What is the TikTok Creator Marketplace?

The TikTok Creator Marketplace (TCM) is one of the best platforms to launch campaigns with TikTok creators. In 60 seconds or less, a creator on TikTok can have a viewer hooked by their content and scrolling for more. Many marketers are taking steps to partner with TikTok as a brand and gain mass exposure with their target market using the TikTok Creator Marketplace.

We’ll look into how to set up a marketing account, and reach out to star creators to nail your next campaign with them. Collaborations go both ways, and marketers need to make sure to outreach with no extra strings attached. 

We’ll also take a look at how the TikTok Creator Marketplace can be used by influencers in order to earn extra money. This is a great resource that isn’t available on most other social media platforms.

Why use TikTok Creator Marketplace?

The key features in the TCM include:

• Authenticated Data

All usable data is coming from TikTok itself with comprehensive metrics analysis. Built on its proprietary reporting platform, TCM is specifically designed for holistic influencer marketing. This facilitates the entire end-to-end process for influencer activation and it could be a very helpful tool for brands looking to run TikTok campaigns.

• Direct contact with the creator

You can reach out to creators directly within the TikTok Creator Marketplace. Also, all relevant information about the campaign name, contact/brand, collaboration description could send to the creator at once. It will save time and effort to manage the conversation as well as the relationship with the creator.

• Reporting tool

You can track and analyze all the campaign results in one place by a campaign reporting tool: how each creator performed on the campaign, determine who’s the best partner. It gives you the overall number of videos each creator made, including total engagements they generated.

Signing Up on the TikTok Creator Marketplace

The first step is to set up a creator marketplace account, which can be done HERE. 

When you move to the login/sign-up page, you’ll be asked to provide an email and phone number to validate your identity and gain access to the features in TikTok creator marketplace.

It is similar to setting up any new social media profile.

Now It’s Time to Find the Right Creators 

Once you’ve created an account, it’s time to find the right creator that complements your brand, and the message you want to convey in your campaign. Taking these steps will allow you to narrow your search and find someone that truly fits.

Use the Creator Filter:

• Country or Region- This is the location where the creator publishes content and/or resides. 
• Topic- This is used to be able to see what kind of topics they cover, such as food, fashion, sports, or politics. 
• Reach- View the creator’s follower count and see the extent of their reach.
• Average Views: This is a useful metric to understand a historical benchmark of a creator’s previous content. Because follower count is often not the best representation of a creator’s potential reach, this data point can help forecast the future performance of a piece of content.
• Ecommerce Anchor Feature – These creators are able to insert a link in their content that directs viewers directly to a brand’s product or external landing page.

 

Use the Audience Filter: 

• Country or Region – This is the location where the creator’s primary audience is watching.
• Gender – Choose a creator with an audience that may be more male or female 
• Age – Look at the audience age the creators are reaching. 
• Device – See which devices they use to watch videos. 

Creator Summary: 

• Look at basic information about the creator with a descriptive bio. 

Core Metrics: 

• Learn about their average views, likes, comments, and shares over the creator’s last 30 videos. 

To calculate engagement rate: [likes + comments +shares] / views. 

Sample Videos: 

• Browse the creator’s most recent and most popular videos. Popularity on TikTok is measured by the highest lifetime views on the video.  

Audience Demographics: 

• The creator’s audience can be segmented further for analysis. 

Performance Trends: 

• Contains predictions about the trajectory of the creator’s audience, graphs for follower growth, and recent engagement rates.  

Send the Creator a Message 

Once you find a creator that fits your brand’s campaign criteria, it’s time to reach out to see if they’ll be interested in working together. The message is a pitch, so be sure to include key information and to maintain clear communication. You may want to hire a TikTok ads agency that specializes in this brand messaging.

• Campaign Name: Include a campaign name that clarifies the purpose of the message, so creators know why you’re reaching out. 
• Opportunity Description: Let the creator know what’s in it for them. Provide some background on your brand, what the campaign will offer, and why you’re choosing them over other content creators. 
• Talent Fee: Make sure to explain that the talent fee that’s included in the message (if any) is open for negotiation. If you add the talent fee in the initial pitch, make sure to explain that it is not  final. Some creators might not respond if they think they can’t negotiate. 
• Contact Information: Include all your relevant contact information so creators can contact you and discuss details directly without going through channels.

The information to be provided is fairly standard. TikTok does require advertisers to specify their Industry (as some industries are prohibited from advertising) and select a main goal for working with creators from the following:

• Gain more brand exposure
• Increase traffic to your website
• Increased exposure or followers for TikTok account
• Encourage downloads
• Increase product sales
• Produce ad creative
• All of the above.

Track Your Outreach 

Now comes the waiting game. Fortunately, TikTok lets you measure the success of your outreach while you wait. Update messages will appear under the “My Activity” tab. 

If a creator replies and is interested in the project, you can then click “View Contact Info” to reply and try to close the deal. Creators are normally given 72 hours to respond; if they don’t, you can pitch again or move on to a creator who is more responsive. 

Status functions to keep in mind

• Waiting for reply: Once the campaign passed review, the status will be updated to Waiting for reply. The creator will have 72 hours to reply.
• Connected: The creator has accepted the invitation and you will now need to contact the creator for the next steps.
• Contact Decline: The creator is not interested in the campaign at this time.
• Expired: If the creator does not reply in 72 hours, the campaign will expire.

How to use check campaign analysis – Campaign Reporting tool

The campaign Reporting tool will provide real-time data on all the important metrics from your campaign: views, engagements, audience breakdowns and etc.

Source: Digital Business Lab

You need to check before:

• Ensure that hired creators correctly disclose video sponsorship by toggling “sponsored content” on their video prior to posting and choosing your campaign.
• Add creator costs. After entering creator costs, you can instantly view a report of the campaign’s CPV and CPE to assess overall performance.

Campaign Reporting analytics include data on:

• Views
• Likes and Comments
• Engagement Rate: Allows you to see granular analytics, cumulative, or per day.
• Audience Breakdown (by top markets, gender, age-range, device): Displays the true reach and audience demographic breakdown.

How much does TikTok creator marketplace cost?

At present, TikTok’s Creator Marketplace is free for advertisers to use. TikTok is still in its early stages of testing and sorting different monetization avenues — some of its existing ad offerings do include and package promotions with TikTok creators of varying sizes.

Monetizing an influencer platform can be tricky and pose a number of obstacles to both brands/advertisers and influencers. If TikTok does decide to charge advertisers a fee for using TCM, it may push advertisers away from the platform (towards working with TikTok agencies).

Similarly, if TikTok decides to take a cut of influencer rates/earnings, influencers may opt to bypass TCM in favor of working only with management or agencies.

Final Thoughts

TikTok Creator Marketplace was originally created to connect marketers to creators in a user-friendly way. The process is straightforward, and it offers a ton of features that are normally hard to access. Joining the community gives a ton of opportunities, providing a pool of creators ready to make deals.

What do you think about using TikTok to reach out to relating creators for your brand? As the TikTok platform grows in engagement, we’d love to hear your thoughts. If you would rather create content yourself, however, check out our post on TikTok’s 6 creative tools.