TikTok wants to turn millions of Americans into paid shopping influencers

Brandy Leigh, a 50-year-old mother of six in Indiana, was looking for a career that would allow her to work from home. After raising children for most of her adult life, her options seemed limited. Then she discovered TikTok Shop.

Starting out with about 1,000 followers in May, Leigh began making videos of herself testing various products. Her videos have a raw, homemade style: She promotes a razor by shaving her armpit on camera, or sells a children’s car by riding it herself. Viewers can order the products directly through the TikTok videos, and Leigh gets a commission from each order. 

Now, she has more than 30,000 followers, and has made about $95,000 in commissions. 

“I have never made [that much] in a year in my entire life,” Leigh told Rest of World. “This is life-changing.” 

“People like me, just doing it from their home, we are relatable. [Companies] don’t have to pay as much as they do for big celebrities. But they’re getting that relatability,” she said.

Influencer marketing is already a multibillion-dollar industry. Traditionally, businesses pay upfront fees for big influencers to post about their products. Instagram creators tend to need follower counts of more than 90,000 to command payments of more than $1,000 per post, according to a Statista survey. 

On Instagram, creators usually earn commissions based on sales made through personalized links or promo codes, a model dubbed “affiliate marketing.” While Instagram has a built-in affiliate program, it has scaled back in-app shopping to focus on advertising. 

TikTok Shop, launched in the U.S. in September 2023, is taking affiliate marketing one step further by allowing creators to sell directly through their videos. The feature has turned a new group of amateur users into shopping influencers. On TikTok Shop, creators only need as few as about 1,000 followers to become an “affiliate.” On the app, they can scour a list of eligible products, request free samples to make videos, and earn commissions — usually ranging from 10% to 30% — if their videos lead to actual sales.

The platform started testing a lower follower threshold for eligible TikTok Shop creator affiliates earlier this year, with the goal of introducing monetization opportunities to more creators, according to an emailed statement from TikTok. 

Compared to Instagram, TikTok Shop makes it easier for businesses to work with up to tens of thousands of small creators and track their sales, Juozas Kaziukėnas, founder of e-commerce analyst firm Marketplace Pulse, told Rest of World. “On a platform like Instagram, it’s very unlikely that someone with 1,000 followers would ever be offered any similar deal, because the overheads of tracking for a brand would be a nightmare,” he said. “TikTok is spreading the number of potential influencers to millions or more users.” 

Earlier this year, Momofuku, a brand started by food mogul David Chang, offered a bundle of 15-serving noodle packs at 50% off on TikTok. Hundreds of creators ended up making videos of themselves buying, cooking, and slurping the noodles. Their followings range from a few thousand to several million.

“That is absolute insanity,” a creator named tiredmama, with about 3,700 followers, said in a video filmed from a supermarket aisle. “You can get three five-packs and try a variety of flavors for less than $20.”

Temeka Valentine, a 47-year-old stay-at-home mother in Virginia with about 3,300 followers on TikTok, used to post her own photos and fitness routines. In June, she began earning commissions selling skincare products and health supplements on TikTok Shop. After seeing others selling Momofuku noodles, Valentine, too, made a video eating the noodles. She ended up selling 24 orders and receiving about $138 in commissions. 

Leigh also filmed herself buying the noodles from a local grocery store, and then making a bowl in the kitchen. “Really good, it has got some kick,” she said to the camera, and slurped some more noodles. “I’m gonna eat my noodles. You go get some, too.” With a commission rate of 20%, Leigh made more than $8,800 from that video alone. 

Thanks to TikTok’s algorithm, when a product becomes popular, more creators will post about it in hopes of earning commission, according to Kyle Evanko, a former employee at TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance. He now runs TikTok-focused consultancy Evanko Consulting Group. “That process creates a beautiful snowball effect that helped dozens, if not hundreds, of businesses around the U.S. simply go viral on TikTok Shop,” Evanko told Rest of World. “That social marketing provides substantial spillover onto other platforms.”

While other larger brands including L’Oréal and Benefit Cosmetics have signed up, TikTok Shop is still far from becoming a mainstream shopping destination. ByteDance has been trying to make e-commerce its next revenue driver, after witnessing the explosive growth of live shopping on its Chinese video app Douyin. Over the past year, TikTok has aggressively recommended videos with shopping links. The company is currently hiring a few hundred people in the U.S. to work on e-commerce, according to its job portal. 

Bloomberg reported in January that TikTok was looking to grow its U.S. e-commerce revenue to $17.5 billion in 2024. Analysts have estimated that TikTok is falling short of the goal. In comparison, U.S. shoppers spent $14.2 billion on Amazon during its two-day Prime event alone. Most products sold through TikTok are low-priced goods from little-known brands. 

TikTok is also facing an existential crisis in the U.S., after the Biden administration enacted a law that gives ByteDance until January 19 to sell or divest TikTok, or face a ban. TikTok is now challenging the law in court. The platform did not respond to a request for comment from Rest of World. 

The real potential of a ban appears to be keeping some brands away, Lia Haberman, a California-based influencer-marketing consultant, told Rest of World. TikTok needs more top brands to demonstrate that it has the ability to sell on a larger scale, she said, but in order for brands to sell effectively on TikTok Shop, they need to tailor their campaigns to the platform. 

“Instagram has always been about beautifully produced aesthetics, and selling a lifestyle. The content on TikTok is a lot more raw, it’s a lot more candid, it’s a lot more unpolished. So you can crosspost videos, but to be effective you really do need to come up with a content strategy that’s very specific to TikTok,” said Haberman. 

Despite the looming ban deadline, the new TikTok Shop influencers are trying hard to make more money while they can. Leigh’s following continues to grow as she posts videos almost daily. Her latest products are an LED “light therapy” mask and a flocked Christmas tree. 

It has become the most lucrative career Leigh has had in her life. “If it does, it does,” Leigh said of the TikTok ban. “I’ll enjoy it and take what I get from it.”