. You’re not watching our content out there. But if you have, if you’re a few, we have a few from Dubai here and other places who might not know about you. What’s your experience on the platform?
Michelle:
Well, in general, I’ve been doing marketing for over 25 years. And I have been in the Amazon seller space and the e-commerce space since 2017. A lot of people used to know me as the queen of chat bots. And helping Amazon sellers rank, review, all those things, really kind of harnessing external traffic to drive to Amazon. And part of my journey in pursuing that kind of external traffic was also testing different traffic sources, including TikTok in the early 2020s, 2021, 2022. And I will be honest with you guys, I really hated TikTok originally because it was just this like, it felt like a scam fest in the sense that everybody had TikTok FOMO. And they were very much like, I hear people are having success with it. And I had a job where I was the CMO for an Amazon aggregator. And I had like 30 brands and thousands of products to test on TikTok. And we were doing all the things. We were running ads to Amazon. We were recruiting creators, influencers, if you will, to do posting. We’re spending all sorts of money on the right to a post from an influencer. We were running ads. We were posting our own content, hiring UGC creators, slicing and dicing these things. And I just felt like we were burning piles of money on the floor. It was like Amazon attribution was like 0% accurate. And it was just not like this, like a scalable system.
Michelle:
And as soon as TikTok shop opened though, in 2023, I was like, okay, now, now is a different story because now we have all these closed loops. Now we can really identify what’s working, what’s not working, what’s actually an opportunity. And it changed those relationships from this peasant pedestal relationship with influencers to now affiliate, like we’re both aligned in our objectives. And I’ve just been learning and all in ever since then. So I’ve launched, I don’t know, thousands of products on the platform at this point, millions and millions of dollars generated on TikTok shop. So, I’ve seen it all. A lot of TikTok shop corporate thinks that I work at TikTok. So I feel like that’s a success as well. When TikTok corporate is like, oh, you’re not one of them? You’re external? Yes, I am.
Bradley Sutton:
All right, let’s go ahead and get into your strategy. So, we’ll go ahead and throw up your slides and you take it away.
Michelle:
All right. So let’s talk about the non-negotiable foundations for million dollar TikTok shops. So, something that’s really critical for sellers to understand, whether they are just getting started on the platform or they’re making a million dollars on the platform, there are core foundational workflows, behaviors, activities that you do as a seller that you never stop doing. And what I often see happen when sellers start on the platform is, you know, TikTok inundates you with just a crap ton of content. There’s all this information everywhere. It’s very overwhelming and things get left undone that are really important to this foundational aspect for success. So it’s systematic, it’s foundational, and I want you guys to really kind of let this sink in. This is not beginner content. This is foundational content. So even million dollar sellers, I’ll look at their brands that are struggling and I’ll see some of these core issues, these core aspects of their business are missing.
Michelle:
So let me ask you guys a question. I want to like think about this for a minute. Why are users on TikTok? First and foremost, how many of you in the comments section are actually on TikTok shop? So, I get where a lot of you guys are coming from. And if you’re entrepreneurial, you’re like, I got time for this. But the reality is, is that the more you learn and use the platform as a user, you become more familiar with the user experience and why people are actually on the platform. It’s really important to remember, and sometimes we disconnect as sellers from the user experience and why people as users are on the platform, right? On average, somebody is spending 10 minutes on Amazon, right? They’re in, they’re out, they’re on their way. On TikTok, the average user is two hours, right? So people are on there to really like just be in the content, to check out. So, some of the reasons, entertainment, education, news or information, controversy, discovery, what they’re not on there for is to buy something. So because the reality is, is that if users knew they needed to buy something, where would they be buying it? Here, right? That’s the whole point. And that’s the power of Amazon, is when somebody is aware that they have a need, they can go search, find and buy it on Amazon. That’s not user behavior on TikTok. Not yet. The majority of people are on there purely for those entertainment purposes.
Michelle:
So in Today’s Blueprint, I’m going to talk to you kind of a three-part series. Part one, we’re going to be talking about the product and listing strategies that actually convert. Part two is turning scrolls into impulse buys. And part three is build a content and ads engine that feeds the algorithm. So, my goal for us today is to give you kind of this non-negotiable foundations that separate profitable shops from the ones that fade out in 90 days. So if you are one of those shops that’s struggling to get traction, pay close attention because this definitely applies to you and kind of follow along to see, are you doing these things? Okay, part one, product and listing strategies that actually convert. How you show up is half the battle. So, number one, bringing products to market that are actually TikTokable, but products that don’t work are those that require long explanations to understand how do they work.
You have to explain it, you know, and you just don’t have that kind of time on TikTok to capture people’s attention. Generic commodity items. I’ve talked to sellers, Amazon sellers, who are like the top leading person in their category for clothes hangers, you know, and not even really special ones. And I’m like, this is not it. Like what is interesting about this? What is different? What is unique? What is just groundbreaking? What is earth shattering? What is like going to stop somebody and be like, that’s cool. That’s what TikTok products, those are the products that do well on TikTok.
Michelle:
Complex value propositions and high prices. Can you sell higher, you know, higher priced items? Yes, but we’re trying to accomplish something very difficult on social media. And that is impulse buying and motivating people to go from discovery, i.e. they’re scrolling on their phones to seeing your product, to checking out and buying it. The higher the price point, the more that person enters into consideration phase. And you may, you know, they’ll take that consideration to Google, to Amazon, and you may lose that sale to a competitor. Okay, so products that do work have visual transformation. They instantly show results. Products that solve pain where they are addressing a clear problem. It’s very kind of before and after oriented. They’re demonstrable in less than 15 seconds. I would say even less than 10 seconds, three seconds. Like we have such a short period of time to really capture attention and demonstrate what we have and how it makes a difference. Okay, and then impulse buy point, less than that $50. Easy decision and low risk.
Michelle:
Okay, this is very critical. Listings that maximize attention. I cannot tell you how many seller accounts I have seen where their listings are just spread out all over the place. They’ve got a listing for every single product, and that is not it. When somebody comes to your, sees your video, well, let’s just back up. Every listing that you bring to TikTok shop, the only way somebody is going to see that listing is from content. Search find buy is not a thing on TikTok shop, like 90% of the time. 90% of the time, somebody is going to see your product from a video. They’re going to discover it from a video. Shoppable photos are coming, but for now, it’s a video, which means that if you have multiple listings and your products are all spread out across multiple listings, you’re going to have to create content, recruit affiliates, which means samples, commissions for sales, and fees per video, ads, and run promotions for every single one of those listings. So I don’t know, that doesn’t see, that is just so inefficient and it’s so expensive. That is expensive time-wise for you and your team. That’s expensive from a sampling perspective. That’s expensive from, you know, ads, running ads. You’re going to have to do all of those things.
Michelle:
So, here’s an example on the right-hand side is Built Bar. Built Bar, their Utah brand, I’m a Utah girl, so love them, but I’m just so frustrated with their TikTok shop account. Now, you might be thinking, like, Michelle, this is like 30 days’ worth of sales over here. Anybody would kill for this level of revenue, right? But their variety pack is their permanent bestseller, okay? And then you can’t see it here. You can only see nine listings here. They have 22 other flavors, and they’re all their own listing, which means that they have to recruit affiliates, run ads, run promotions, have their team manage all of these different flavors, essentially. When they could have one master listing, and because the variety pack is the most popular, it’s also always going out of stock. And how TikTok works is when you have a product that goes out of stock, all of the content that promotes it shuts down. All the affiliate content, all of the ads, everything just turns off, which means all of that momentum that’s being built just comes to a screeching halt. Whereas if they had a master listing with the variety pack is like one of the main offers, and then the orange cream and the chocolate and the puff rocky road and the puff protein, all the rest of those as variants of the variety pack, then all of that content continues to live on, continues to drive people to the listing.
Michelle:
Yes, the variety pack is out of stock. They’ll be able to see that, but then they’ll be able to see all the other flavors that are available to them. And you might be thinking, well, like, gosh, I mean, the orange cream’s got 82,000 sales. Yeah, but inefficient. Like how many of those did they have to pay for that if the variety pack was actually live and not out of stock that how many more sales could each one of these variants have, plus increased order value? Because how many of you would come to this listing and be like, oh, I want the orange cream and the peanut butter, and oh, they’ve got a sour puff variety. What? Like that cart just starts to stack, right? But this is like my number one pet peeve on TikTok is when your listings are all spread out instead of collapsed and creating those efficiencies.
Michelle:
Part two, let’s talk about turning scrolls into impulse buys. So remember the reason people are on the platform. TikTok users aren’t shopping, they’re scrolling. You have three seconds to interrupt the scroll, and they aren’t there to watch product ads, right? Essentially, what we’re doing is like we don’t want our entertainment interrupted by commercials. I think the only time we look forward to commercials is the Super Bowl, right? Like this is like American hobbies, American behavior, right? We just love Super Bowl commercials. No other time are we interested in commercials, right? So, your job is to make them feel like they’ll miss out if they don’t buy now. There has to be a reason to get people to buy now. So, what I’m going to talk through now is kind of like your offer stack. In addition to your pricing or whatever it might be, these are kind of the foundational offers and promotions that you need to have in place that provide visual cues to the buyer that they are getting the best deal possible and that they need to take advantage of it right now. Okay, so free shipping is fundamental. You need to have a free shipping offer of some kind. 80% of buyers expect free shipping. Thank you, Amazon. This is the world that Amazon has created for all of us. We expect free shipping.
Michelle:
And if you’re worried about it, build the shipping costs into your price in some way, shape, or form. And use free shipping offers to increase your AOV. So, let’s talk about what that can look like here in a second. But the reality is, is free shipping is expected by customers and you will lose them to Amazon competitors. In fact, this is where Halo Effect comes in the strongest with Amazon is when there aren’t free shipping offers on a listing. Sellers or buyers will go to Amazon searching for either the same branded item or similar items. This happened to me right before Christmas. I saw something. I saw these cute shopping bags that made wrapping gifts really easy. I didn’t have to wrap the odd-shaped items. I could just put them in this bag and cinch the top. And I was like, oh, sold. I so need that. And I went to it. It was a great price. And then I saw that it was like I had to pay $6 in shipping. I was like, no. Immediately went, immediate to jail. Immediately go to jail. So I went to Amazon, searched for similar products. Not only did I find the products, I found thousands of competitors to that seller. Cheaper price, more items included, and free shipping, yes. That’s what won my sale that day. QVC lost the sale, paid for their competitor to win my sale.
Michelle:
Okay, so let’s talk about free shipping offers. So these are different sellers, similar products. So cute, right? So on the right-hand side, we have a lower price point. With a free shipping offer, we can order free shipping on orders over $40. Well, a $5 item, the reality is I can see right there that it’s going to scan me out of essentially have to pay $40 more just to get free shipping. If I scroll down, I can see that shipping in and of itself just costs $5.99. So, I could pay for shipping, right? But if I scroll, like if you scroll down, I can now see other offers on the same listing. And here’s this shirt on the left that’s also super cute. But I get free shipping, and it’s $12 to $14. So, it’s just something if you’re wanting to test it for yourself, by all means, go ahead and play around with your free shipping or free shipping with some kind of offer. But make it easy for them to achieve the discount, like achieve it. $40, that’s quite the lift. And especially if you have variations, lots of different variations of like, okay, I could get the black shirt and the pink shirt and this. I could buy multiple items. Make it easy for me to find and buy those multiple items. I think on this listing, they just had that shirt instead of they could have had, you know, I’m sure that they could sell this too. I’m sure it all comes from the same manufacturer at the end of the day. Okay, so bottom line, have a free shipping offer. If you really want to test it, just make it easy so that people can hit whatever your quantity requirements are to achieve the free shipping limit.
Michelle:
Okay, product discounts. So this is the next kind of layer. Product discounts look like flash sales, strikethroughs, buy three, get one. Now something to know about product discounts is that it changes the retail price directly. So this becomes the new retail price. It doesn’t require any action on the part of the customer to get it at this price, right? It also sets the lowest price in the last 30 days. So you need to be aware and be careful. So, if you’re wanting to change any kind of discounts, I personally like to set it at the lowest possible discount amount that the type of promotion allows me to do. So, flash sales, the lowest discount amount is 11% off. So that is where I like to live. And if you’re going to run a series of flash sales for a series of months, just know that it runs it on that like 30-day kind of time stamp basically. So month one might be 11% off. Month two might be 12% off. Month three, 13. You know what I’m saying? It kind of creeps. So just be aware of and be cognizant of that. Okay. All right. So if you need to change the price, do not change the price on the listing directly. Like if you’re wanting to offer a discount, offer it through product discounts, not through changing the price on your listing. I have run into this so many times where people are like, Oh, I’m just changing the listing. I’m like, don’t do it. Even if you are giving somebody a deal and you’re like, this is a great deal. We are trying to visually communicate something. Right.
Michelle:
So here on the DAX eyewear there, we see the badging here. Right. We’re seeing the discount amount that is being offered. In this example, we’re seeing the flash sale. These are the visual cues that on our listing need to be there to tell somebody, buy now. Right. We’re trying to force that impulse purchase. And with, with some of these, like with the free shipping, we’re trying to get rid of objections straight out the gate. And so product discounts, it’s not, if we’re changing the price of a listing directly, no one knows that it’s a deal, right? We need these badgings. We need these visual cues to tell people this is a good deal. Okay. Clickable coupons. Coupons require customer action. That’s one of the reasons I really like them. Just like on Amazon, people have to click on it to claim the deal. You can set it for a percent off or a dollar amount off, and it can be used for minimum quantities to purchases to drive up that average order value. So if you need to load heavy discounts, load them into coupon offers with minimum purchase requirements. I was working with a seller.
He’s like, hi, we need to liquidate this one product. And he put it into the product discount instead. And I was like, ah, don’t do it. Like not only did that set your lowest price in the last 30 days to now 40% off. Now you can’t even just offer your price at a regular price point. You’re like, you’re stuck there.
Michelle:
Put it, load it into the coupon. Coupons still have that kind of conversion power to them visually, but sometimes the customer forgets to click on it. And then you get a sale without having to also offer this, the extreme discount. So if you need to go heavy, put it into, into a coupon and coupons also can be used like in this example to increase that order value, you know, by two save 15% off those kinds of things. So these are, these are all the ways that we’re trying to give the visual cues of, of, you know, the greatest benefit and to buy now. TikTok shop campaigns. TikTok is like, unlike Amazon who only has like two major campaigns a year, prime day in July and then prime day in October. TikTok is always running campaigns. There’s always seasonal campaigns going on that are big and across the board.
There’s also category specific campaigns that are going on. And when you participate in these campaigns, you have higher visibility. There’s badging and that badging increases the perceived or best deal kind of limited time offer idea that this is like, Oh my gosh. Like I think the one that’s running right now is jumpstart deals, jumpstart days. So that’s kind of like the January sale and, and that’s the perceived value. Like this is a really great deal. I need to get this now for whatever reason it is. Be sure to read the fine print. It’s really easy to go through and like register, register, register, like just click those buttons. But there are minimum discount levels that are in their minimum different kind of like product quantities that have to be associated with that, with that level of discount, like all sorts of things.
Michelle:
So just make sure that before you just mass sign up for all TikTok shops campaigns that you’re very aware of the deals and the opportunities. And these deals also set the net, the lowest price for the next 30 to 60 days. So, you know, in between seller discounts, TikTok shop also has this coupon discounts. TikTok shop also campaigns also have coupons as well. So product discounts and coupons and flash sales, all of those things exist at a campaign level as well. So it’s just really important to understand what you’re getting yourself into and don’t just sign up for them willy nilly because you can get yourself into a world of hurt and be like, yeah, you’re making sales crap. They’re at 50% off. You know, like you got to know what you’re doing. Also these campaigns allow you to kind of like get ahead of the game as you enlist affiliates like, hey, this main cat, we’re participating in this big campaign or we’re going to run a big sale. Affiliates always need like fresh new ideas of reason to talk about something and campaigns give them that opportunity. So, kind of just some advice is to build a content calendar around campaigns as well.
Michelle:
Okay. So to see the full stock offer altogether, here’s Glamnetic. This is one of their most recent product launches. And you can see here they’ve got the flash sale going. They’ve got the free shipping offer. The free shipping offer also includes the three-day shipping badging because their products are in FBT and being fulfilled by TikTok directly. So that badging also increases the likelihood of conversions as well. They also have the flash sale going on with the countdown timer. That really motivates people. They have a 10% off coupon going and a buy more, save more. So bam, bam, bam, you’re just getting hit left, right and center with all of these different things. And you know, if you try to go on Amazon or even their own website that it’s not going to be as good. And I’ve tested this. I have gone and gone, you know, gone down the rabbit hole to be like, are they just playing with me? If you want to be played with, go see how Mary Ruth’s does it. Cause they’ll get all sorts of crazy on TikTok shop. And then you’ll see how they kind of slice and dice their pricing on Amazon at the same time. And is it really that good of a deal at the end of the day? Not really, but if you want to see a kind of a masterclass in price manipulation, go look at Mary Ruth’s. I mean that with all the like sincerity in my heart that from one marketer to another, like well-placed Sir.
Michelle:
Part three, build a content and ads engine that feeds the algorithm. I could spend six hours just on this. Okay. So this is really going to be thick as we get into this. All right. So one thing that’s really critical as we talk about TikTok is to remember why people are on the platform and what TikTok cares about, right? TikTok and social platforms like it care about time on platform. That is what they measure success around. So, we as sellers need to align our motives with the algorithms. If we are wanting to succeed, there is in the last two years, there’s just been so much content produced. That’s just garbage. Truly, truly just garbage and it completely misaligns with the purpose of the platform, which is entertainment, controversy, news, information, you know, community, all of those things, right? As you look at your content and the content that’s being built, does it align with any of those motivations? Probably not. And if you look at the algorithms main KPIs, you can see that play out as well. The main KPIs that TikTok that kind of feeds the algorithm watch time is the number one KPI. Like how much of that video was completed, right? How, like how far do they get into the video? Also, the thumb hold rate in the first one to three seconds. So, like, what is somebody talking about? Is there something on the screen that they’re showing? Is there text on the screen? Are there captions to make people be like, okay, now what?
Michelle:
Completion rate of the video is critical as well. And rewatch rate. So sometimes the shorter, the better because you get to the point quickly and then people are like, okay, wait, I missed something there. Like I need to rewatch that really quick and shorter videos allow you to do that versus these long, you know, diary esque journal entries of videos. Like if your videos are longer than 30 seconds, you got to stop. You got to stop. Okay. And then engagement, engagements, comments, likes, shares, like all of those things. These, this is what feeds the algorithm. This is what tells the algorithm that this piece of content is worth promoting from an organic perspective. Okay. So from a content production standpoint, then what we need to do is focus on volume plus iteration. So that looks like posting a lot, creating a lot of content, testing a lot of content from testing those content hooks. Hooks are the idea of what is the first three seconds of that video? Because once again, I would say that we don’t have three seconds. We have milliseconds to capture somebody’s attention. So, what is that? That what does it look like? What’s on screen? What is being said? How is it being said?
Michelle:
The hooks are really critical and we need to test those like at scale. And then you need to analyze what’s working, going back to those KPIs in this screen, looking at that, and then doubling down on the winners and then batch and create, slice, remix, do it again. This is basically like the content creation, content creation flywheel. And if you’re needing examples of what type of content to create, we need to go back to the customer journey and build content for every stage of the funnel. You need to feed the funnel from the top to bottom. Too many sellers are looking at their analytics and are looking at me. I’m like, gosh, I don’t have any sales. And I’m like, do you have any traffic? So, if we’re remembering what the customer journey and the marketing funnel looks like, it starts with awareness and at the very bottom is loyalty and conversions, right? It’s rebuys. You cannot optimize a funnel from the bottom up. You have to optimize a funnel from the top down, which means you need to fill the funnel with enough content that generates traffic that gets people to your offer so that you can then start to optimize your offer, right? So top of funnel content examples include brand story, founder story, behind the scenes, educational content. Entertaining is a controversial, uh, middle of funnel content are product demos, unboxings, uh, features, benefits, how to use the product, why it’s better than competitors. Bottom of funnel time sensitive offers. This is very offer based content, time sensitive, price sensitive, campaign oriented, seasonal, or different kinds of gimmicks. I have so many, like if we had, I can do a whole presentation. And I have done a whole presentation actually.
Michelle:
Um, he, I don’t know if it is on YouTube. If you look up final boss sour, they’re a brand and I did a whole case study analysis of their entire funnel, um, for a conference that I spoke at called Commerce Catalyst. And it is an hour long. So, you know, buckle up that I did a whole presentation and I broke down their brand videos and showing examples of each one of these. But like case in point, this is a slide, not like showing you examples, but there’s a lot that can go in here. Okay. Um, so you have to be producing that content and then you have to be running ads. Gone are the days where you could just post organically and then magic happens and then you run ads. Um, it’s very, this is very typical for, um, any kind of social media platform that they lure you in with the free, you know, the free traffic. And then the second they realize that you’re a business, they’re going to charge you for it is a pay to play scenario. So, it’s really critical that from an ads perspective, that you understand that different types of ads have different type of ad objectives. So for example, GMB max campaigns are a bottom of funnel have bottom of funnel campaign objectives, meaning there it’s optimizing for product clicks, add to carts, checkout started, checkout abandoned, checkout completed, even if they bought later, um, and creative diversity.
Michelle:
So really GMB max ads is great as they are, uh, you know, in from ease of setup and ease of running, but they really are best used for our retargeting campaigns. And if anybody uses the platform and you actually click on a product link and don’t check out, you probably, if, if the brand is any brand worth, it’s worth it’s all, you will be retargeted within an inch of your life. All of a sudden your whole feed will be that product. And you’ll be like, Oh my gosh, I gotta get it. I gotta have it, you know? and GMB max, uh, as far as attribution is concerned is last click. So as you’re looking at your ads and what’s converting and what’s working, it doesn’t necessarily tell the whole story because somebody might have clicked on or viewed multiple of the product videos before they finally took action and checked out. So essentially, just like Bradley said, I am a strategist. So, if you are needing, um, a deep dive into your TikTok shop, I’m always, uh, available to do what I call a shop diagnostic. I get in there and, um, look at, look for key areas of opportunities, weakness, operational efficiencies. And then I kind of put it all into a video for you where, and give your team SOPs and frameworks for execution. So, if you’re interested in connecting with me, you can go to socialseller.com or you can scan that QR code.
Bradley Sutton:
And now’s the time to get your questions in. As you guys are applying there, Eric says, Hey, how much margin do you need to stack all these discounts to get maximum visibility? Like should the reference price be higher than the one on Amazon to be able to do all these discounts?
Michelle:
Yeah. So I like to work backwards. If you’re familiar with the profit first, um, methodology, I would determine what profit margin you want and then work backwards from there. It should always, the pricing should probably be, uh, quite a bit higher than what’s on Amazon.
Bradley Sutton:
Colton says within TikTok, what would consider top of funnel? I’ve been looking at GMV max as top of the funnel, but you had called it bottom.
Michelle:
It is, it is. So, so if you go to ads.tiktok.com, which is TikTok ads manager, um, you can see reach campaigns, traffic campaigns. Um, those, those are more top of funnel, uh, ad objectives.
Bradley Sutton:
In Helium 10. We have a lot of, uh, tools that allow you to search for videos that are trending. That allows you to search for creators that have made videos for you or your competitors. Um, how, how would you use this data? A lot of our, you know, uh, audience here, they already have Helium 10, so it’s nothing they have to pay for. Uh, they’ve already got this access because probably because of their Amazon business. So how could they use some of these, you know, looking for videos, looking for creators, uh, you know, messaging them. Obviously, I think that almost goes without saying, but, but some of the first stuff, how can that help them? What, what would you do?
Michelle:
So, especially with the, especially with the videos, it’s really critical that you do your research for what’s converting for similar products or products that are, are, are like purpose adjacent. So, thinking about your ICP, your target audience, that person, TikTok is a marketing platform. Remember? So you, as, as the owner of the seller really need to think about your target audience, your value prop, and then like why they’re on the platform. What do they care about? And then do your video research based on that kind of your ICP, right? Not just like, how are my competitors selling over there? What are they doing? I think that’s an important thing to do, of course, but also pay attention to the motivations, finding, finding videos that, that connect with your ICP.
Bradley Sutton:
Ivan says my product and content checks a lot of the boxes you listed, but I’m not getting good sales. It’s a sneaker cleaner. Lots of people, lots of videos, cleaning sneakers, influencers, posting promotions, free shipping, tried ads, haven’t sold much. Our content isn’t terrible, but, you know, maybe it can be improved, but it’s shoppable. What could be wrong? What are your thoughts?
Michelle:
Volume is really critical. So when I hear things like dozens and tried, it’s probably not enough. Like there has to be more, more content. And, and like I said, in those, in the type of content that is being produced, you know, obviously before and after is probably like probably one of your strongest standpoints and really leaning into maybe shock and awe. Like you’re stepping in cow manure. Maybe you’re like, got a shoe that’s like dripping with mud. Like, what are you going to do to stop that scroll? You know what I mean? And when somebody says that they tried ads, no, you didn’t. Because the fact that you said that means that you didn’t. So, like those who have those who have the money, the deep pockets are going to win this game, my friend. So, if, if your competitors are kicking your butt, it’s their, it’s their budget. That is from an ads perspective to go, go back to the drawing board on content and lean into your ads budget.
Bradley Sutton:
All right. Last question of the day. Really quick here. Okay. Newbie question, but this is for all David. Shameless plug. This is a Helium 10 broadcast. Use Helium 10. I’m assuming you have Helium 10 already. No use. No, no necessity of paying for more. Use our influencer messenger and influencer finder. Find people, you know, related to your, to your niche, and then you could add them to an offer a real quick. Michelle, what’s, if you’re just getting started, what should be your offer for the commission to new influencers you reach out to?
Michelle:
I usually do open collab of 15% with shop ads, commission of 10%. Depends on your category. And TikTok is going to give you some, some recommendations for target collab. I would be between 15 and 20% with shop ads, commission set at 10% as well.
Bradley Sutton:
All right, Michelle, thank you so much for all the knowledge bombs you guys dropped here again, is how you can reach her. For those listening to this on the podcast, a social-sellers.com. You can go to and make sure guys, anybody who has a, any Helium 10 paid account, you guys have full access to our TikTok train within Freedom Ticket. And you’ll see multiple videos from Michelle that she’s done in the past on this show. So, make sure to check out that content and guys get on, get on TikTok. Again, if you have Helium 10 and you’re not on TikTok and you’re in the USA, I set up somebody with this just yesterday.
It takes one minute to transfer your listings with AI and all of your images and everything to TikTok shop, as long as you have a TikTok shop. So, so start your TikTok shop account. I believe we have a link like h10.me/ttstart. I think that’s the link ttstart. That’s a special link to sign up for TikTok where it might get you connected to, to special levels of customer service. We don’t get any commission or anything on that. It’s just something that TikTok made for us. Start your TikTok account, go into Helium 10, click connections, connect your TikTok token, and then go into listing converter and you will be able to get all of your listings converted. So make sure to do that.
Bradley Sutton:
If you don’t have Helium 10 or you need, you need a higher plan in order to, to, to do like maybe you’ve got 30 products and the platinum plan doesn’t cut it. Use code SSP20 to save 20% off SSP20. We’re going to have a lot more TikTok information in the future. Michelle will definitely be back with us sharing her knowledge because just like Amazon, TikTok shop is something that changes all the time. And so we always need to keep you guys updated with it. So Michelle, thank you so much. Thank you everybody else for joining.
Michelle:
Bye.
Bradley Sutton:
And we’ll see you guys next time. Bye bye.
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The post #493 – 2026 TikTok Shop Strategy & Playbook appeared first on AM/PM Podcast.
